Super Castlevania IV is an enhanced recreation of the original Castlevania for the SNES, retelling Simon Belmont's crusade against Dracula with new levels, content, and gameplay elements.
Product Information. You can return to Castlevania to avenge the kidnapping of Annette and rid the world of the evil Dracula in this version of the popular vampire series.
In Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, also known as Akumajou Dracula X: Chi no Rondo in Japan, you play as Richter Belmont, whose beloved Annette has been kidnapped by Dracula. The hero, Richter, is a 19 year-old vampire hunter who must face an increasingly difficult gauntlet of bosses and enemies during his mission. Along the way, using his whip as his main weapon, he may rescue up to four other prisoners, including Annette’s sister Maria, who can be turned into a playable character. This is the 10th game in the Castlevania franchise and was released in Japan by Konami in 1993.
Castlevania: Rondo of Blood is a platform adventure game for the PC Engine Super CD-ROM virtual console. It is set in the fictional universe used throughout the Castlevania chronicles, and follows the protagonist Richter Belmont, who must become a vampire killer in order to save his beloved Annette from the evil clutches of Dracula. The objective of the game is to battle your way through nine stages featuring four alternate routes as you search for Annette and ultimately confront Dracula in his lair. Taking place in 1792, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood is set in a fictional universe that chronicles the eternal conflict between the vampire hunting Belmont clan and their arch enemy, the immortal Dracula. During the game, there are numerous attempts by Dracula’s lieutenant, Death, to stop Richter, but during the game Richter manages to free four maidens who help him in his fight against Dracula. In Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, you play as Richter, and have to fight many bosses located in the castle before you can get to Dracula.
Richter uses a whip as his main weapon, and has six sub-weapons to choose from: a dagger, holy water, an axe, a grimoire, a cross and a pocket watch. While exploring the castle, you encounter many characters, including four maidens, one of whom is Annette’s younger sister Maria Renard. Maria becomes a playable character in Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, and can attack using her doves, as well as six sub-weapons: a dragon whelp, a baby phoenix, a turtle, an egg, a white tiger kitten and musical notes. Maria is very agile and can do double jumps, as well as inflict more damage than Richter, but she also takes a lot more damage than Richter. Castlevania: Rondo of Blood incorporates many elements from previous chronicles of the game, such as featuring linear game play and letting you take your time to explore each stage at leisure. Castlevania: Rondo of Blood makes use of untimed stages with a clear beginning, but features more than one possible ending to some levels. This affects the subsequent stage and environment, as well as the smaller bosses and big boss that is encountered.
Later versions of the game feature many of the same bosses. Items such as food, money and hearts can be found scattered around the game stages, and you have to collect them to keep yourself strong for your ultimate fight against Dracula. Castlevania: Rondo of Blood can be an enjoyable game and can give you hours of entertainment with a battle between good and evil. Amazing game on a equally amazing underrated console. In my opinion this game is a timeless masterpiece.
This game has amazing style, which is lacking in modern day video games sadly, from the amazing graphics for the time to the very cool anime style cut scenes. Now to the music wow the soundtrack for this game is among the best, it's an experience in its self.
The controls are spot on and flawless which work great with the pc engine/ turbo grafx controller. This game has amazing replay value the levels are chalked full of hidden areas which lead to hidden bosses and hidden stages, there are even maidens you can save, all four of them are hidden well and have awesome cut scenes when you rescue them. One of the maidens you rescue becomes your secondary character which even greatens the replay value. I could talk about Dracula x for hours but this is a very basic summary of this amazing classic. This game alone is worth buying a pc engine/ turbo grafx any true gamer must have this game.
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I won't judge, I haven't gotten past the second boss myself.:P Probably a better game, and challenge this month in a more well known and well loved series. I'm gonna go ahead and preface this GotM with a disclaimer: I am an unapologetic Castlevania fanboy. This is by far my favorite series of all time, and I've been waiting some time to highlight this game and others in the series. I don't want to turn this feature into 'Castlevania Game of the Month' so I've only highlighted one other so far, but ideally many games in that series will hit Game of the month at some point. They're exemplary examples of 2D platforming gameplay and excellent game design in my opinion.
This will include some info and reference to other games in the series, because it's difficult to discuss Rondo without placing it in the context of the series and related games that released around the same time and later. On to Rondo of Blood.
Castlevania: Rondo of Blood. Developer(s): Konami. Publisher(s): Konami.
Platform(s): PC-Engine Super CD-Rom System / Turbo Duo (TurboGrafx-16 CD) Castlevania: Symphony of the Night gets a ton of praise as being an extremely polished and revolutionary game, sparking off the Metroidvania concept and essentially steering the series into a new era of gameplay. Note the intro sequence, however. The preliminary chapter (mistakenly translated to 'Bloodlines,' though unrelated to the Sega title) is actually the final battle of this month's GotM. Seems a strange inclusion, until you realize that Castlevania: Rondo of Blood is direct prequel to Symphony of the Night, taking place only a few years prior. If you ever wondered who the hell Maria Renard was or why she was looking for Richter. It's because you hadn't played Rondo. Going back to Rondo and it's launch though, due to its initial lack of localization outside of Japan you hear much less about Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (AKA Akumajō Dracula X: Chi no Rinne / Chi no Rondo).
While in the US we got the likes of Super Castlevania IV and Castlevania Bloodlines (which were great by the way, but sort of. Diversions from the typical Castlevania gameplay), this gem was sadly overlooked for years until finally receiving a terrible 2.5D remake on the PSP - though at least the original game and SotN were included as bonus content. Technically speaking the US did get a mediocre port/demake of Rondo, Dracula X, but that game wasn't very good and please don't confuse it with this one. The original PC-Engine Castlevania: Rondo of Blood is a masterpiece on so many levels. The game is a technical marvel.
We're talking a game on an 8-bit system (well, 8-bit CPU, 16-bit GPU. It's complicated), with animated cutscenes with voice acting and redbook audio. It's incredible. This system was technologically ahead of its time, and it's a shame it never really took off in the US. Rondo is one of its shining jewels, with stunning graphics, audio, amazing art direction, and just an incredibly polished presentation. I mean, the sprite work on this game was so well done that many of the enemy sprites were reused for Symphony of the Night. On the gameplay side, Rondo of Blood is no slouch either.
The game plays out like any standard 'Classic-vania' Castlevania title, with level based jumping, platforming, and whipping action, though it does through in some new twists. While Rondo eschews the 8-directional whip option from Super Castlevania IV, you get many sub-weapons that are actually more useful than in past games (even the knife is solid), and this game is the first to introduce the Item Crash, a generally screen clearing super move that uses more hearts than normal for your subweapon. Even if you don't have a subweapon, it launchs a flame whip that covers a good chunk of the screen and does good damage by itself. On the mobility side of things, Richter is agile, reasonably fast moving, and has a backflip option to quickly escape from harm.
I suppose this could be seen as a precursor to the backdash move we see in more modern 'Metroid-vania' titles. On top of this, the game gives you Maria, an optional second character you can play as if you rescue her in an early stage of the game. Spoiler alert: she's a badass glass cannon. Also, Rondo has taken a cue from its predecessor, Castlevania 3, with regard to branching alternate paths (and even alternate bosses), including some secret paths only accessible while playing as Maria due to her additional mobility via double jumping. In terms of story, it's the usual fare.
Dark wizard or something Shaft (can you dig it?) has re-re-re-resummoned Dracula once again via some dark ritual sacrifice. You, Richter Belmont of the legendary vampire hunting clan Belmont are tasked with stopping the bastard. It's personal this time as your girlfriend Annette and her younger sister (the aforementioned Maria), as well as a few other village girls have been kidnapped by the dark forces of evil and it's up to you to save them from a fate worse than death. Surprisingly, it's optional.
Only the stopping Dracula part is absolutely required. Honestly, I love this game so much that it's hard for me to judge it objectively, but I feel it's one of the greats of the 16-bit era (despite technically being 8-bit). It's totally worth a play. I could ramble all day, and just gush about this game and the series as a whole, but rather than do that I'll just link some additional videos below for your viewing pleasure. There are plenty of folks who've gone to describe this game and its goodness much better than I can. Game of the Month Challenge! This month's challenge: Beat the game with Maria.