Editor’s note: I managed to get through about half of this game before giving up and watching the remainder as a longplay. The game is simply too darn hard.
Someone at Konami wanted to create a Castlevania game with style. As a result, we have Castlevania: Rondo of Blood. While the team succeeded in the style department, the game’s difficulty is a major drawback. I initially looked into emulating the PC Engine’s CD-ROM functionality, but viable methods were scarce—and none work with RetroArch. Fortunately, Archive.org hosts a PC port of the game (with an apparent German dub). However, without my usual save states and essential rewind feature, the game is nearly impossible to finish. There’s a segment where you must duck under swinging spiked balls while dodging axes thrown by armored enemies; it’s at this exact moment that I gave up. If you enjoy memorizing enemy behavior and sharpening your reflexes, power to you, but most players may find Rondo of Blood as unforgiving as it is stylish.
Where the game truly shines is in its presentation: the set pieces are gorgeous, and both Richter Belmont and the enemies are beautifully animated. The music is above average, and the overall graphics and animation make it feel like a modern game trapped in an NES/Genesis framework that is more frustrating than fair. The developers experimented with cool ideas like “Item Crash,” which lets Richter deliver extra damage by launching a special attack with his sub-weapon at the cost of extra hearts. For example, if Holy Water is your sub-weapon, activating Item Crash causes it to “rain” down on all enemies on screen—an effect that looks really cool! Unfortunately, you cannot swing your whip diagonally upward or straight up—a regression from Castlevania IV. While enemies like the dinosaur skeleton heads are now easier to defeat (a few well-placed whip swings take them down without damage), others—such as the little jumping monkey, Medusa Heads, and the crows—remain more challenging than ever.
The game’s difficulty is further compounded by the fact that a single enemy hit causes a significant reduction in health. You only have so many hits before you die, and there aren’t enough meat items (which restore health) hidden throughout the walls to offset the damage. The game starts you with three lives, and if you lose them all, you must restart the level—even if you were about to face a boss. Ouch.
The good news is that the game has been remade. Titled Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles, it received fairly positive reviews, holding an 80/100 on Metacritic. I’m curious to try that version to see if it’s any easier. We’d be lying if we said that the direct sequel, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, didn’t take style cues from this title (after all, the beginning of SotN is the end of RoB), but where SotN succeeds is in crafting a game that anyone can finish by simply leveling up.
I really expected to be blown away by Rondo of Blood, especially knowing that Koji Igarashi worked on it and that its direct sequel is Symphony of the Night. In some respects, I was indeed impressed—the cutscenes are terrific, the graphics are cool, and the animations are extremely fluid. However, once the novelty wears off, you’ll likely find yourself either banging your head against the TV or throwing your controller in frustration. I vowed to take a break from reviewing Castlevania games after this one, though I remain curious about the PSP remake to see if it’s any less difficult. Ultimately, the game feels like a modern title wrapped in the archaic difficulty of older video games. Castlevania is one of the top three greatest game franchises of all time, but this entry ranks near the bottom. That isn’t to say it’s bad—it may simply be that I’ve been spoiled by having the ability to rewind so much.
3/5
Blimps Go 180 