So maybe a lot of you are wondering what this game actually is, because lets face it. The title is as vague and nonsensical as they come, and it really doesn’t give anything away other than that Dracula presumably appears somewhere. Well let me clarify that for you – the full title of this game is actually Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles. Yes, it’s another in the series of strangely named Castelvania games – with titles like Lament of Innocence, Harmony of Dissonance and Portrait of Ruin, you really have to wonder if they are just taking random words and sticking them together. Dracula X Chronicles goes along with this trend by giving away as little of the game as physically possible yet still somehow sounding interesting.
However, Dracula X Chronicles is actually different from the other games in that it is actually a remake instead of a brand new game. Quite a while back a Castlevania game was released in Japan that, despite being advertised in America and Europe, never actually got officially released outside its place of birth. This game was originally called Castlevania Dracula X: Rondo of Blood, which I certainly think fits the criteria of strange words smacked together. While I must admit I’m not a big fan of old games being remade – it does seem a lot of the time like a cheap cash-in – this time it did seem a little justified.
So, without further ado, let’s jump right into this game. It’s actually called Chronicles because it has a collection of several games from the same timeline, most unlockable for play later. I will only be reviewing the actual Rondo of Blood remake however, as that’s the main game.
Plot 3/5
Dracula X Chronicles uses that Castlevania plot. You know the one I mean. The one that’s recycled constantly – Dracula is revived and a descendant of the Belmont bloodline decides to go and evict him from the local doom castle again. Now, this actually makes me think…
The other day, I visited the Imperial War Museum in London as part of my course at College to view the holocaust exhibit. It was fascinating I must admit to see just how far the Nazi’s would go to eradicate their foes, and how their opponents would go to save themselves. Despite these extreme measures, I found myself oddly unaffected. I wasn’t horrified and forced to shield my eyes from the extreme horror reproduced in front of me, in fact, I faced it with more mild intrigue than anything else. I discussed this with a colleague with a similar experience, and we deduced it was likely down to desensitisation – as we are exposed to knowledge and research based on the holocaust so frequently, we tend to shut it out. Kind of like “The Boy who Cried Wolf” I suppose.
This may seem a bit random, but consider… the amount of times Dracula has been reborn and stopped by a Belmont must be getting pretty old by the end of the series – Castlevania is one of the few series’ that can actually rival Final Fantasy on the sequels front. You’ve got to wonder if the world by this point has become desensitised to Dracula himself – if when the Demon Castle reappears once again; the populace of the planet just shrug and continue with their daily routine. If the victory party held in Belmont’s honour after Dracula is defeated once more slowly loses guests everytime it’s held until only a few of their friends, family and the local town drunk turn up to raise a glass to the latest heroic efforts. It is starting to become apparent that maybe, Dracula isn’t as much of a threat as was originally claimed.
Still I can’t criticise Dracula X Chronicles too much for this as it’s a remake – fortunately Dracula hasn’t made another ill advised attempt to take over humanity and instead we just get to see him get the stuffing knocked out of him in higher quality. This is all looking into it a bit too deeply of course, but that’s the result after playing Dracula X – it’s so clichéd you cant help but start to go off in your own tangent. Or at least, that’s what I thought.
Wow, Dracula corrupted Richters girlfriend in more ways than one.
When I first started playing, I was generally unimpressed by the lack of plot – excluding the agonisingly predictable. Within moments of you starting the game, the dark priest serving the antagonist kidnaps the protagonist’s girlfriend, and carts her off to their castle. What is this, Disney? I was ready to rate the game a 2/5 for being so average I couldn’t even rate it with 3 until a bit of a surprise hit me. After massacring my way past a legion of undead, demons and the like, I finally found the girl I was trying to save – Annette. Oh, I thought, now she cries about being taken captive, I fight off Dracula and we go home to add plenty more offspring to the Belmont fold. While thinking this, Annette cackled insanely, transformed into a succubus / demon hybrid and proceeded to tear my face off. Wow, that I did not see coming at all – and that I like, and I like a lot. That’s how Disney should start ending its movies if it wants to surprise anyone – Cinderella should get beaten to death by her abusive stepmother after she goes one step too far and Prince Charming is left mourning for the rest of his days, unable to move on.
Well maybe that is a little dark but nonetheless – this is certainly a plot twist I didn’t see coming, and plot twists I like. It’s good to see that they started to move away from the predictable Castlevania plot and included a few things we didn’t expect. Admittedly, you can save her by doing a crapload of secret stuff but let’s face it – people who only just picked up the game won’t do this the first time for certain.
Well done for impressing me Castlevania, there’s life in you yet. I do love the series, but their plot had started to get a bit stale – with the upcoming complete makeover of the series though, this issue will soon be going away. 3/5, and a side order of hope.
Characters 3/5
Richter is easily my favourite Belmont - maybe because hes one of the few with a personality?
This was an odd one. I really wanted to give the game a 4/5, as the characters tend to be those I have always liked in the series. The first one of course being the main character – my favourite Belmont of all the happy family, Richter. This is mainly due to his appearance in Symphony of the Night which I must admit I adore. So, with high expectations I delved right in and… hmm. He was alright, though his voice actor sounded so American it was frankly a little odd. Not quite what I was hoping for. However, his outfit and overall style was something I still quite liked, and I never seemed to grow tired of using item crash for the sole purpose of hearing him yell “HYDRO STORM!”
Next up, as the other ‘main character’ we have Dracula himself – who was astonishing in that I recognised his voice instantly. He has the same voice actor as two characters that are personal favourites of mine and perhaps would be recognised by at least some of you: the first ones that came to mind were actually quite well known. For example, Prince Arthas Menethil in Warcraft 3 had the same voice actor, and used the same after joining the ranks of the undead. He also shares the same voice as Luke Valentine from one of my personal favourites: Hellsing. This actually leads me to another point on the recycle scale – is it just me, or do the Japanese love the name Valentine? It’s everywhere. We have Luke Valentine, Faye Valentine, Vincent Valentine, Mai Valentine… the list goes on.
Anyway, Dracula is, the same as Richter, a bit of a disappointment. I mean no disrespect to the voice actor that I can’t recall the name of – he is fantastic and I like pretty much all of his appearances that I have seen – but this one just doesn’t seem to hit the nail on the head for me. He’s just a bit too arrogant and confident, and while it’s true that Dracula exhumes these traits more often than a war exhumes corpses, it just doesn’t seem to fit right. I think it’s the tone of voice actually; something about it just isn’t quite regal enough. Sure, he does sound like a badass evil bastard, but he doesn’t have the kind of voice that I’d associate with a Lord pretty high up as far as social class and hierarchy goes. It’d be like if Rude was the president of Shinra – something just wouldn’t be right.
Next of course is everyone’s favourite dark priest. He’s one bad motherf….. huh? Shut my mouth? I’m just talking ‘bout the Shaft. Yes, Shaft, the other character that makes an appearance in Symphony of the Night. Once again, I was excited to hear his voice and model updated – yet once again was slightly disappointed. As before, he isn’t bad as such but he just isn’t quite what I was hoping for. I don’t know what it is with people sounding American in this game, but it seems to me that this game tries to persuade us Transylvania isn’t in Romania at all. Still, he looks cool, especially on the opening cinematic. Can’t complain too much.
However, there is one glaring reason why I felt like I couldn’t possible rate it 4/5 as I originally hoped – and this reason is a little girl called Maria. Remember in the last post I made, I expressed my hatred for the ridiculously young girl with a save the world attitude who gives the badass heroes a run for their money. Sadly, Dracula X Chronicles falls right into this trap by having Maria – an interesting if poorly voice acted character in Symphony of the Night, but in this game she seems to be around 8 years old. It’s a little bit depressing, and very difficult to take the game seriously, when you see such a tiny girl beat Dracula so hard he won’t be able to sit down for weeks.
Still the character cast overall is pleasing, even if the voice actors aren’t quite what I wanted. 3/5, just because Maria pisses me off.
Gameplay 4/5
The gameplay to Dracula X Chronicles is just what we’ve come to expect from the old classic Castlevania games to be honest – hero has whip, you press a button to whip things. Sometimes you want to use a secondary weapon – you can press buttons for that too. Very simple, very average, but importantly – it works just fine. I must admit though, that some weapons tend to be a lot more useful than others. Despite numerous times where I could choose otherwise, I found myself using the Holy Cross or Holy Water far more than anything else – in fact I’d only use anything else if I had no choice. While I am glad that weapons other than the whip actually have a function, it does seem a little odd that some secondary weapons – like the bible – barely have a function at all. Oh well.
Despite being so incredibly simple (whip anything that moves, and most things that don’t), the gameplay is surprisingly addictive and fun.By the end of the game you will have spammed the whip button hundreds of times, yet somehow you aren’t bored of it yet. Still, one of the functions that Richter appears to have gained that his predecessors hadn’t quite mastered is an ability called “Item Crashing”. Now I must admit I never really have understood the significance of this name – but when you try it out, you really don’t care anymore. While costing a significant amount of hearts to cast, these abilities tend to be devastating to Dracula’s ill-fated forces. For example, instead of throwing a single dagger forward, you can throw a hundred in a matter of seconds – Richter unleashes a deadly barrage that even the toughest foe will be hard pressed to live through. You can also make it rain holy water, meaning you don’t even have to aim where to fire, everything around you just dies. It’s quite fun to do, though is suitably expensive so as to not make it overpowered.
And that’s one thing I really want to expand on here. When considering whether to buy this game, I skimmed through several reviews on Amazon and the like which all seemed to repeat the same two phrases. “I bought this game specifically for Symphony of the Night” and “Be warned, this game is unforgivably hard.” As a big fan of Symphony of the Night the fact that this was included was a big plus for me. I’m also a firm believer that games have gotten far easier over time, so having a hard game would be a refreshing change. I was however, severely disappointed and slightly confused by the result.
The game is, well, easy.
This puzzled me quite a bit actually, how so many people could complain about its difficulty but in reality is doesn’t appear hard at all. I actually concluded from this that the fact people were buying it simply for Symphony of the Night and claiming it was hard was no coincidence. Don’t get me wrong, Symphony is one of my favourite games of all time, but I don’t think anyone on this planet can truly claim that it’s difficult. Of course, what they got was a Castlevania game far more in line with the first games in the series – a much more linear sidescroller with no RPG content at all. You can’t gain levels or farm rare items to overcome the tougher bosses; you just have to do it with pure skill. So if you are considering playing this game, remember that if you have really just played the Symphony of the Night games then this will be very difficult for you. If you are a veteran of the several games beforehand, well this pales in comparison to their difficulty. Seriously anyone claiming this is mind-blowingly difficult should play the original Castlevania, now that game is unforgiving.
Maria, throwing her birds. Wait, what?
Still, one thing I both liked and disliked about the game at the same time is the extra character. Indeed, you don’t have to play as Richter, if you save Maria (the little girl mentioned earlier), you can in fact play as her. Now, I’m all up for a second character with a different playstyle but Christ- anyone but her. To make it even more humiliating, Maria actually tends to be far stronger than Richter against the majority of bosses – when Dracula gets the stuffing kicked out of him by a girl who hasn’t even heard of puberty yet, well, lets just say my desensitisation theory only seems more likely. The reason for this is because Maria attacks by throwing birds, which return to her after flying a short distance forward – however, they pause for a moment at their maximum distance. This often leaves them flying inside the enemies, hitting them three or four times per attack – making her damage output far higher than Richter. To make it even worse, you can have two of these birds out at the same time. If you truly are finding the game hard, just bite your pride and play as her – it’ll go much more smoothly, trust me.
The biggest disappointment in the game actually the final boss – the mighty Dracula. Or not so mighty. The remake of this boss fight is actually drawn from the game Chi No Rondo instead of Dracula X on the SNES – let’s face it, from the title of the game it’s actually quite difficult to tell which one it was trying to remake. In Dracula X for the SNES however, Dracula was incredibly hard as you fight him on a series of small platforms. This means a single hit can send you off the edge to your death. In Chi No Rondo though, the final boss fight is almost identical to the practise boss of Dracula in Symphony of the Night. Now, I’ve replayed Symphony so many times it’s a little bit silly, so when I finally came against the big man himself I annihilated him first try without taking a single hit. Yeah, such a hard game.
Still I’m not trying to say a game needs to be hard in order to be good, in fact the 4/5 shows that I actually had a lot of fun. It just needed to be a bit more difficult on some of the bosses meant to inspire some dread – Dracula and Death specifically. Oh, and to have a character more realistic than Maria. I guess we are meant to feel sympathetic towards her when she explains her parents were killed but, afraid not. She’s just too annoying.
As a final point, I should probably mention the nifty little ‘Boss Rush’ mode included in Dracula X Chronicles. This is a bonus mode that lets you fight a series of bosses in a row with whatever secondary weapon you choose, to get as far as you can as fast as you can. It’s pretty nifty and fun, especially once you get tired of jumping on platforms over water, dodging medusa heads and smashing candles. Maria is godly in that mode, though.
Anyway, a high mark.
Graphics 4/5
I must admit that Dracula X Chronicles looks pretty all the way through it. The 3D style is pulled off very well, and I was extremely pleased to see Konami didn’t attempt what they have been doing lately, and turn the characters into cute anime mascots. I don’t think I could bear to see Richter that way. Instead all the characters look just as they should, and while it is hampered somewhat by the PSP’s graphics capabilities, I honestly can say it looks a lot nicer and more like Castlevania than all of the strange DS games out at the moment. Maybe it’s just my personal preference, but they seem to take themselves a little less seriously.
A sex machine to all the chicks? Shaft certainly is, I'm sure.
Speaking of the hampered graphics engine though, I must admit that the introduction cinematic looks fantastic – a shame nothing of massive excitement occurs in it, but it definitely looks great. I’m not entirely sure what language is being spoken there, I’d guess at German but could be wrong, but it’s a very nice touch. Somehow makes it feel more authentic. Of course it’s always nice to see Shaft fully rendered too, though one does have to question why he would want to resurrect Dracula. Oh well, I guess no-one really does understand him but his woman.
But as for the actual game, it looks good. I was pleased to see that most of the backgrounds are also properly rendered, instead of the developers taking the cheap way out and using a skybox or static image – as is the case with many 2D games. Not really a lot else to say, the explosions look right, the fire is convincing, etc etc. I couldn’t possibly give Dracula X Chronicles a full five though because of its nature – being a 2D it would be a lot easier to pull off than many three dimensional ones. Still good though.
Soundtrack 5/5
The soundtrack to Dracula X Chronicles is just amazing. Some of the songs you hear during play are very nostalgic to old players, and others are completely new yet still fit very well for the overall style. Some of my personal favourites that are always a smile to hear have been remade too, such as Vampire Killer – part of the soundtrack that has been in the game since game one. This one is probably my favourite version so far, which was definitely nice to hear.
The main reason I gave Dracula X Chronicles full marks here though is because it is actually customisable. In secret places all throughout Dracula’s castle, you can find bonus CD’s that contain music from other Castlevania games – mainly Symphony of the Night which also had some great tracks. You can then go into ‘Sound Assign’ mode and actually change the backing music to any level you like! This includes boss music too – meaning if you don’t like the music to any one level, you just switch it with one you do like. If you find them all, you end up with so many tracks to choose from that if you claimed to dislike them all, you’d surely be lying.
Great work Castlevania, have a helping of a perfect score.
Conclusion 19/25
While Dracula X Chronicles wasn’t quite the game I expected difficulty wise, it certainly wasn’t a bad game. I must admit though, that I didn’t like the new voice acting. This carries over into the Symphony of the Night contained in part of this game too – perhaps I’m just being overly nostalgic but somehow I preferred the older, incredibly cheesy dialogue.
Despite so many people clamouring after it because it contains Symphony of the Night, Dracula X Chronicles certainly can stand on its own two feet as a game of its own right if you ask me. It could be a little longer, true, but as a remake of an older game it can’t really help that.
After his appearance in the terrible game we call Castlevania Judgement, I kind of hope they just leave him alone.
One thing that does amuse me slightly though, is the people who buy the game specifically for Symphony of the Night and complain that they would have preferred it for Symphony to be remade instead of Rondo of Blood. ‘Why would they remake a game no-one has ever heard of, and not the one that’s often called the best game in the entire series?’ The answer is actually quite simple. Firstly, they avoid remaking it because if they screw it up, they certainly wouldn’t be popular. Secondly, they don’t need to remake it. Consider for a moment how long Symphony of the Night is, and realise that I completed Dracula X Chronicles in around two hours (with the bad ending anyway). Which one would take a lot more effort to remake? Which one would cost more money? It’s simple really, they remade Rondo of Blood because it was cheaper, and an excuse to tack on an unchanged Symphony of the Night. Then we all bought it anyway. The point is, they didn’t need to remake it for us to buy it.
So everyone who bought this game for Symphony of the Night, myself included (it was one of the driving forces behind my purchase) has actually been scammed. By Konami of all people, the driving force behind Yu-Gi-Oh.
I guess you could say we triggered their trap card.
Oh well, it’s still a good game, and worth playing. I may have been scammed to hand over cash, but I enjoyed it enough to have a laugh and forget about it, surely that’s a good sign!
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