A portable journey of darkness. If you've recently found yourself stalking through the night, shrouded in the darkest of cloaks, and lusting for the intoxicating taste of blood, you're probably a vampire. Fortunately for you, vampires can still play Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles, if you don't mind slaying your own kind in digital form. Does this have anything to do with the game? No, but we thought it would make for an amusing introduction. Let's move on.

Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles is a compilation of sorts, featuring a
completely remastered version of a previously unreleased Castlevania game:
Rondo of Blood. It also includes the original Rondo of Blood, as well as (here
it comes) the original Symphony of the Night, an incredible fan-favorite. For
those of you who are unfamiliar with the Castlevania series, you're dealing
with a side-scrolling action platformer that pits you against a host of
demons, ghouls and vampires in an attempt to slay Dracula and his dark
minions. Anyone uncomfortable with extremely intense, old-school platforming
may want to look elsewhere for their gothic fix - the remastered Rondo of
Blood is really hard, and often times it's just downright frustrating.
Casual gamers beware: it'll suck your blood.

The majority of this game is all about the remastered Rondo of Blood. The
other two games are treated more as extras, even though Symphony of the Night
is an entire package in itself (we'll get back to this later). So for now,
let's focus on the new item in this package, and what it brings to the table.
Rondo of Blood follows Richter Belmont, direct descendent of Simon Belmont, as
he charges bravely into the thick of night to kill the legendary Dracula and
save his beloved Annette, who has been abducted by sinister forces.

To start, the game looks pretty good. Although the entire title revolves
around 2D side-scrolling, the backgrounds and character models are actually in
3D, which gives Rondo of Blood an interesting aesthetic appeal. Just think of
a much darker New Super Mario Bros., and you'll have a good idea as to how
this game is presented. And while there are very few cutscenes to speak of, we
were pleased with what was there, as simple as it was. Most of the dialogue is
fully voiced (some of the talent is questionable though), and the musical
score is fantastic. At a glance, Rondo of Blood is a well-done remake.

The game itself takes place over nine stages, though one of them is a
thirty-second prologue, so that doesn't really count. You make your way
through each stage and usually face a boss at the end, but you only have a set
number of lives for each stage attempt, and if you lose them all, you have to
start all the way at the beginning (as opposed to starting at a checkpoint
mid-stage). This system is one of our biggest complaints about the game, but
we'll address that soon.


One of the cool things about Rondo of Blood is the branching level design.
Stages two through five have varying paths through each stage, which can lead
you to different boss fights and, actually, different stages entirely. There
are alternate versions of each of these stages that you can find, if you look
hard enough. Although you end up in the same place regardless of which route
you take, it's nice to have virtually four extra stages to explore and fight
through.

Fighting can be done in one of two ways: you can use your whip or you can use
a side-weapon. That's all. Although you have six of those side-weapons to
choose from, including throwing knives, axes, crosses and holy water, this is
a very straight-forward, old-school game. This factor will definitely turn off
a lot of people, because they may be accustomed to more refined and complex
gameplay mechanics, like those that Symphony of the Night possesses. But Rondo
of Blood is all about trucking through the stages and using your very few
weapons as effectively as possible. Players who want more than that may be
disappointed.

You can also tackle the game with another character, Maria Renard. Maria is a
young girl that Richter frees towards the beginning of the game (she's very
well hidden), but after you meet her you can select her at any time from the
stage select menu. Maria uses, surprisingly, a bunch of animals as weapons,
including her main attack which is releasing small doves at the enemy
(wicked!). It may sound a little odd, and while she's certainly a vivid
contrast to the game's otherwise dark elements, she's a great deal of fun to
use and helps mix things up a bit.

Rondo of Blood is a lot of fun, it's challenging, and it harkens back to
the mentality that drove games many years ago. Unfortunately, this PSP
collection has some issues that we should address. Although the remastered
title offers a Japanese language track, not all of the scenes are subtitled,
which means you're out of luck if you don't know Japanese. This was a real
disappointment for us; even though most of the scenes without subtitles are
brief and inconsequential to the story, it still felt like we were missing
out.

The biggest problem with this Castlevania title is its difficulty. Challenge
is, as we have stated many times before, not a bad thing. But when Rondo of
Blood preserved its fundamental, old-school mechanics, it also preserved the
problems that were present in many older platformers. For one thing, jumping
can be a huge problem. Some of the jumps, even when timed precisely, can still
plunge you to your death and force you to start over, washing away the
previous fifteen minutes of gameplay. It may not seem too frustrating right
now, but we can assure you that it feels intensely unforgiving during play.
Furthermore, stair control can be a serious issue as well. If you jump when on
a stairwell, you have to continue to hold up on the directional pad when you
land, or else you'll fall through the stairs, which often results (once again)
in death. Oh dear.

Another concern is the spacing of the checkpoints, which feels very uneven.
You could clear massive amounts of space and even pass into different sections
of the stage, but sometimes death will set you back all the way to the
beginning, even though it may seem like a later checkpoint would have been
more natural. Again, this frustration was significant, but didn't ruin our
experience. For hardcore fans of older titles, it'll be less of an
issue, but appreciation for classic games doesn't necessarily negate
mechanical hitches.

Our final complaint is that the remade Rondo of Blood is the only available
game when you start; Symphony of the Night must be unlocked, and unlocking it
is a very strange ordeal. As opposed to being a reward for beating the game,
you actually need to find a very obscure item in one particular stage to play
Alucard's adventure. While this isn't that much of a concern, it just
seems strange that a major (it not incredible) part of this collection isn't
available from the start. But once you do have it, the game runs beautifully
and is mostly free of technical issues or glitches. Keep in mind though that
the screen will be cropped, but that's to be expected.

Closing Comments

If you're a Castlevania fan and you think that the somewhat short Rondo of
Blood is enough to satisfy you (assuming you've already played Symphony of the
Night), you may as well pick this one up. Besides the difficulty and somewhat
finicky jumping mechanics, it’s an impressive game with a lot going for it.
And if you're new to the series, this compilation may be even more worth your
attention because of its strong components. Just remember the nature of the
challenge, because things can get real tricky, real fast.

We were pleased with Dracula X Chronicles and it'll make a solid addition
to a hardcore gamer's library. If you have two copies of the game, you can
even face Rondo of Blood's boss fights cooperatively with a friend over ad
hoc, which definitely adds some spice to this deal (don't worry, it runs
smoothly). If this sounds like your cup of blood, head on over to a vampiric
retailer and pick up a copy. Actually, any retailer will do.