Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles

I guess you must have seen at least one vampire-movie. For your sake, I hope it was a good one, because a lot of hilarious such movies have been made so far, but let's not get into movies here, because it's not about them. Transylvania, the place were most vampire movies' action is set, can be easily visited, as long as you can afford the trip to Romania. You won't find any real vampires there, anyway, but if your time, money, or both of them won't allow you to get over here, you could easily go an visit an alternative realm involving vampires, namely Castlevania...

Anyway, before moving on to our subject today, that being Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles, we should talk for a little while about the Castlevania series, because there's quite a history behind this name. Are you ready? :)

Developed by Konami, the series debuted way back in September 1986, with the Demon Castle Dracula game for the Famicom Disk System (FDS), quickly followed by a version for the MSX 2 platform. This MSX 2 port was localized in Europe and Brazil as Vampire Killer, and was followed by a a long list of titles, available for most platforms you can think of, from Game Boy Advance and Playstation Portable to Commodore, MS-DOS and, of course, Microsoft Windows.

The stories of the titles in the series are orbiting around the war between the enchanted Belmondo family and Dracula, which is resurrected almost every hundred years, so that the Belmonts could defeat him once again, and Konami sells one more title. Good strategy for everyone, I guess, including the fans of the series....

Leaving history aside, today I have to tell you a few things about the game released last year for the Playstation Portable, Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles.

Known in Japan as Akumajō Dracula X Chronicle, which translates to Demon Castle Dracula X Chronicle, the game is basically a remake of the 1993 game in the series, Demon Castle Dracula X Rondo of Blood (Akumajō Dracula X Chi no Rondo).

Although the new game uses the 3D graphics technology of the moment, it still has the 2D gameplay mechanics of the original, but comes with a few interesting additions, like the two new obstacles - a red skeleton barrier and an ice one, as well as a new boss, the Hydra. Other than that, some puzzles have been altered, while new dialogues scenes can be spotted here and there.

Rated by ESRB as "Teen," Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles is not one of those games for little kids, because some of the themes are clearly disturbing for them, but if you were a kid back in 1993 and would like live again the thrills of the Demon Castle Dracula X Rondo of Blood, this is a must have! Obviously, nobody says you shouldn't grab this title even if you're new to the series, and if you don't believe me, take a look at what Testfreaks have to say about it!

If you liked this post, you might consider subscribing to daily games news and reviews by RSS feed or via email:

Delivered by FeedBurner