

The Clock Tower level is always the best. You can explore at your leisure, like Symphony of the Night. And, all the while, there's no clock counting down, forcing you to be on the move. You'll often come across the opportunity to choose which path you take to progress, and the choices you make can take you to entirely different areas of the castle - facing a totally different set of environments, enemies and boss battles on your way to the ultimate showdown with the Count. In Rondo, you play the role of a whip-cracking Belmont hunting Dracula through non-straightforward, untimed stages that have a defined beginning, but frequently more than one end. Rondo of Blood is the missing link between those two eras, because its design bridges the gap by containing elements of both. When I returned to the castle later in the '90s, everything was different - the environment was open and interconnected, you weren't playing a Belmont any more and there was definitely no clock demanding you had to be anywhere at any specific time. When I left Castlevania in the early '90s, it was still a linear adventure - a whip-cracking Belmont hunting Dracula through straightforward, timed stages that had a defined beginning and end. Because hey, Nintendo loyalist or not, everybody picked up a PlayStation controller for that one.Ĭastlevania: Rondo of Blood is like the missing link between those two eras of the brand. After that first super sequel, though, I lost track of the franchise - it deviated a bit to the handhelds and the Genesis for a few years - and then I finally jumped back on board for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
#Rondo of blood pc engine vs turbografx series
If you have any retro-themed projects or scoops you’d like to send my way, please contact me.Like many young Nintendo loyalists in the late '80s and early '90s, I followed the Castlevania series through its first four installments on the NES and SNES - playing through and loving every minute of the original, Simon's Quest, Dracula's Curse and Super Castlevania IV. The RetroBeat is a weekly column that looks at gaming’s past, diving into classics, new retro titles, or looking at how old favorites - and their design techniques - inspire today’s market and experiences. Maybe Konami will port it over in the future, but you’d think publishers would realize by now that these projects would benefit by launching on Switch. The console’s portability makes it the ideal place for retro games. I just wish the collection was coming out for Switch. And it will introduce Rondo of Blood to a lot more people. This will be an easy way to access one of the best Castlevania games. That’s why I’m excited about this new collection for PlayStation 4. Even if you do still have a Wii, the Wii Shop Channel is closing on January 30, so you won’t be able to buy that Virtual Console version of Rondo of Blood anymore.
#Rondo of blood pc engine vs turbografx psp
These days, few people have a PSP or Wii handy. Wii owners would also get to play Rondo of Blood in 2008, when Nintendo added it to the Virtual Console service. So if you aren’t feeling that 2.5D aesthetic, you can just play the original. It doesn’t look as sharp or charming as the original, but Dracula X Chronicles also comes with a port of the PC Engine CD version. This remake replaces the original’s sprites with 3D polygons. Our first real chance to play Rondo of Blood came when Konami remade it once again, this time more faithfully, with Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles for PSP in 2007.


in 1995, late into the SNES’s life, making it a rare and expensive cartridge to track down now. Really, it’s a different game than Rondo of Blood, and it’s not a better one. This version has a similar plot and used many of the same art assets as Rondo of Blood, but it has redesigned levels and plays differently. Instead, Konami remade Rondo of Blood for the Super Nintendo as Castlevania: Dracula X. Konami did not bother bringing Rondo of Blood to the TurboGrafx-CD. equivalent, the TurboGrafx-CD, but it struggled to compete against the Genesis and Super Nintendo, even with its superior hardware. And even then, it released on the relatively obscure PC Engine CD console. So why have you probably never played it? It’s because Rondo of Blood only came out in Japan.
