Castlevania- Dracula's Curse for SNES. Any good?

[stargate]

How does it compare to Castlevania IV on the SNES?

[Ed Oscuro]

How does it compare to Castlevania IV on the SNES?

Dracula's Curse is on the NES only (it's CV3). Do you mean Dracula X for the SNES?

[Starcade]

Speaking of Dracula X for SNES, I had the chance to pick it up today, but Gamestop wanted $30.00 for it, It is very hard for me to plunk 30$ down for a loose game, I just dont feel right about it.I haven't played it though, maybe I am missing out on a good game.

[kainemaxwell]

Dracula X isn't worth shelling $30 out for.

[Needle]

Dracula X is a painful game. A lot of the enemies are just plain frustrating. A lot of the enemy designs give some insight as to what was coming (SOTN) but other than that... it's not worth $30. Castlevania 4 is a better game, in my opinion.

Dracula X may have been a platform conversion of Rondo of Blood, but it's not a very good one.

And the only Castlevania game with the subtitle "Dracula's Curse" is Castlevania 3 for the original NES. It's so good, I wrote a FAQ (http://www.needle.org/FAQ/castlevania_iii_b.txt) for it.

[stargate]

yeah, I meant Dracula X

[maxlords]

Drac X is a HORRIBLE conversion of an INCREDIBLE game (Dracula X: ROndo of hte Blood for PC Engine Duo). I highly recommend avoiding the SNES version myself.

[Ed Oscuro]

Well, I hate the title screen for Dracula X SNES as well as its silly boomerang, so pretend I'm talking about Dracula XX instead.

Bah, you people just don't know how to have fun with it. I've got a zsnes movie of myself flipping backwards the whole way across the falling bridge sections, and doing crazy things with the whip (I kill the first few jumping mermen while facing away from them, etc) - fun :D

So Dracula XX has value if you want to impress your friends with your skills.

But yes, the game isn't what it should be. The first level's Mode 7 effects should've been the first of many throughout the game...but the game manages to be less impressive overall than Dracula X PCE (PC-Engine) - especially if you consider the neat graphical effects, mostly pixel based dissolves.

One of my bigger problems with it is that you can use the very first set of platforms in the very beginning of the game to try out a large number of movement glitches. They're actually found in Dracula X PCE as well, but the level design is often clever enough that they aren't obvious (there's just one place that you have to utilize the backflip to get somewhere higher up in Dracula X and where you can see another glitch...)

I know a good deal more about the game, but that's about enough for now. Phew.

[Kid Fenris]

Drac X is a HORRIBLE conversion of an INCREDIBLE game (Dracula X: ROndo of hte Blood for PC Engine Duo). I highly recommend avoiding the SNES version myself.

Wait a sec. I always thought that Dracula X for the SNES was the sequel to Dracula X: The Rondo of Blood, and not a conversion of it. Am I right or wrong?

[maxlords]

Drac X is a HORRIBLE conversion of an INCREDIBLE game (Dracula X: ROndo of hte Blood for PC Engine Duo). I highly recommend avoiding the SNES version myself.

Wait a sec. I always thought that Dracula X for the SNES was the sequel to Dracula X: The Rondo of Blood, and not a conversion of it. Am I right or wrong?

You're wrong. It's a bad port of it. Same levels in many places, same bosses.....everything. Just a BAD port. They took out tons of stuff cause of the limited capacity of the carts.

[Ed Oscuro]

You're wrong. It's a bad port of it. Same levels in many places, same bosses.....everything. Just a BAD port. They took out tons of stuff cause of the limited capacity of the carts.

What? The levels are completely different; the first boss from Dracula XX/Dracula X SNES isn't found in Rondo for instance; lots of Rondo bosses aren't found in Dracula XX (i.e. Wyvern, Minotaur, Shaft!!!) and even Dracula changes: as seen on the Japanese cover artwork (where Richter and Dracula swap hair color, so Richter's blond!) Dracula has dark hair as in the game. His second form is different too; it's not too bad looking, but smaller.

The level designs are directly influenced/taken from Bloodlines in a few places (if you've got a sharp eye for these things you'll notice,) notably the hidden level, 5' -- not a bad level at all. It takes some of the cool ideas from the Atlantis Shrine level of Bloodlines and takes them one step further.

[jaydubnb]

You're wrong. It's a bad port of it. Same levels in many places, same bosses.....everything. Just a BAD port. They took out tons of stuff cause of the limited capacity of the carts.

What? The levels are completely different; the first boss from Dracula XX/Dracula X SNES isn't found in Rondo for instance; lots of Rondo bosses aren't found in Dracula XX (i.e. Wyvern, Minotaur, Shaft!!!) and even Dracula changes: as seen on the Japanese cover artwork (where Richter and Dracula swap hair color, so Richter's blond!) Dracula has dark hair as in the game. His second form is different too; it's not too bad looking, but smaller.

The level designs are directly influenced/taken from Bloodlines in a few places (if you've got a sharp eye for these things you'll notice,) notably the hidden level, 5' -- not a bad level at all. It takes some of the cool ideas from the Atlantis Shrine level of Bloodlines and takes them one step further.

Even with the differing levels and all (i havent played it in AGES), is it a significant overhaul to classify it as non port? ie, more of a "revised port"?
And if its not a port, but a sequel, where does it fit into the CV timeline...if at all?

[Kid Fenris]

You're wrong. It's a bad port of it. Same levels in many places, same bosses.....everything. Just a BAD port. They took out tons of stuff cause of the limited capacity of the carts.

What? The levels are completely different; the first boss from Dracula XX/Dracula X SNES isn't found in Rondo for instance; lots of Rondo bosses aren't found in Dracula XX (i.e. Wyvern, Minotaur, Shaft!!!) and even Dracula changes: as seen on the Japanese cover artwork (where Richter and Dracula swap hair color, so Richter's blond!) Dracula has dark hair as in the game. His second form is different too; it's not too bad looking, but smaller.

The level designs are directly influenced/taken from Bloodlines in a few places (if you've got a sharp eye for these things you'll notice,) notably the hidden level, 5' -- not a bad level at all. It takes some of the cool ideas from the Atlantis Shrine level of Bloodlines and takes them one step further.

If Symphony of the Night is the direct sequel to Rondo of Blood, where does this fit? Is Dracula X an unofficial part of the timeline?

This comes from the Castlevania Dungeon . . .

http://www.classicgaming.com/castlevania/cvdx.htm

"Rather than a direct port, Castlevania: Dracula X is meant to be more of a sequel to the original game (it's called Dracula XX in Japan). While the character graphics and controls are the same, the levels are completely different, and almost everything that made the original so appetizing is gone."

If Dracula XX is indeed the sequel to Dracula X: The Rondo of Blood (God, I love that title), then it would have to take place at some point during the four years that pass between Rondo and Symphony.

And this is kind of a minor point, but wasn't Maria older in Dracula XX (SNES) than she was in Dracula X (TurboDuo)?

[Ed Oscuro]

While I consider Kurt a friend, he's not really the person to be talking about Dracula XX. The character graphics for Richter are indeed the same, but that's where the similarities end. Maria's sprite has changed (she's not a playable character, but her ingame sprite mirrors her appearance in those awful cutscenes).

Timeline-wise, the characters would seem to be older. There's a problem, which is that this game would take place about the same time Dracula X: NiitM (known here as Symphony of the Night) does.

The reason for this is that Konami originally was working on a Dracula X game for the Sega 32x, which was supposed to fix the problems in DXX. Instead, this project eventually deve;loped into Symphony of the Night.

It's said that Alucard originally had black hair, by the way.

[Dire 51]

Castlevania Dracula X is not a port of Chi no Rondo. There's no way it could be. Aside from one or two things, barely any of CnR surfaces in CDX. If Konami had wanted to port CnR to the SNES, they could have - sure, they would have had to lose quite a bit from the original, but I'm willing to bet that most of the game would have stayed intact. Just about everything in CDX is different from CnR.

I think the whole myth of it being a port of CnR dats back to Konami's original press releases and Nintendo's coverage of the game in NP. It was touted as being a port of CnR. If you've played both, however, the differences are quite obvious (most of which were already pointed out). I'm willing to stand by what Kurt said - that CDX is the sequel to CnR, although it doesn't fit into the continuity established by SotN. Of course, SotN did come later, and as Igarishi admits in a recent article - http://www.gamers.com/news/1368742/ - he's not above cutting entire characters and games out of Castlevania's continuity.

You know what PC Engine game was ported to the SNES and screwed up badly in the process? Valis IV. Read this article (that yes, I did write) and find out what happened when an actual port was screwed up.

http://www.geocities.com/opcfg3/valis4.html

[Ed Oscuro]

Dracula XX isn't a RoB port (CnR is not the usual term for the game where I come from, but here's your heads-up: we call it RoB for Rondo of Blood, though there are other possible connotations from the name) simply because it takes a whole different direction in the art style. Dracula X SNES and Dracula XX have unique (...heh) cutscenes drawn in a style that seems to be influenced by your average U.S. comic book. In RoB you had anime cutscenes--utilizing a different method of drawing faces, large spots all the same color, etc--and the result is an irreconcilable difference in style. The story is essentially identical -- Dracula done gone stole the women, again.

The graphics are quite different. Higher color counts and more animated backgrounds are a large point in Dracula XX's favor (compare the sequence with falling columns to the very bland corresponding area in Rondo). Truly interactive surroundings are at a minimum in Dracula XX; gone are the colorful ring-the-church-bell-and-what-comes-out or picking your treasure with careful jumps on switches are gone. We're back to busting walls in the style of Akumajo Dracula and Castlevania on the NES, though true fans of the series won't fault this particular game for the classic feel.

There are some very nice animated backgrounds; the Clock Tower looks incredible with every single gear in the background moving in unison with the others. If nothing else, this game corrects the problems with Rondo's bland and uninspired Clock Tower.

There are "sort of" multiple paths, but it's rather an instance where you can choose to keep the key item and enter the secret level, or pass by. By the way, you might be interesed to know that the Key and the level designs in Dracula XX have been utilized to give Richter yet another weapon--infinite item crashes bringing death from below! Though I fault the level design for showing off weaknesses early in the game, here we see some potential from Rondo brought to its fullest.

In essence -- Rondo is an early SotN, and Getsufuu Maden is an early Rondo (or something). Dracula XX is an oldschool Castlevania; it could have used some tweaking but it would be a shame to miss its fine points for what it was expected to be.

[Dire 51]

Eh, CnR, RoB... it's all the same in the end. I've just gotten so used to callingthe game Akumajo Dracula X: Chi no Rondo that CnR is the abbreviation I use nowadays.

Anyway, Ed - those are some good points you've made there. Honestly, I've had CDX from the day it was released, and I can't see why so many people trash it. It really is a good game, definitely with an old school CV feel. Sure it's not quite up to par with the other games in the series (although it beats the hell out of both N64 games and the first and third Gameboy games), but that doesn't mean it's completely terrible.