Castlevania: Dracula X
#68: Castlevania: Dracula X

Released In: 1995
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami

      It's the late 18th century and the evil Count Dracula has been resurrected by black magic. Sick of being continually defeated by the Belmont clan, the Count comes up with a plan to destroy their bloodline. He kidnaps Annette Renard, the girlfriend of Richter Belmont, as well as her sister Maria, in order to draw Richter to his castle. With Richter's mind blinded by vengeance, will he finally fall prey to Dracula's army of darkness, or will he carry on the Belmont legacy and destroy the Count 's corporeal form once again? Your gaming skills will decide the answer!

Syd Lexia: Much like Donkey Kong Country 3, this game has become the victim of revisionist history. People on the internet have attempted to retcon reality itself and make you believe that the Dracula X cartridge was the video game equivalent of Osama bin Laden and that no one bought it, much less liked it. This is not true; Dracula X was a great game at the time. As Konami's first follow-up to the highly popular Super Castlevania IV, the game sold well, and was generally well-liked. Then at some point, someone in an English-speaking country discovered that the game was actually a remake of sorts of a game called Rondo of Blood. Nevermind the fact that the game ran on the TurboGrafx-16's peripheral CD drive, and that not a single damn person in America had bothered to buy the TG16, much less the extra hardware required to run Rondo of Blood. And nevermind the fact that the game was only released in Japan. No, those facts are apparently irrelevant.

People who keep talking about how Rondo of Blood was far better than Dracula X lack any meaningful perspective on video games. Rondo of Blood may be the better game NOW, but it wasn't THEN. Let's pretend for a second it's 1995 and the internet is nowhere near as expansive as it is now. Which game would you rather play: a game you don't even know exists that you'd have to specially import for a system you don't have or Dracula X? The answer, obviously, is Dracula X. So stop comparing Dracula X to Rondo. Yes, the game was drastically altered in the CD-to-cartridge conversion, but so what? We didn't actually have a choice between the two games, so comparing the two is pointless. Dracula X was alone in the American market, so it must be judged on its own merits alone. And on its own, Dracula X is a damn good game.

DarkMaze: I’ve heard a lot of hate toward this game and I’m not entirely sure I understand why. I suspect, however, that it has something to do with it being a heavily altered version of Rondo of Blood. I found it to be a lot of fun, though. I mean, it’s really hard and I’m terrible at it, but the same could be said about any Castlevania game. Nevertheless I found the graphics, music, physics, and even animation effects to be really high-caliber. Of course music has always been one of the series’ strong suits, and I generally find myself rocking out to the tunes instead of paying attention to the bats that keep killing me.

Knyte: This is the poor man's version Rondo of Blood, a chopped up mish-mash of the PC-Engine classic. The graphics are a tad prettier, but the music had to be dumbed down to MIDI from the original CD score. Maria, one of only two hostages in the game, is not available as a playable character as she was in the original game. Dracula X also has less levels than in Rondo of Blood, and only two alternate paths. And the Dark Priest Shaft, who plays an instrumental part in the original storyline, is not present in the Nintendo version.


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