Yes, it was clear we were being offered an inferior product after Rondo had already been covered massively by game magazines for the last couple years. Even Nintendo Power showed screenshots of Rondo in their Dracula X preview assuming it'd be a fairly close port before the SNES version was done.
Why did Konami make so many changes instead of just porting the same game, only changing/removing stuff when necessary? I'm fairly certain a SNES cartridge could handle branching paths.
The game has at least 2 branching paths and 2 hidden levels to go with them.
I just think the designers wanted to make a different game and not a port of Rondo. All the levels are completely different, there's more new bosses than returning ones and even the final boss is completely different (and far more challenging)
The final Dracula battle in Rondo felt like a reward for beating the game up to that point and working through the much harder boss fights like the second Shaft battle and the Castlevania 1 boss gauntlet.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>it's okay if it's easy, it's a reward
come on man.
I like Rondo, but the bible really makes everything in the game very trivial. Dracula X getting rid of it and going back to the classic sub-weapons only gave it better balance.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Do you get mad about the final bosses in Gradius games being push-overs too?
It didn't get a bad reception back in the day, did it?
I think the main thing was that it was a classic 2D game released in 1995, when people were expecting 3D games or at least games with some impressive graphical coat. Dracula X has some nice effects (particularly the background on the first level) and looks amazing, but it's still a traditional 2D game.
Then yeah over the years people started finding out about Rondo and the meme that Dracula X is the "bad port" started, but that was more in the 2000s.
Real Castlevania fans like it.
DKC2 and YI are precisely examples of games with impressive graphical effects (3D renders and all the crayon-style graphics on Yoshi's Island plus some actual 3D effects as well). DX in comparison is just a traditional 2D game.
Level design seems more focused than on Rondo to me. Rondo is less about action and more about finding secret paths.
DX still has secret paths but fewer and is more akin to the level design of CV1 and 3.
Dracula X is basically the real Castlevania 4 in terms of level design, enemy placement, and difficulty curve, but it's also worse than both CV1 and 3, so it can't help but feel like a step back in everything but presentation and controls. Even if Rondo didn't exist, DX would still be controversial because Super Castlevania IV does a better job at being a unique sequel to the 8-bit games and Bloodlines does a better job at being a more straightforward mechanical evolution.
Dracula X just kind of treads old ground – which isn't a bad thing if you love CV1 and 3, and I've personally come to really appreciate DX with time –but it was always gonna be a hard sell.
>It didn't get a bad reception back in the day, did it?
"Electronic Gaming Monthly gave it an average of 6.8 out of 10. Gamepro gave it a similar score of only 2.5 out of 5 (5/10)."
You gotta realize these game magazines had already imported and previewed Rondo of Blood, so their reviews were comparing them directly when they came out. Even though Rondo of Blood wasn't released in North America, it wasn't an unknown commodity before the internet because game magazines had been talking about it.
Well, Rondo was in 1993, standards were different (plus the CD soundtrack and voice acting was also enough to impress people back then).
Yeah those are very lukewarm scores but not totally fatal either. It plays with what I say that in 1995, people just were fed up with traditional 2D and wanted 3D or at least something out of the norm.
I love Rondo, but I can't see how someone who likes it can hate Dracula X. DX is like a pseudo-sequel to it, with more emphasis on the action-platforming that the series is known for (or was, at the time), it also performs better than Rondo, with less slowdowns.
>I love Rondo, but I can't see how someone who likes it can hate Dracula X.
Dracula X is missing a lot about what makes Rondo fun and interesting: >Interesting level design with secret paths and alternate routes >Multiple playable characters >More gameplay mechanics
There's also the fact that it just played worse than IV, which had eight directional whipping, and this went back to NES style. Lot of game magazines gave Mega Man 7 bad ratings for similar reasons, "taking away" things like dashing and wall climbing from the X games, not realizing they were meant to be two different styles of games.
"Most" didn't, but the market for a "hardcore gamer" series like Castlevania absolutely did, because mainstream video game magazines like Gamepro, Electronic Gaming Monthly and Gamefan had already previewed and discussed it at length, so the aficionado who was actively waiting for a new Castlevania game absolutely knew about it, because they were the ones who were actively reading game magazines and would tell their more casual friends about Rondo of Blood not coming out here.
I know many are of this opinion but honestly Rondo of Blood I would say is the best of the 16 bit Castlevania games. I'd give it to SC4 if it had some minor gameplay changes that annoy me and was made more difficult on the default setting. Because of this though I got to give it to Rondo. Bloodlines is also great and not far behind. Bloodlines plays a lot smoother imo than SC4. SC4 feels jank actually in comparison to these other two even though it seems like it should be the best one no contest. I don't like the limp whip it throws me off too much. Not sure why that couldn't have been tied to its own button. You got six fricking buttons on the snes controllers and they couldn't be bothered to make use of them all its stupid. Bloodlines swing feels better to actually.
Rondo > SC4 > Bloodlines
I haven't beat Dracula X nor do I want to since it is shit next to the superior Rondo. I haven't played any of the other classic CV 16 bit ones like that one remake on that one obscure console or whatever it was.
No, because it did get a bad reception because rondo didn’t exist in the west and barely anyone knew about it
It was poorly received in comparison to bloodlines and especially SCIV
Yes, it was clear we were being offered an inferior product after Rondo had already been covered massively by game magazines for the last couple years. Even Nintendo Power showed screenshots of Rondo in their Dracula X preview assuming it'd be a fairly close port before the SNES version was done.
Why did Konami make this trash instead of just porting Rondo of Blood to Sega CD for western markets?
Sega CD was already dead in the U.S. market by the time they were ready to port Rondo (1994), wouldn't have been worth their time or money.
Why did Konami make so many changes instead of just porting the same game, only changing/removing stuff when necessary? I'm fairly certain a SNES cartridge could handle branching paths.
The game has at least 2 branching paths and 2 hidden levels to go with them.
I just think the designers wanted to make a different game and not a port of Rondo. All the levels are completely different, there's more new bosses than returning ones and even the final boss is completely different (and far more challenging)
>(and far more challenging)
Wow crouching and throwing axes, so hard
based, post your no-damage run anon.
still harder than the laughably easy Rondo drac fight
The final Dracula battle in Rondo felt like a reward for beating the game up to that point and working through the much harder boss fights like the second Shaft battle and the Castlevania 1 boss gauntlet.
>it's okay if it's easy, it's a reward
come on man.
I like Rondo, but the bible really makes everything in the game very trivial. Dracula X getting rid of it and going back to the classic sub-weapons only gave it better balance.
Do you get mad about the final bosses in Gradius games being push-overs too?
It didn't get a bad reception back in the day, did it?
I think the main thing was that it was a classic 2D game released in 1995, when people were expecting 3D games or at least games with some impressive graphical coat. Dracula X has some nice effects (particularly the background on the first level) and looks amazing, but it's still a traditional 2D game.
Then yeah over the years people started finding out about Rondo and the meme that Dracula X is the "bad port" started, but that was more in the 2000s.
Real Castlevania fans like it.
DKC2 and SMW2 came out in the same year and sold great, so that's not really a good excuse.
The problem with Dracula X is the game just isn't very good, particularly its shit level design like copypasting purple spear dudes over and over.
DKC2 and YI are precisely examples of games with impressive graphical effects (3D renders and all the crayon-style graphics on Yoshi's Island plus some actual 3D effects as well). DX in comparison is just a traditional 2D game.
Level design seems more focused than on Rondo to me. Rondo is less about action and more about finding secret paths.
DX still has secret paths but fewer and is more akin to the level design of CV1 and 3.
Dracula X is basically the real Castlevania 4 in terms of level design, enemy placement, and difficulty curve, but it's also worse than both CV1 and 3, so it can't help but feel like a step back in everything but presentation and controls. Even if Rondo didn't exist, DX would still be controversial because Super Castlevania IV does a better job at being a unique sequel to the 8-bit games and Bloodlines does a better job at being a more straightforward mechanical evolution.
Dracula X just kind of treads old ground – which isn't a bad thing if you love CV1 and 3, and I've personally come to really appreciate DX with time –but it was always gonna be a hard sell.
>It didn't get a bad reception back in the day, did it?
"Electronic Gaming Monthly gave it an average of 6.8 out of 10. Gamepro gave it a similar score of only 2.5 out of 5 (5/10)."
You gotta realize these game magazines had already imported and previewed Rondo of Blood, so their reviews were comparing them directly when they came out. Even though Rondo of Blood wasn't released in North America, it wasn't an unknown commodity before the internet because game magazines had been talking about it.
Well, Rondo was in 1993, standards were different (plus the CD soundtrack and voice acting was also enough to impress people back then).
Yeah those are very lukewarm scores but not totally fatal either. It plays with what I say that in 1995, people just were fed up with traditional 2D and wanted 3D or at least something out of the norm.
I love Rondo, but I can't see how someone who likes it can hate Dracula X. DX is like a pseudo-sequel to it, with more emphasis on the action-platforming that the series is known for (or was, at the time), it also performs better than Rondo, with less slowdowns.
>I love Rondo, but I can't see how someone who likes it can hate Dracula X.
Dracula X is missing a lot about what makes Rondo fun and interesting:
>Interesting level design with secret paths and alternate routes
>Multiple playable characters
>More gameplay mechanics
DX just feels "less"
There's also the fact that it just played worse than IV, which had eight directional whipping, and this went back to NES style. Lot of game magazines gave Mega Man 7 bad ratings for similar reasons, "taking away" things like dashing and wall climbing from the X games, not realizing they were meant to be two different styles of games.
i doubt most people in the west knew rondo of blood even existed
"Most" didn't, but the market for a "hardcore gamer" series like Castlevania absolutely did, because mainstream video game magazines like Gamepro, Electronic Gaming Monthly and Gamefan had already previewed and discussed it at length, so the aficionado who was actively waiting for a new Castlevania game absolutely knew about it, because they were the ones who were actively reading game magazines and would tell their more casual friends about Rondo of Blood not coming out here.
I know many are of this opinion but honestly Rondo of Blood I would say is the best of the 16 bit Castlevania games. I'd give it to SC4 if it had some minor gameplay changes that annoy me and was made more difficult on the default setting. Because of this though I got to give it to Rondo. Bloodlines is also great and not far behind. Bloodlines plays a lot smoother imo than SC4. SC4 feels jank actually in comparison to these other two even though it seems like it should be the best one no contest. I don't like the limp whip it throws me off too much. Not sure why that couldn't have been tied to its own button. You got six fricking buttons on the snes controllers and they couldn't be bothered to make use of them all its stupid. Bloodlines swing feels better to actually.
Rondo > SC4 > Bloodlines
I haven't beat Dracula X nor do I want to since it is shit next to the superior Rondo. I haven't played any of the other classic CV 16 bit ones like that one remake on that one obscure console or whatever it was.
Dracula X is the best classic Castlevania
No, because it did get a bad reception because rondo didn’t exist in the west and barely anyone knew about it
It was poorly received in comparison to bloodlines and especially SCIV