A playthrough of Konami's 1993 action game for the NEC PC Engine, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (悪魔城ドラキュラX 血の輪廻).
This video shows two playthroughs of the game for a 100% completion rating and a couple extras:
2:39 Richter playthrough, normal stages
56:31 Maria playthrough, alternate stages
1:34:43 Richter's alternate end credit roll
1:36:55 System card error and hidden minigame
I am playing a patched copy of the game that replaces most of the original Japanese audio with recordings from the 2007 PSP version's English dub. You can find the patch at www.romhacking...
I recorded a video of Rondo of Blood several years ago, but that one only showed Richter playing through the normal stages. Since that's only half of the game's content, I felt that a redo was in order, so here we are!
The PC Engine-exclusive Rondo of Blood, released between Akumajou Dracula for the x68000 and Castlevania Bloodlines for the Sega Genesis, was the eighth mainline installment in the Castlevania series. It was later loosely adapted for the SNES as Dracula X, and it saw a direct sequel in the form of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for the PlayStation.
Taking place a century after the events of Castlevania ( • Castlevania (NES) Play... ) and Castlevania II ( • Castlevania II: Simon’... ), Rondo of Blood introduces players to Richter, a descendant of the legendary vampire hunter Simon Belmont. A priest named Shaft has resurrected Dracula and has kidnapped several young girls, including Richter's girlfriend Annette, from the town of Aljiba (the same town as was in Simon's Quest). Richter is understandably not cool with that, and so sets out to save her from the lord of darkness. He is also joined by Maria Renard, a young magician he frees from a cell beneath Dracula's castle.
Rondo of Blood expands on everything that made the earlier Castlevanias so great, and was considered by many to be the best game in the series yet. That's no mean feat given how good most of the previous games were.
Most stages host secret paths that lead to alternate boss fights and a challenging series of hidden stages that run parallel to the primary route through the game. There's a ton of content to work through.
The gameplay has also undergone some major changes. Richter has been given a few nifty tricks that would've left Simon drooling: you can double-tap the jump button to perform an evasive backflip that grants temporary immunity to damage, and you can extend the reach of his whip with a well-timed tap of the d-pad.
And then there's Maria, a little girl whose nimble handling completely changes the way the game plays. She takes more damage from enemies than Richter does, but her speed, expansive moveset, and smaller frame more than makeup for this trade-off. She can double jump, slide, and roll to get out harm's way, and though she can't use the traditional range of subweapons, she can summon animal familiars to do her bidding. She can hide in a turtle shell, send killer cats after her enemies, or even call upon a dragon to lay waste to everything on screen with its fire breath. She also has a fantastically overpowered special move (done by quickly inputting D, U, D, DF, F+attack at any time, including mid-jump) that lets her project an invincible psychic copy of herself that dashes forward to attack.
Rondo of Blood still feels very much like a traditional Castlevania game, but the new features and changes made to the mechanics make the gameplay feel fresh and new again.
So does the presentation. Super Castlevania IV had already set the bar extraordinarily high, but Rondo of Blood ratchets things up several more notches. The moody backdrops brim with color, animation, and smooth parallax scrolling effects - something the PC Engine couldn't easily do - to great effect, and the sprite animation is excellent. The anime-style cutscenes are great, too, even if Dracula's look is a bit corny. The soundtrack is the real star, though. The redbook CD audio tracks feature some of the best music ever heard in a Castlevania game, and every single one is an ear worm. (Opus 13, Cross a Fear, Bloodlines, the remix of Vampire Killer... they're all so damned good!)
The Castlevania series is loaded with amazing games, and Rondo of Blood is a true titan among titans. Mankind may ill need a savior like modern-day Konami, but the world would be a much brighter place if the Konami of the early 90s was still around.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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