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Well it's the SNES clock tower that can eat my balls
Rondo I'm quite comfortable with now, 1-life away from the 1CC over the weekend.

It's right there in the title. "Dracula X" is only used in the US version of the SNES game.

I knew what you meant.



Castlevania: Rondo of Blood is called Akumajou Dracula X: Chi no Rondo in Japan, and Castlevania: Dracula X is called Akumajou Dracula XX. It's pointlessly confusing.

One magazine confused me by referring to Rondo of Blood as "Vampire Killer Dracula X". That's the only time I ever seen it referred to by that title.

Wow, XX's ST5 upper is also brown. So taking that route means two consecutive stages of shit-smeared splendour. I actually died on that stage because after the bit at the end (with the collapsing brown blocks), after dealing with the final crow of the stage, I jumped on a window sill that I thought was a platform, as it was exactly the same shade of brown as the platform in front of it I was meant to jump on.

Anyway, it's clear now, 1CC upper route, no maidens. I'd like to clear the lower route, but I honestly find the Clock Tower soul-destroying. Was also quite surprised to find myself with nine lives in stock by the time I reached there, although it's a harder game than Rondo, it certainly gives out enough resources to allow anyone that's played a Castlevania before to make a decent dent in it.

Well I'll be fooked.
That's a pointless X if I've ever heard it.
I figure most of the gaming world just refers to the game as Rondo of Blood, for simplicity's sake.
Whereas the single X in "Castlevania Dracula X" in Murrica means it's quite reasonable to call the SNES game X.

It seems only shmupsfarm tier fanatics would refer to the Japanese title then abreviate it to dracula X?
well, whatever. I'll keep calling it Rondo.

First of all, we're not in Murrica. You may be, but that doesn't mean everyone else is. I never even heard of that title for the SNES game until after I acquired the PC Engine one.

Second, the tendency to refer to the game simply as Rondo of Blood, or just Rondo, is a relatively "recent" thing, and I'm pretty sure people do it exactly to avoid confusion between the two games. The same reason we refer to the SNES game as XX.
Back before the game had its first official Western release on VC, it was a still little more obscure, and was generally referred to as "Dracula X", or occasionally "Chi No Rondo" (I remember only very rarely seeing the title actually translated). This was however also during the time when people would often mistake the SNES game for a "bad port" of the PCE game. But with with the US version's choice of reusing both the title and box art from that game, who can blame them?

The take away here is that the game is called Dracula X. And so is Symphony of the Night. And so is the American version of Vampire's Kiss. And so is the PSP remake of Rondo.
In my experience however, Rondo is the game that's been most frequently referred to as such, so why would I not think you're talking about that game?

More specifically though, Marc talked about "stage 5' " and I didn't remember XX having one such stage.

Now I'm confused.
There are two ST4 and ST5 in XX.....?

I'm not in Murrica either, and I'm not old enough to have been paying attention when this shit was coming out in magazines and stuff.
Alas, my first exposure to Castlevania generally and the names of games was through AVGNs videos.

Then again, that's most of the internet. And most of the anglophone world probably refers to the US titles of things, not obscure games never released outside of Japan. Seems reasonable enough to me.



Oh sure. We should all call Rondo Dracula X then as that's clearly the most logical thing to do.

In XX 4 is the minotaur's stage where you rescue Maria. 4' is the one where you fight not-Shaft's ghost. 5 is the werewolf's stage. 5' is the sea serpent's stage.

By the way, Marc, did you know you know that if you get hit while crouching you take no knockback in XX, and only a few pixels in Rondo? It's pretty helpful. Whipping while crouching doesn't work, you have to hold still.

I did many thanks. Came in most handy on XX's final Drac scrap.

I'm going to go back to IV later and force my way to the good bits, it just feels to uninteresting to play after having spent the last few weeks with Rondo and XX.
Think the classic series will be up next, never had any experience of the NES games outside of a pirated copy of the original on C64 in my younger years. Although I'm loathe to give Konami money for that shoddy compilation; probably a sale purchase for Switch I think.
Given that I'd say the difficulty goes XX > Rondo > IV where do the original trilogy fit in there?

I'd say 1 is harder to 1CC but easier to 1LC than XX and 3 is overall harder than 1. Neither buries you in extra lives like Rondo and XX. If you do the second loops, they're generally not much tougher than the first loops, aside from a few gigantic difficulty spikes (1's 2-4, 3's medusa skulls). 2 isn't very hard once you memorize the correct sequence for everything and where all the invisible floors are.

Lol @ Sumezu jumping Blinge

Blingey boy responded pretty well tho, good counter-attack



It was entertaining, I give this tilt a 9/10!

Well Baton, at the end of the day, XX still suXX

It's illegal to call Rondo "Dracula X" because Blingeyboy hasn't heard people do that before


Was the other way around.
Burinju seems to be in a harsh mood these days I'll try not to upset him anymore, I like him too much.

suck my ding dong! It is illegal. It is now illegal!

Man realtalk as it was first mentioned I went and looked at the rondo wikipedia page scouring it for "Dracula X"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castlevan ... o_of_Blood

Read the intro and skimmed large sections of it thinking "huh, dracula X is the port, clearly."
Missed the fat photo on the right..

If I may present this to you.
The X in Rondo's full title marks a spot. It is read not as a letter, but as a roman numeral instead. Counting by release, it is the 10th game in the series in 1993.
Yes, the Arcade and Game Boy titles are included.
Oh no, I read that in an illiterate mag, some ways back.

By this logic the "re-imagination" for SF XX as in 20?
Right.
Another triumph like Super IV.
You get the picture.

Greek letter Chi? (I know that's not how it's pronounced, but Konami has made another Chi pun and that made me suspect it about Dracula X)

I guess I can't comprehend these Japanese mindgames.

How old are you?



Some of us were calling it Drac X... when there was only ONE Dracula X. Before there was a Facebook or YouTube.

I mean this has been 'resolved' so no need to reply now really?

There's never a "need" to reply... but that is the point of a forum.

um.. ok?

let's see if this can summon BIL back, hehe...

http://shmuplations.com/castlevania/
(castlevania 1-3 commentary from director Hitoshi Akamatsu)

That was a great read, thanks for the effort, man.



I know that's how it goes in the business world, but this was still pretty dismal to read.

blackoak, thanks again for a superb contribution and I just wanted to say that you have one of the most exciting sites in all of the retro-gaming sphere

I'm glad more people are aware of 360leo's memoirs of working with Hitoshi Akamatsu. I've been following his tweets for over a year now.

EDIT: By the way, the 1 point bug (actually 5 points) only applies to the Disk System version of Castlevania. I'm pretty sure it's been fixed to the correct amount in the NES localization and later Famicom cartridge re-release (unless there's multiple revisions I'm not aware of).

Interesting reading. I already knew that the "C" is for Christopher, so there may be some documentation out there explaining that. Game manual, or guide booklet or something.

Also, the Jiangshi were so popular that they managed to appear in Super Mario Land, with their characteristic jump, didn't they?

In case anyone hasn't seen it yet, if you thought Simon Belmont's appearance in Captain N was embarrassing, have a gander at what was once in the works.

I think it looks terrible as a Castlevania cartoon, but I like the Mad Magazine like artwork. At least there's Mad Monster Party for crazy monster hijinks with designs from a Mad artist (though it's stop motion animation). Double Dragon looks the most interesting out of those concept pictures. It looks better than the Double Dragon cartoon that eventually came out.

I bought the Castlevania collection. Funny M2 was brought up earlier because that is who did this collection. Emulation seems to be spot on, as far as I can tell. The GB emulation even has the option for a dot matrix filter or GBC style limited color.