(oh man. that title must be a bottle of holy water because what a sick burn)
So with the double dose of Belmondos recently revealed for smash I was reminded that SNES Dracula X had been chilling unfinished on my WiiU for some time.
With my PSP MIA and thus my copy of the real rondo and its polygonal remake out of my reach for the time being I figured there was no better time to finish off the most half baked classicvania I've played.
Boy, what a messy arse game, I guess you'd call it a sloppy port of the PC engine title but that doesn't really quite cover it, its more like some peeps from Konami's SNES team snuck into the offices over the hall and swiped a quarter of the design documents from Rondo of Blood and tried to build a game off it.
Indeed you have some of those classic spots like opening with the burning town, being pursued by a slooooow beast and of course the enemy lineup that would be asset flipped for many an IGA outing. Otherwise though beyond stage 2's bridge (lacking the glorious brass explosion of "cross a fear") the game starts slipping off into its own half assed takes on some of the most basic of the usual series tropes, ohh we got the CAVE, then there's...more caves? huh.
Apparently it seems that stage 5 does contain a split path situation, pretty sure I just went the default non maria route which led to a very rough edition of that fancy interior filled with armor sword nights, now with fifty times more jank.
Oh yeah, let's talk about the jank because it's pretty much the main sticking point for this game. It feels "off", most ceilings are just a mere triviality to this Richter whose jumps just kinda seamlessly merge through them, the game's knockback is limp with pretty much no frames of invincibility leading to some painful juggles, the whip hitbox has this strange extension behind it when unfurled that will occasionally slap the shit out of any bat or crow that tries sneaking up on ya, an unintentional benefit I guess.
Hitboxes are naff in general, like both Richter and the enemies have an extra invisible set of pixels around them, I may have gone into a mini tirade last night about "I JUMPED OVER THAT BAT AND THEY KNOW IT!"
And level design leaves a lot to be desired, SC4 runs circles around it, before entering the clock tower area of stage 6 you can bypass the entire obstacle of a room because the out of place looking stone platforms falling from the ceiling down into a pit are placed close enough together that you can actually just jump straight up and skip a whole segment.
The game even drops frames, what madness is this?!
Overall it's not a tough game, it's not truly a bad one, it's just real sloppy and a very pale imitation of the real deal. I guess what strikes me as odd about its existence is that after such a strong run of console titles, this entry really appears to just shit the bed quite royally.
The Sonic 4 of Classicvania?
But deep down we all know what must be discussed...
What the shit was this?! you couldn't whip up a decent final boss so let's just throw some pits in there and call it a day? you cheap motherfuckers, this is like the bed of chaos before bed of chaos....
okay so it's still better than bed of chaos.
Also, where's Death? was he too ashamed to turn up in this hot mess?
On the upside, one of Rondo's most forgotten bangers gets good play in stage 5
So I guess the main takeaway of this thread is that if Smash has you feeling some Richter action...
- Play the real Rondo of Blood
- Then Symphony
- Then even consider doing that bonus Richter run of Portrait of Ruin
- And lastly, still avoid Dracula X
So with the double dose of Belmondos recently revealed for smash I was reminded that SNES Dracula X had been chilling unfinished on my WiiU for some time.
With my PSP MIA and thus my copy of the real rondo and its polygonal remake out of my reach for the time being I figured there was no better time to finish off the most half baked classicvania I've played.
Boy, what a messy arse game, I guess you'd call it a sloppy port of the PC engine title but that doesn't really quite cover it, its more like some peeps from Konami's SNES team snuck into the offices over the hall and swiped a quarter of the design documents from Rondo of Blood and tried to build a game off it.
Indeed you have some of those classic spots like opening with the burning town, being pursued by a slooooow beast and of course the enemy lineup that would be asset flipped for many an IGA outing. Otherwise though beyond stage 2's bridge (lacking the glorious brass explosion of "cross a fear") the game starts slipping off into its own half assed takes on some of the most basic of the usual series tropes, ohh we got the CAVE, then there's...more caves? huh.
Apparently it seems that stage 5 does contain a split path situation, pretty sure I just went the default non maria route which led to a very rough edition of that fancy interior filled with armor sword nights, now with fifty times more jank.
Oh yeah, let's talk about the jank because it's pretty much the main sticking point for this game. It feels "off", most ceilings are just a mere triviality to this Richter whose jumps just kinda seamlessly merge through them, the game's knockback is limp with pretty much no frames of invincibility leading to some painful juggles, the whip hitbox has this strange extension behind it when unfurled that will occasionally slap the shit out of any bat or crow that tries sneaking up on ya, an unintentional benefit I guess.
Hitboxes are naff in general, like both Richter and the enemies have an extra invisible set of pixels around them, I may have gone into a mini tirade last night about "I JUMPED OVER THAT BAT AND THEY KNOW IT!"
And level design leaves a lot to be desired, SC4 runs circles around it, before entering the clock tower area of stage 6 you can bypass the entire obstacle of a room because the out of place looking stone platforms falling from the ceiling down into a pit are placed close enough together that you can actually just jump straight up and skip a whole segment.
The game even drops frames, what madness is this?!
Overall it's not a tough game, it's not truly a bad one, it's just real sloppy and a very pale imitation of the real deal. I guess what strikes me as odd about its existence is that after such a strong run of console titles, this entry really appears to just shit the bed quite royally.
The Sonic 4 of Classicvania?
But deep down we all know what must be discussed...
What the shit was this?! you couldn't whip up a decent final boss so let's just throw some pits in there and call it a day? you cheap motherfuckers, this is like the bed of chaos before bed of chaos....
okay so it's still better than bed of chaos.
Also, where's Death? was he too ashamed to turn up in this hot mess?
On the upside, one of Rondo's most forgotten bangers gets good play in stage 5
So I guess the main takeaway of this thread is that if Smash has you feeling some Richter action...
- Play the real Rondo of Blood
- Then Symphony
- Then even consider doing that bonus Richter run of Portrait of Ruin
- And lastly, still avoid Dracula X
