#0010 – Akumajō Dracula X: Chi no Rondo – 1993 – PC-Engine – Konami – Action

Remember how Castlevania: Symphony of the Night began? You hit start and all of a sudden you were playing as this guy named Richter and it said "Final Stage: Bloodlines". This Richter definitely wasn't the guy on the front of the box, and how the heck were you already at the final stage? Where was the rest of the game? It was definitely an attention-grabbing way to start out an awesome experience, and it threw me for a loop the first time I saw it. I thought I must have accidentally loaded someone else's save off of my PS1 memory card! But after I reset the console and started over - sure enough, it began on the Final Stage. Once you beat Dracula it all makes sense - Symphony of the Night's opener is a flashback to the events that predate the game.

People who had played Castlevania: Dracula X on the SNES a few years earlier, of course, recognized Richter and his blue tunic instantly. But...the final stage as shown in Symphony of the Night was totally different from the final stage in Dracula X. Sure, you fought the Count, but what was with the steps outside the castle, and where were the platforms? And besides, Dracula had transformed into a flying thing before, not a stompy beast... Revisionism at work? Not really. You see, Dracula X on the SNES was just a watered-down remake of a Castlevania game for NEC's PC-Engine, titled "Chi no Rondo", or "Rondo of Blood". Konami hadn't been able to negotiate a straight port from the PCE to the SNES, so they had remade it and changed the most important parts to avoid legal issues.

Well, today I got to play the real deal, Chi no Rondo on the CD-ROM expansion for the PC-Engine. And holy crap, what a game! The SNES version we got in the United States just pales in comparison to this game, and suddenly you realize that Symphony of the Night wasn't as much of a radical leap as we had thought back in the 1990s. Sure, Symphony ripped off Metroid to great effect and changed the whole gameplay style of the franchise, but the mechanics and the assets are all right here in Rondo of Blood. The killer pop-baroque Redbook soundtrack, the slick scaling and rotation effects, many of the enemies and the artwork, even the level designs of Dracula's castle and the bosses - all taken straight from this underplayed PC-Engine game.

It probably helps that the game runs upwards of $150 on eBay, and the actual hardware to run it can get into the $500s - that CD-ROM expansion module isn't cheap. So I recommend you opt for the emulation route. I prefer a TV, couch, and controller for my old school games, so I pulled out the latest version of the Mednafenx-PCE emulator on the original Xbox. It runs like a dream, and in 720p the sprites look absolutely fantastic. So much color, so crisp and vibrant. The PC-Engine clearly isn't pushing as many pixels and snazzy effects as Symphony of the Night, but it's still remarkable how good CD-based 16-bit games can look. And the music! Good grief, the music! Many of the tracks are infectious remakes of the NES tunes, including 'Bloody Tears', and the haunting choir music at the main menu is going to give you deja vu if you've played Symphony. It's fantastic stuff - check out the OST at least if you're into old gaming synth.

Another plus of emulation is save states - dang, it's a tough game. I guess the NES ones were as well, but to be honest it's been so long since I played any of these balls-to-the-wall classics... Modern gaming challenges you in entirely different ways, and to be honest the game just humiliated me over and over in the first level until I got my fingers woken up. Luckily there's a trick to beating all of the enemies and the bosses are pattern based, so repetition is rewarded. Just don't expect a relaxing experience - do, however, expect to play through more than once in search of 100% completion and the 'perfect' ending sequence. I only got 62% my first time through...

A sweet aspect of the CD format is that there's room for fully-animated cutscenes for the important plot moments - something that was definitely hobbled on the SNES. It's all very cinematic, with an actual opening sequence and several interstitials to build up to the big showdown. Unfortunately it's entirely in Japanese (well, with a bit of German at the beginning), but if you own a PSP then go check out Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles, which updates both Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night with full English localizations and revamped graphics, mechanics, and controls. It's definitely a lot cheaper than going after the original, and probably is more acceptable for some than emulation. Either way, do yourself a favor and play this game! Pure classic gaming quality here, you can't go wrong.