Castlevania Bloodlines (Sega Genesis, 1994)

With this one, the series arrives on the Sega Genesis with a bang. I found this game to be more fun than the NES installments, even though it still has a brutal final battle. In keeping with Sega's early 90's tradition of acting younger and hipper than Nintendo, this game stars the hip young descendants of Simon Belmont, and takes place in the 20th century.

In Europe, this one was called Castlevania: The New Generation, which is very 90's. The New Generation! Rad to the max!

(Originally posted in 2010 (one of my first posts on here), now remastered for 2025 - As my next game Portrait of Ruin takes place during World War 2 and this game takes place during World War 1, and star a son and father duo respectively, it made sense to revisit this.)

Here we are in Europe circa World War 1, which is well after the rest of the series chronologically.

Following Dracula's death in 1899 at the hands of Quincy Morris (another game they never made, though technically this story was told in Bram Stoker's version), the followers of Dracula seek to revive him and plunge the world into darkness.

Here's the game's gorgeous sub-villain, countess Elizabeth Bathory (also known as Erzabet in the Netflix show, where she is grotesque for some reason), and her purpose in life is to see Dracula reign again.

It is strongly implied that The Countess here actually caused World War 1 in an effort to spill enough blood to awaken Dracula. Which is kinda nuts.

Look at how young and hip our heroes are! Genesis does! Genesis does! What Nintendon't!

That's right, plural heroes. There are two characters to choose from right at the outset, and they're...

John Morris and Eric Lecarde. John is the vampire hunter of the game, and hails from Texas. Seeing as how Texas is not to be messed with, this gives him a distinct advantage over the enemies of the game. He uses a whip, which he can fire in multiple directions (but not all of them). John is also the son of Quincy Morris, who as mentioned slew Dracula in 1899.

However, in the interest of doing something different for this one, my choice for the game is Eric Lecarde (...Alucard?) who bears a striking resemblance to Kain from Final Fantasy IV with the blond hair and spear.

Alucard hasn't really been subtle with his disguises in other games ("Arikado" in Dawn of Sorrow comes to mind) so this being his latest reincarnation makes sense. That said, I don't think Eric Lecarde is actually supposed to be Alucard, but rather an implied descendant.

I play as John for a minute just to give it a whirl. It plays just like the earlier games, same classic feel. The whip is a bit on the short side, though. Collecting whip powerups makes it longer, at least, and you keep the extension until you lose a life (i.e. no losing powerups every time you take a hit like that infernal first Game Boy 'Vania). He also gets throwing axes and so forth, and can whip diagonally upwards and straight down (but only while jumping, in both cases, oddly).

My God! The Sahagin!

"Our time has come!" it screeches.

Note: Trying the scanlines in the Castlevania Anniversary Collection. It...looks better on the TV.

Eric Lecarde can attack straight upward with his spear, which John can't. The downside to playing as this guy is that his lance has a shorter range than the powered-up whip. The game is largely the same between the two characters, no story differences.

What's really weird is that Eric's long blond hair is short and dark ingame.

The first level is basically a remake of the first level of the original game, complete with mer-men. It's worth noting that the game moves significantly faster than the Nintendo 'Vanias of this era; both your character and the enemies have a speedier base movement. Blast processing! SEGA!

Lecarde finds himself face-to-face with a vicious dog-beast that shatters the windows in the room by roaring. I have to hand it to this game...it's a pretty bad-ass setup for a fight.

The next level is a sweet snow level with a crumbling bone bridge. Super treacherous place here.

Another boss. By the way, I'm still on level 1 here. This game doesn't mess around! They made the levels extra long with multiple boss fights.

The next area is the sunken ruins of Atlantis, more or less. They did a great job with the visuals here. The reflection is particularly impressive for the time. Oh, and the music...

One of the best tunes the game has to offer, and probably the one I immediately think of when I think of this game.

This place slowly fills with water as you go, and...you guessed it, the water is deadly. Well, that's better than random auto-scrolling being deadly.

The impressive graphics continue as our hero crosses a bridge filled with statues. This is where things get tougher, with the water slowly rising as you fight a sorcerer miniboss. It creeps up on you and it's a race against time to take out the sorcerer before it gets too deep.

Eric has to fight multiple giant knights here as I start having Dark Souls II flashbacks. Our hero isn't going to win on reach here, and I don't have a shield, so it's all about running in and out of range.

I get past that point and the stage continues. Here we learn that our hero has NO RESPECT. His path is blocked by a giant statue, so he...

...knocks its head off!

SEGA ATTITUDE!

Next up is a boss that resembles a stack of tires, and is equally ferocious. Victory is a matter of knocking out the various tires so that you can reach the "head", which is a crystal. It's weird, but at least the game is creative with the bosses.

Our hero battles harpies in Italy next, and the diagonal stab is super useful here. Belmonts and Morrises, on the other hand, have to jump n' whip.

Each level takes place in a different part of Europe, which I appreciate about this game. No sign of The War, though.

Eric journeys to my ancestral homeland of Italy, where he scales the Leaning Tower of Pisa. And this game takes the "leaning tower" part very literally, as the tower sways back and forth during your ascent. This adds some new elements to the gameplay, as you have to account for platform movement before making a jump.

Back then, we didn't think twice about platforms being suspended in midair in video games. Nowadays most realistic adventure games make some effort to explain how a platform is where it is, to the point where things like this in retro games actually stand out to me now.

The boss here is this freakish scorpion-bat thing. It seems difficult at first because for some reason the tower is spinning... but with the axe, it isn't too bad. The axe is a great weapon to use against bosses, as usual, due to the upward trajectory and wide arc. Most bosses are an easy target for it.

The Gear of Doom returns from Castlevania III...but thanks to the controls being quite a bit better here, it is much easier to negotiate.

Know why the controls are better? Because in this game you aren't controlling old men like in the Nintendo Castlevanias! SEGA!

In the distance looms Elizabeth's Castle. We can only imagine what debauchery the nefarious vampiress is currently engaged in.

The next boss is made out of gears and springs. In the early days of Japanese pleasure robot construction, things weren't as streamlined as they are today.

Onward to more historical awesomeness. The next level is the Palace of Versailles.

Note that the statue in the middle is either mooning the camera or sporting a frontbutt.

The palace interior is really nice, too. The backgrounds of this game punch above their weight graphically. What I mean is that this game has a very moody and atmospheric visual style and the backgrounds seem more detailed than they should given the system.

Is this boss two bearded men gazing longingly at each other, or a lamp? I'll let you decide for yourself,

Next boss is a... little hovering person? At first I thought this would be the easiest battle ever, until...

...she turned into a PSYCHOTIC MOTH. And what the hell is that thing in the background? In any case, once again axes are the weapon of choice here. This is the case for most of the bosses.

Our hero arrives at the final area of the game. England gets main event billing over the rest of Europe, because of course they do. When will it be Luxembourg's chance to shine?

Before continuing, it needs to be said: this game is difficult. Very difficult. Difficulty is nothing new for this series, but this game has some of the longest, most punishing stages out of any of them. The only one that might be more difficult is the U.S. version of Castlevania III.

This does have redeeming qualities like better control and a faster pace. Overall I found it more fun than its predecessors. It took me quite a while to get through this one compared to any of the others, though. Limited continues is a real buzzkill at this point in time, though save states on emulator / in the modern console collections helps with that.

Things get creative again, as the next area is upside down. At this point the game is just messing with us. I find myself wishing I could switch characters on the fly, but unfortunately this is one of those games where your choice at the beginning is the one you're stuck with.

ICONIC MOON ALERT! It's a wee bit different here than it is in the other games. It's full, for one thing.

Death shows up here for the umpteenth time. In this installment, he busts out some arcana cards which rotate around him and act as almost a mini stage select. Hitting one causes you to go and fight one of the game's major bosses, and you have to go through all four of them. The two that look alike are full heals, and the timing on when to hit them is the key to getting past this boss rush ordeal.

After re-defeating the four big bosses, it's time to tangle with the reaper himself. This fight is fast and furious, but it isn't the total struggle that it was in CVIII. Either way, he's a worthy second-in-command to Dracula, and I like the way the games are consistent about this.

Next up is the Countess from the game's intro. She's even hotter here in her real form, a green serpent. Time for Eric to make her pay for starting World War 1! THIS ONE'S FOR FRANZ!

The fight turns out to be pretty anticlimactic and easy, especially after Death and his boss rush.

Protip: Kneel close by and stab from there and most of her attacks just fly right over you. This works for a bunch of the other bosses as well.

Finally, here's Dracula, revived as expected due to all the death going on in the war, as well as Elizabeth's rituals. Not sure if he's weaker during these off-year revivals compared to his normal turn of the century reincarnations. In-canon, probably.

He launches fireball volleys before teleporting around and turning into swarms of bats. In short, he's his usual self, no real issues yet.

I defeat his first form more easily than I usually do in these games, but he isn't done yet. Oh no.

The second form is some kind of flying magician, almost a Reaper 2.0. This fight is a matter of learning his patterns and avoiding them. Eric's charged jump-attack lays waste to this form.

Of course, his final form is a freakish monster. It isn't too bad for Eric, with his ability to stab upwards and bounce Dracula around.

Get him against the side of the screen and it's possible to up-stab about half of his life away before he gets out of your combo.

Like this. HAW HAW HAW!

I'm not above stun-locking a difficult boss and then running around like I just won the World Series.

After the fight, the game fakes you out a bit. The music and tone seem to indicate that another battle is coming up, but that isn't the case. It's over. It's finally over. All things considered, that was one of the easiest Dracs in this series, especially after how hard the rest of this game is.

So how did I like the Genesis Castlevania? It was good, but it isn't as good as Super Castlevania IV OR the TG-16's Rondo of Blood. Sega takes the bronze on this one by a clear margin. That said, I think this game might be a little underrated. It's actually a lot of fun, and deserves to be remembered right there with the other 'Vanias from around this time.

With the early 20th century setting, Bloodlines is further along time-wise than the others, which I always thought was pretty cool. Also liked the tour of Europe. This game deserves cred for trying something new with the series (to an extent) and giving us a more diverse setting. The difficulty is cranked up, though, so try it at your own risk.

What are the odds that we get a Quincy Morris 1899 game? Probably about as nonexistent as getting a Julius Belmont 1999 game.

Next up: John Morris' son takes on a new vampire threat around 30 years later, during World War 2, in Portrait of Ruin. Kinda interesting how that game is actually a direct sequel to this one, something that flew under my radar for a long time.

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