Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (PC Engine, 1993)

 

The last 2D Castlevania game that I never had a chance to play until now. It was trapped on the island of PC Engine (Turbografx-16) for a long time. Now it has a PS4 version so I can give it a whirl, though I'm still counting it as a TG16 game. It got (sort of) ported to the SNES as Castlevania Dracula X which I did cover on here long ago. That port is known for being a somewhat different game, and fairly deficient compared to this original version. Now I get to finally see what the fuss is about.

It's also worth noting that this game is the immediate predecessor to Symphony of the Night. In a weird way, this is basically "Castlevania 5" in everything except name. I can understand dropping the number though, especially considering how the third and fourth games in the series were chronologically out of whack already (aka a prequel and a remake respectively).

Castlevania: Dracula X (Super NES, 1995)

Here's a game that I've never covered before. It got somewhat of a bad rep over the years, and a lot of that is probably because Super Castlevania IV was a much better game. This despite Super Castlevania IV being years earlier in the Super NES's lifespan. In short, this was a fairly unnecessary addition to the Castlevania-verse, but it's a decent game regardless.