A look back at Dracula X, that OTHER Castlevania game on the Super Nintendo!
You really can’t celebrate the Halloween season without playing at least one Castlevania game and for whatever reason, I’d never played Dracula X all the way through before.
From the outset, this game had its work cut out for it. For starters, it was a quasi-port of Rondo of Blood, a CD-based Castlevania game released on the PC Engine. It’s routinely considered the best overall Castlevania game of all time, and to get it to work on the SNES required a LOT of excisions and short cuts. Indeed, there is so much left out of Dracula X that it’s not even really accurate to call it a “port” of Rondo of Blood at all. Developer and publisher Konami tried admirably to make it work, but the technology just wasn’t there yet.
Secondly, the game came on the heels of two other outstanding 16-bit Castlevania games — Super Castlevania IV on the SNES and Castlevania: Bloodlines on the competing Sega Genesis. Factor in the fact that the game came out when the PlayStation and Saturn were already on store shelves (and giving gamers much higher quality graphics in the process) and it seems like Dracula X was doomed from the start.
Well, I’ll say this. It’s probably the worst 16-bit Castlevania game, but keep in mind Castlevania is a lot like pizza. Even when it’s “bad,” it’s still kinda good. And Dracula X, as frustrating as it can be at times, is no exception.
Every Castlevania game — give or take a few negligible details here and there — are pretty much the same. I’ve always likened the series to an all out Universal Monsters battle royale, with a whip-slinging Van Helsing taking on all of the heavies of horror’s golden era. Dracula X is more of the same, and I mean that in complimentary terms. You streak across graveyards and spooky castles, jumping over death traps and battling skeletons and merman before going toe to toe with the game’s gigantic end-of-level bosses. It’s all satisfying stuff and if that’s all you’re looking for in a Castlevania game, you’ll probably dig this.
Now, if you’re coming off Super Castlevania IV you might be a little surprised by how much the core gamplay has regressed to the 8-bit Castlevania trilogy on the NES. Pretty much all of the cool moves from part IV (being able to whip things directionally, the fine-tuned jumping controls, etc.) have been removed and your back to basics. This makes the game WAY harder and often irritating, especially when you’re trying to climb the many stairwells scattered throughout the game.
The whole flying Medusa head trope has been a part of the Vania experience form day one, but in Dracula X it’s absolutely EGREGIOUS. Anytime you try to move vertically in this game, it hammers you with bats, demonic heads, enemy projectiles and these dudes wearing suits of armor who can literally knock you back half a mile with one poke of their spear. There are times playing this game I thought it was impossible to get through certain impasses — and unlike most Castlevania games, this one actually suffers from some unexpectedly poor programming. There are times when you are right next to an enemy and when you whip them, it doesn’t register as damage against them. But if a skeleton even looks at you in this game, it’s automatic health loss. Pretty much any time this game makes you jump on or over stuff, you’re probably going to hate it.
The presentation, though, is fantastic. The music is awesome, to the point I’d consider it one of the best overall soundtracks to be found in the SNES library. And the graphics are definitely cool, with this neat, sort of matte painting dynamic that you don’t really see in any of the other Castlevania games. The controls, for the most part, are pretty reliable and you really can’t complain about the gauntlet of monsters the game throws at you — from floating skulls to gill-men to mud-caked mummies. And like you need me to tell you this, but melting hunchback zombies with holy water is just as fun in Dracula X as it was in the very first Castlevania all the way back in ‘87.
Of course, all Castlevania games are ultimately judged by their grand finale. And Dracula X hits us with one of the most INSANELY difficult final battles in the franchise’s history. Not only do you have to do battle with Dracula twice (his second form, naturally, is a virtually naked purple demon thing), you have to fight him while hopping from pillar to pillar. Which means one misstep and you’re deader than Elvis. It took me more than an hour to beat this P.O.S and even then it was by blind luck. If you’re prone to tossing controllers across the living room in bouts of anger, for god’s sake, do not play this friggin’ game.
At the end of the day it’s a bit difficult to give Dracula X an endorsement one way or the other. It’s very clearly a lesser installment in the Castlevania series, but it’s not without its strong suits. And in the right mindset (and some willingness to die over and over), it actually is a pretty fun game that just smacks of all things Halloween and awesome.
It isn’t the best Vania, but Dracula X is still satisfying in most respects. I mean, just as long as you’re not stuck with that useless key “power-up” — talk about a REAL self-imposed challenge there!
