I have a soft-spot for NEC's consoles, particularly the PC Engine and PC-98. Even if there aren't too many games I absolutely adore on them beyond a few shmups and Falcom games, they just have such a pleasant vibe to them. Bright colors, beautiful spritework, often boasting a cute 90s anime aesthetic, and for the games that happen to be on the PC Engine CD, a cool synth-pop redbook audio soundtrack. But the culmination of everything I admire about these consoles has to be Castlevania: Rondo Of Blood, easily the cheeriest Castlevania game ever made, but also one of my absolute favorites.
Castlevania: Rondo Of Blood is probably one of the most high-profile Japan-only releases ever made. It's a tentpole entry in the Castlevania series that serves as a direct prequel for arguably the most beloved game in the franchise... and yet it never came out in America until the mid 2000s with its release on the PSP and Virtual Console. Once it did come out, it pretty much immediately became held up as the best Classicvania by a lot of fans, which is kinda wild if you think about it. Rondo Of Blood is a game that didn't have nostalgia on its side, but unlike with, say, Final Fantasy V, that didn't stop its popularity from skyrocketing when people could finally get their hands on it. Now Richter is in Smash, and it just got an anime adaptation, and I can't say Rondo Of Blood doesn't deserve that.
As far as classicvanias go, Rondo Of Blood pretty much perfects the formula on every level. The first Castlevania always had this deliberacy to it. Your slow, limited movement meant you need to study every enemy and boss's patterns to survive, but between the more gimmicky stages of III and Bloodlines, or the more free movement of SCIV, this aspect of the series slowly got watered down a bit over time. That's not necessarily a bad thing, I love those games, but Rondo Of Blood brings back that more deliberate combat. Richter does not have the range of movement that Simon had in SCIV, but he does have some new moves that put an emphasis on evasion. You can moonwalk to keep facing an opponent, jump onto and off of ladders, and do a backflip to quickly dodge away from enemies, so nothing ever feels undodgeable, but you still need to be really careful in every enemy encounter. The level design in Rondo is also fantastic throughout, constantly throwing in neat new setpieces and enemy types while keeping the focus squarely on action platforming. The difficulty curve is so spot-on, it's incredibly well-balanced.
But that's if you're playing Richter. There is an unlockable second character in Rondo Of Blood in Maria Renard, and she is incredible.
Maria Renard is very much the easy mode character, but she may just be the best easy mode in all of gaming. Lacking any of the limitations of your average Belmont in terms of movement, she has a whole different moveset from Richter, including different subweapons. She can double jump, do a multidirectional slide, attack while moving, and she has a smaller hitbox. As you'd expect, this makes Rondo Of Blood a lot easier if you're trying to play it normally, but from a speedrunning perspective, Maria makes the game so much more fun. There are so many cool little shortcuts you can take by using the double jump and slide, and trying to figure out how to blaze through levels as Maria manages to be just engaging as trying to patiently work through levels as Richter. Playing as Maria doesn't feel like cheating, it feels like I'm getting an entirely different experience of equal merit within the same game. It also helps that Maria's cutscenes are fantastic. The sheer surrealness of seeing a cute 12-year old girl taking down Dracula will never not be hysterical, and the jokey ending you get when you beat the game as Maria is absolutely worth it.
Speaking of which, Rondo Of Blood is chock-full of secrets. Seriously, I've played this game a bunch and I feel like I'm still learning new stuff about it. Like with some other Castlevania games, Rondo Of Blood has a bunch of alternate paths and stages, but even the stages that don't have alternate paths still have a whole bunch of hidden rooms and useless side areas (Stage 5's mirror room, anyone?). And once you've beaten every stage, there's a secret, brutal alternate route called Stage 5' that serves as a great test of your skills. Each level is packed to the brim with charming little details that most other classic Castlevania games just don't really have, and I didn't even get into all the other side content like the four maidens you need to rescue (one of which being Maria) and all the purchasable tactics videos showing you how to defeat each boss. The menu clearly lays out everything you need to find, and you can jump in and out of any stage whenever you want, which makes getting 100% an absolute joy.
And if all that extra content still isn't enough for you, if you insert the wrong type of System Card (or enter a cheat code in the Virtual Console version), you will unlock a second game. Akumajo Dracula Peke, where you play as a doofy-looking Richter in a colorful Sonic-esque landscape. Konami did not need to include this, but I'm so glad they did.
As far as the visuals go, I mean come on, this game looks absolutely stunning. Rondo Of Blood uses the PC Engine CD's power to very good use as this is easily one of the most gorgeous games of the 16-bit era. The spritework is so fluid and detailed, the environments and enemies have tons of little intricate animations, and the colors are so bold, even by PC Engine standards. The cutscenes are also so fun, very 90s anime, but they have a lot of charm and the cheesy, upbeat voice acting is just *chef's kiss* perfect. Even the belated English dub released in the mid 2000s still sounds just stilted enough that it could've easily been made in the 90s and I appreciate that so much. As you can probably tell, Rondo Of Blood is a far more upbeat Castlevania game than most other games in the series, but I don't really mind. Castlevania was always a bit of a parody of monster movies and Rondo just leaned into that more, with a sense of fun so infectious it's hard not to get wrapped up in it. Richter is probably my favorite Belmont because of just how much fun it seems he's having in the role. And that soundtrack, holy crap. Rondo Of Blood has one of the greatest video game soundtracks of all time, in my opinion. It's a full hour of pure CD quality redbook audio bliss, with some of the best remixes and original tracks in the series put back-to-back-to-back-to-back. Divine Bloodlines, Vampire Killer, Bloody Tears, Cross A Fear, Slash, Opus 13, need I say more?
I adore Rondo Of Blood, on every level. It's not my favorite Castlevania as there is one other that I think has a bit more going for it mechanically, but that doesn't change the fact that Rondo Of Blood feels like the pinnacle of the series and a near-perfect game on all other fronts. The gameplay, the level design, the difficulty, the boss fights, they are all spot-on, perfectly calibrated. The countless secrets, collectibles, hidden paths, side levels all give Rondo so much extra replay value, and the cheesy 90s-as-hell presentation is so delightful. If any game can be best described as peak gaming, it's this one.
No comments:
Post a Comment