Castlevania: Dracula X (SNES Review)
November 1, 2024 5 Comments
Castlevania: Dracula X
aka Akumajo Dracula XX (Japan)
aka Castlevania: Dracula’s Kiss (Europe)
Platform: Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Released July 21, 1995
Directed by Kouki Yamashita
Developed by Konami
Included in Castlevania Advance Collection
This is the biggest tease of a set-piece, because Dracula X doesn’t have many more. Or any, really. Also, this thing ever shows up again. It’s not a boss or anything. It’s a random slow-speed chase that just ends without any pizazz.
After finishing Dracula X, I found myself staring at my screen, asking myself “did I even have fun with what I just experienced?” TWICE. That by itself is an ominous sign that this isn’t going to be one of the better Castlevanias. I played it for the first time in 2021 and I liked it, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember a thing about it except how awful the final battle with Dracula was and what happened in the above picture. Upon replay, that chase is really the only original set-piece in the entire game. The rest feels like a stripped-down version of Castlevania that runs through all the tropes from the previous four Nintendo games. Of course, this is credited as a “remake” of the PC Engine Super CD-ROM² game Akumajō Dracula X: Chi no Rondo. It’s not. I’m not even sure what the point of this is at all. Probably just being a quick, passionless cash-in before the Nintendo 64 hits, while SNES/Super Famicom owners are still hungry for software. It makes for an interesting review, if nothing else. It poses the question “if the game is made competently, is Castlevania’s core gameplay, all by itself, an automatic YES!?”
It sure looks like it’s going to be a fun time making your way to the Count.
It’s very easy to see why someone would be disappointed in Dracula X. All the innovations from Super Castlevania IV are gone. How gone? Gone, gone. You can’t even throw a sub-weapon with one of the shoulder buttons. You know, that convenience that opened-up the first SNES that was intuitive and comfortable? Well, screw you! That would be too easy, so back good old fashioned holding UP and pressing the attack button if you want to throw a boomerang. That really says it all about Dracula X. It’s a back-to-basics Castlevania game. Except, Dracula’s Curse was way more ambitious than this is. Dracula X’s has three major problems, and the first is that it’s too basic in every meaningful way. The level design is largely unoriginal. The opening stage, with the town burning behind you, feels like a cruel joke because that’s pretty much the end of Drac X and dazzling set-pieces. Everything else is a rehash of previous Castlevania staples run through a filter of blandness.
This screen kind of encompasses the Dracula X experience. Boring versions of themes and settings that have already been done better, only this time the game spams enemies in the most unimaginative way
It’s not like the level design is ever bad, but it just doesn’t do anything. I know the specific part where I asked myself “what the f*ck are they even doing here?” There’s a brief moment where the water starts to rise up slowly and you have to race against it. It’s been done in Castlevania before, but because Dracula X’s version uses two of the handful of last-pixel jumps in the game, it just feels less exciting and more of a glorified gotcha trap. But, even if it were idealized, it wouldn’t matter. It lasts maybe a minute, if that, and the safe-zone is so nondescript that I didn’t even realize I’d reached it. And that’s what broke me. The whole point of that type of design is you’re supposed to have an idea when the coast is clear and breathe out a sigh of relief. Without that, there’s no payoff to the tension you just created. Hell, in Castlevania III, the safety zone is exiting the screen, and it worked perfectly. Here, when I realized I was already safe and had been for a while, it wasn’t triumphant at all. It totally deflated me.
Can you see what got me? Yea, they hid an enemy between the foreground and the plane I’m on. So unimaginative. It’s just a booby trap, not a challenge. If I create a version of The Pit from Mortal Kombat in my house and then throw a rug over it and someone who expects to be able to, you know, walk on a rug falls into it, it makes no sense to scream “GIT GUD!” at them in their final moments of agony before the fade to nothingness eternal. They couldn’t have possibly known it was coming.
Dracula X feels like Castlevania made by someone who doesn’t entirely understand Castlevania OR action gaming beats in general, and that’s almost hard to believe. It’s not like Kouki Yamashita was some schmuck they found. He was one of the programmers of the NES Contra. That’s a pretty big game to have worked on, as far as pedigree goes, but it also tells me he should recognize what makes a good game. Combat alone can’t do it when you’re talking about a sequel, especially if that combat is lifted directly from the previous games. If the combat isn’t evolved, then you have to top previous settings and set-pieces, and Dracula X NEVER comes close. The only other option to topping previous set pieces is “be different” and this feels like a retread of locales and even gameplay segments from previous games, with NOTHING original after the first level.
Oh hey, look, the flying thing that drops the jumping thing.
It’s like the development meetings involved cracking open a Nintendo Power with Castlevania and just taking notes of what needed to go into the new game, without any context of how those previous pieces worked to be more than the sum of their parts. The level design is so bland and safe that it feels like it could be randomly generated by AI for how samey it is. “I guess we’ll split this screen down the middle and you walk to one end, then climb up the stairs and walk back the other way. You know, that thing that was as advanced as Castlevania 1 got? We’ll just redo that over and over, only it’s 16 bits now.” And that’s not an exaggeration. That’s pretty much as complex as the majority of Castlevania: Dracula X gets, and then the challenge is based around “how do you attack the enemies that are above or below you?” Like these pink knights with the spears are probably the most problematic non-bat enemy in the game. They can poke at you from above or below, and they have a means to defend against sub-weapons. A not-insignificant chunk of the level design throughout Dracula X is centered around JUST them.
Dude, Zordon was right. Too much pink energy is dangerous.
The sub-weapons activation isn’t the only back-to-basics aspect. The eight-way whipping is gone, even though this game is much more optimized for eight-way combat. The reason I didn’t think it worked in Castlevania IV was the enemies didn’t really attack from all directions. Eight ways of attacking requires eight ways of danger, because otherwise it allows you to preemptively destroy enemies before they pose a threat. Castlevania IV’s enemy attack patterns and placement, and even the boss fight arenas, only makes sense if you use the traditional “straight in front of you” Castlevania combat. Weirdly, Dracula X actually fits IV’s combat better. Enemies attack from below. Enemies circle around you. Enemies throw projectiles in multiple different angles. My bonkers conspiracy theory for Super Castlevania IV applies to Dracula X, only it’s the opposite: going off the way the game is designed, I could swear that it was meant to have eight-way attacking, only they changed their minds at the last second.
Fixed jumping is back, and I lost multiple lives because the game is counting on you over-jumping just as much as under-jumping. Hell, I was THIS close to dying after beating the last boss because of that phenomena. Dracula X is Castlevania: Dirty Pool Edition.
Forget Rondo of Blood. Dracula X is closer to a remake of the first Castlevania, and I’m not kidding. The combat in Dracula X is as good as any other game in the series. That’s why I think Castlevania: Dracula X proves that the franchise’s combat, historically awesome as it may be, isn’t enough to get you over the finish line by itself. It only works in the first game because of the tempo and amazing set dressing. Dracula X’s sets are boring, and it just never feels fresh. Even when it repeats established set pieces, they feel somehow lesser, even with technically superior graphics. Like, there’s a set-piece that feels almost entirely copied from the original game where you have to jump on a moving platform that carries you over a long stretch of water. It still works in the first game, but it doesn’t here because this is supposed to be a sequel. It doesn’t help that, if you miss the raft, you might have to wait quite a bit for it to return.
Look, the classics are classics for a reason. They work. And this IS one of the more exciting segments in the game. But, it’s kind of cheating, isn’t it? You know it’s exciting because YOU’VE ALREADY DONE IT BEFORE! There’s no twist that makes the Dracula X version stand out from previous versions of this segment. It’s just THE Castlevania raft across the water bit boiled down to its most basic core, then glossed-up with 16-bit graphics.
I could have lived with this mentality of game design if they had just said “screw it” and did for Castlevania what Super Mario All-Stars did for the Mario franchise and just remade the first three games in 16 bits. It probably would have been better received than Dracula X was. But, this is supposed to be a new game, and it just never feels like it. There’s some bits I like. There’s like a single frame of animation where you pull the whip behind you before cracking it, and it can hit things behind you, especially projectiles. Love it! Nice! But it also speaks volumes to how little original substance there is to Dracula X that this stood out.
This leads to the second problem with Dracula X: the challenge is mostly based around gotchas that are trying to one-shot you. It’s not so much the infamous Castlevania knock-back, either. It’s an interception-based style that’s counting on hitting you out of the air and into a pit. Dracula X relies heavily on bats and a few other enemies that don’t spawn until you’re committed to a jump. Your whip really isn’t great in close quarters. Even the candles are problematic from close range, as I found multiple situations on ledges where I couldn’t find the right angle to whip the candle that, by all logic, I could have just reached up and grabbed with my free hand. But, that minor annoyance becomes a major hangup when enemy placement utilizes that on the edges of pits. Dracula X is so devoted to this style of challenge that the final battle with Dracula is based entirely on this concept of going for the mid-jump one-shot knockout. You can survive getting hit if you’re on your feet. The knock-back doesn’t send you that far back (but you also blink a lot less than previous Castlevania games). But, depending on what pillar Dracula is on, you probably have to jump to hit him, since only his head is vulnerable, and any jump puts you at risk of getting knocked back into a pit.
One of the most boring Dracula fights in the entire franchise. It’s not just the concept itself, but the fact that the arena is three or four times larger than the screen, making this a Dracula fight WITH DOWN TIME! Are you kidding me? And it gets even worse, because you only have time to maybe hit him twice per pass, and it barely does any damage when you do. Because the entire arena is constructed out of these pillars above a pit, it forces you to play conservatively. Again, this isn’t meant to be a punch-for-punch fight. He’s rope-a-doping you while looking for the one punch knockout. I really don’t think this is THAT hard a boss. I took damage multiple times and still won the fight. I mean, there’s a health refill in the room with you, not even hidden. It’s in a candle, and it takes all the stakes out of the fight. What were they thinking with this? It just drags.
The one unambiguous improvement is that most of the bosses are tougher than any previous Nintendo Castlevania release, which not only makes them feel like events, but it increases the satisfaction of victory. As much as I love Castlevania, Dracula’s Curse, and Super IV, the non-Dracula bosses in those games feel more like bonuses for making it to the end of the stage. Like, you got to the end, so you get the honor of totally pwning Frankenstein now. (Excuse me, “The Creature”) The fact that Dracula X’s bosses feel like climatic battles is a plus. Even though you have a triple shot built in, bosses are designed around the sub-weapons.
Well, mostly. I beat the final form of Dracula in about five seconds by spamming the Boomerang item crash. It’s basically a bomb that works differently, depending on the item. While they cost a LOT more hearts (the holy water is the only sub-weapon besides the stopwatch that costs more than one heart, at three, and its crash costs 20) the boomerang and holy water crashes are so overpowered that you don’t have to even aim them. Whenever the battle between me and a boss was becoming a little too close for comfort, no problem. I just spammed the bomb. Hearts are plentiful and the only time I came close to running out was when I used the holy water, so I avoided it. I died a lot playing Dracula X, but only once against a boss. It was the Grim Reaper. Speaking of which, here’s Dracula X major problem #3: the game’s too short, and its concept of branching paths is ridiculously stupid.
That’s the key. It appears only once in the entire game, at the end of level three. If you want to fight the Grim Reaper and get the “good ending” you have to not die between the time you pick it up and the time you actually need to use it. Oh, and you need to use it twice. You also can’t swap it for a sub weapon. It IS the sub-weapon, and it looks ridiculous when you use it as such. It has no range and you literally just sort of punch things with it. It even has an immersion-breaking crash attack where you hold the key up to an enemy in a menacing way. It looks like this:
It’ll automatically swap which hand is the hand holding the key, aiming it for you.
So, that’s silly as all hell. Oh, and this also does the most damage in all of Dracula X, BY FAR, at no cost to your hearts. It’s four-and-a-half times more powerful than a whip crack. F*cking outstanding, gang. It’s like a satire of a Castlevania game at this point. Now, to get the good ending, you have to use the key on normal Castlevania doors, which only appear twice in the entire game. Both are in level four, and the first is done to unlock Maria. Oh you don’t get to play as her like you do in Rondo of Blood. She’s just there. Then, you have to unlock a second door which (checks notes) skips the 4th boss that’s literally in the next room and takes you to a different version of stage 5. Are you kidding me? Bosses are why I love playing Castlevania, and you want me to skip one?
After this, the key vanishes from your inventory. I thought I’d done what I needed to get the Grim Reaper fight, because if you don’t do this part, you instead fight Carmilla. Except, Carmilla in this game looks like the Grim Reaper. I mean, look at it!
Except, I’ve played Dracula X before and I remembered the Grim Reaper fight being different. Well, that’s because I followed a walk-through last time, and I missed one other step. And this is where Dracula X lost me. After getting Maria and going through the door, you also have to rescue Annet, and the way that you do it is completely arbitrary in every way, and it’s all without any clue that this is a thing you need to do. When you rescue Maria, she doesn’t provide a hint that you’re still looking for something hidden. “Annet is trapped in another place.” That’s it. That’s all you get. The location where you activate this final element to get the good ending is arbitrary. The method of getting it is arbitrary. You have to whip a water spout in the final room before the water dragon (Update: wrong Cathy! There’s one section left before the water dragon. In fact, it’s where the ghosts are hidden by the foreground from the picture earlier in this review, you dolt), after the room where the water rises. There’s nothing like this before you get to this point except free lives in walls. But, besides a platform that doesn’t need to be there, the game doesn’t provide you with a clue. I suppose TECHNICALLY you can see that there’s platforms flooded underneath you, but you were just in a room that flooded. It felt like set dressing.
Come to think of it, wouldn’t she have drowned? That room was just underwater like a few seconds earlier. Whether she should be waterlogged or not, I would be totally down for this type of game design if the whole game was built around secrets like this. But it’s not. It’s a disjointed series of tasks that feel tacked-on as a last second thought. And ultimately, the game isn’t better for the branching paths. It sure isn’t elegantly handled, like how the branching paths in Dracula’s Curse are secretly and precisely scaled to three different difficulties, depending on the path you take. I honestly think the “good ending” bosses were easier. Right before I finished this review, I went back and took the bad ending path, where you have to fight the minotaur and a werewolf instead of nothing and a sea dragon, and I came a lot closer to dying against the werewolf in the “bad ending” level 5 than than I did against the sea dragon in the “good/best ending” level 5.
The strangest part of the “bad ending” path is the werewolf fight feels very similar to the Grim Reaper fight you wouldn’t get taking this path. Both take a lot of hits and alternate between big slashing attacks and a spinning, diving attack that makes them look like Sonic The Hedgehog.
This whole branching paths fiasco is a microcosm of Dracula X. It’s the arbitrary Castlevania. It brings nothing to the table except more of the same, only this time, it legitimately is tough. But, not tough in a fighting type of way. Its difficulty comes down to trial and error. I loved Castlevania 1 and 3 because it felt like I could react to the challenge instead of being caught off guard by it and having to memorize where the unforeseen death element is going to spawn when I’m mid-air. When Dracula X is about reactive combat, it’s fine, I guess. I mean, it’s nothing new and the same gameplay had already been done better and, dare I say, looked better in 8 bits. But when Dracula X shows you its teeth, you’re usually already dead. I’ve never liked games that are like that, and you know what? I don’t like Dracula X. If you want back-to-basics Castlevania, stick with the NES. Dracula X is competent, redundant, and boring.
Verdict: NO!
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