Dracula x is a port of the pc engine game rondo of blood to the SNES, released a while after and while it has some fairly major differences, it is just an alt take on that game with some of the same levels and music, but with a lot of what i'm told makes that game so good removed and with a boatload of added issues and the most absurd difficulty in maybe even the whole series, going so far as to make it i think one of the hardest games I've ever played, it's not a bad game, but its also one i can't fully say i like, it has its good points and for the right person this could for sure be a great game, but that person is very much not me, i don't like this one very much, it's my least favourite game in the series so far and its a shame because i really wanted to like it!

so why is this just not that great, for a start the game just controls pretty poorly, it feels stiffer than any other CV I've played and it makes it very difficult to control, the jump feels stiffer, i found myself missing jumps here far more since the jump distance is i think higher, or at least thats how it felt to me, thank god for the rewind feature or i never would have been able to beat this. the whip is so hard to hit things with and even the subweapons feel difficult to use, even the boomerang which has always felt like a lifesaver can be very hard to hit things with sometimes. they all feel so underpowered and things like the clock and holy water are hit the worst of it, the latter feeling downright useless with how many it takes to kill things like the spear enemies, something it should be perfect for taking out, it makes the game feel very frustrating to play and thats before the game even really starts to get difficult. the difficulty is its other big issue, it's the hardest CV game so far for me and one of the hardest games I've ever played and it really does ruin it, the game doesn't really give you i-frames so you can end up getting hit and killed in seconds even from weak enemies, no matter things like bosses or the AWFUL spear guys who almost had me quitting on their own, add to this things like your usual death pits, one of the hardest and i think worst end bosses ever and the even harder to hit madusa heads? yeah i did not enjoy actually playing this almost at all. the stages can be pretty cool though at least, there's some decent variety and even some variations depending on what you do, like 2 alternate stages, plus different endings, for if you save richters family, the alternate caverns is a pretty bad level but the water level after it is the best level in the whole game, so i would recommend trying for it, the games levels are hit and miss though despite being varied, the later indoor castle one is very bad, just bland and full of the games worst enemies though the earlier castle level is pretty good and colourful, the caves are fine but nothing amazing, the first stage with the burning city is very good and almost makes the game seem like it'll be better than it is, though even here the game shows its teeth with the overbearing difficulty.

the story is seemingly much less of a focus than it was in the pcengine version, it's missing here unless you save the family and even then its basically 3 or 4 cutscenes total, versus the pcengine game that has full anime scenes, though its a limitation i can understand, a bit more dialogue would have been nice though. but its not all bad, the game has one of the best OST's in the entire series, like seriously, every remix here is gold and the OST is more than worth checking out on its own, it has some of the best renditions of series classic songs and many rondo favourites like bloodlines which has a really good baseline to it and may honestly be one of the systems best songs or this games rendition of vampire killer which has some cool echoy sounds on it and sounds a lil spooky, there's the amazing version of bloody tears and the music in the water level is also really good, probably the other standout track beyond bloodlines, opus 13 is also really good, it sounds weirdly megadrive'y though, the stage 6 theme is also really good. the composer team is pretty great, with people like Masanari Iwata who worked on snes parodies, the adventures of batman and robin and some international superstar soccer games. Masahiko Kimura who worked on things like spectrobes, suikoden 4, the n64 castlevanias and rakugakids. Harumi Ueko who has worked on games like gradius 3 and 4, lethal enforcers, and the silent scope series. lastly there's Tomoya Tomita who has worked on castlevania 64, SD snatcher, metal gear 2, pop'n'twinee, circle of the moon and kirbys epic yarn, a very solid composer list overall.

thankfully its mercifully short, only about an hour, an hour and a half if you redo it for the alternate stages (or cheat with passwords) though if you try and beat it legit without cheating this could last you a few days, maybe even a week, its that hard. for ports you have a few options, there was the original American version called Dracula x, the cooler euro version called vampires kiss and some VC ports later on, but the way to go is to play the version released on the advanced collection, this has save states and rewinds that makes the game beatable for most people, its a real lifesaver, it even has things like trophies and is MUCH cheaper than buying one of the older ports, which are all rare and expensive physically. the game was directed by Kouki Yamashita, who had worked on games like contra, snakes revenge, castlevania legends and TMNT, with his last game being an ESPN title for the GBA in 2001, he also directed a Gameboy goemon game! this would end up being one of the last classic vania games released, with only things like legends and some remakes coming after, which is a shame, i'm not the biggest fan of this style but it for sure has its place alongside the cooler 3D and rpg titles and it would have been cool to see it evolve alongside those, maybe someday fans can get more real classic CV games to show where it can go.