Customer Reviews

Castlevania Chronicles

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Long ago in Japan there was a person computer system called X68ooo, it had a title called Akumajou Dracula. Now after a decade Konami has rereased it. Playing as Simon Belmont of the Belmont clan you must stop Dracula. It contains the original NES Castlevania with improved graphics, better music, selectable difficulty level and a new Arrange mode. With some original Castlevania in it most of this game is actually quite new. For example: The werewolf atop the clock tower in Level 5 tears the numbers off of the giant clock face and throws them at you, and when they are gone, tears off a clock hand and attacks you with that! In Level 7, you travel through a truly bizarre hall of possessed paintings.This variety in this game makes it fun and less monotonous. Furthermore, after beating Arrange Mode, you gain access to Time Attack, in which you select a level, and try to beat it as quickly as possible.
Though there are some problems in this game like, music skipping in levels for up to 5 times, perhaps one of the biggest problems is the difficulty of this game. This game is for true Castlevania vets and shouldn't be taken lightly. Even tho

The main issue people take with Castlevania Chronicles is that it's "old." Well, it's actually the newest CD-ROM format Castlevania game to date besides the Castlevania and Contra collection. Har har, very funny. Despite the new packaging, though, it is indeed a game released in 1993 for a system that very few people outside of Japan own, the Sharp x68000 series computer. It is not just any old game, though: it is generally acknowledged by gamers inside Japan as "Game of the Year" for that system.

There are two basic modes for the game: Original and Advanced (nevermind that an interview with the developer, Igarashi, is included here in the US and European PAL version but not in the Japanese release from a short while before ours).

Original is just what you expected it to be (until I change gears, assume I'm talking only about Original mode). The game plays just as it did on the original system, with the same graphics, three different MIDI soundtracks (each with their own, uh, style) and the same incredibly challenging difficulty. The difficulty in Original mode approaches or even surpasses that of Super Ghouls n' Ghosts...I haven't gotten past level 5 in the original game without some serious use of, ahem, some serious savestates. On the plus side, the game saves after each level so you don't have to go over it again.

These graphics are extremely good for the era. The Sharp x68000 series had arcade-perfect translations of many classic arcade games from Alien Syndrome to Strider and beyond, so if you're a fan of that era's graphics you should certainly at least look up some screenshots. There is a good deal of original music here--a really funky remix of Castlevania's Stage 1 music (Vampire Killer) follows the great intro cutscene, "Something Loopy" as a great name entry tune, and then the new stuff. Completely new compositions mixed in with older tunes are found here: we see "Thrashard In the Cave" [seen as it was originally spelt, crazy people], a really moody piece, "Creatures in the Depth" for boss music, "Tower of Gears," "Moon Fight," "The Tower of Dolls," and "Etude for the Killer" are seen for the first time. It's not every day you get to see "Wiched Child" [again, sic] in the sound test, but be assured this is an excellent and moody rendition of the song.

Now Arranged Mode improves dramatically on the music for the most part at the cost of introducing a lot of "noise." There is now an increased use of reverb and true instruments, but here we also see some excessive use of twinkly little sounds and other musical tomfoolery as well. The "noise" and sometimes overbearingly dramatic style of the remixes may drive you off at first. Overall, it's a lot less pleasant on the ears than the original MIDI music, but regardless of volume shifts you may get used to it.

Make sure you get to the last level in Arrange mode, though! The final boss music is among the best reworking of an original Castlevania score seen yet. Getting there shouldn't be too hard either, thanks to the improved difficulty level and different difficulty levels.

There ARE a couple dramatic reworkings of the game's design, however:

The original game had a brown-shaded Simon in keeping with the visual style of the original game's, and Dracula looked right out of an old 1930's Universal picture. In THIS game, these character designs have been reworked by Castlevania's current character artist, Ayami Kojima--a bit too serious and odd looking for my taste, especially with Simon's apparently pink hair ingame (the cover art shows him with very red hair, as you see here in the game's icon--before he bleached it, apparently).

Also, the original game was played on a square screen. When this is emulated, people seem to try to stretch it out to a rectangle--rather fat looking characters result. From the screenshots I've seen of Chronicles, this same problem is evident.

That said, Chronicles originally was a steal. If you're into collecting, be assured that this game will eventually command high prices thanks to the limited run. If you just want to play one of the last old-school Castlevania games, I can't think of a better place to look. Yes, even with LoI out, I still say that.

Unless you have been a fan of the Castlevania series since the first release on the original NES, you may be disappointed with Castlevania Chronicles. The gameplay and graphics are quite primitive compared to today's 2D games (so don't expect anything nearly as spectacular as in Castlevania SOTN)...but perhaps it was intended to be that way. Castlevania Chronicles is basically a remake of the first Castlevania, with remixed music and slightly updated graphics and gameplay. It was clearly intended to be for long time fans of the series, so younger game players may be confused by the lack of graphical quality. My only major gripe is that I think since Konami bothered to go back and alter this version, they should have at least included the ability to whip in all eight directions (via Castlevania 4 for SNES). Hardcore Castlevania fans should love this one regardless of it's short-comings though, because in the end the entire presentation is pure "old school" and packed with nostalgia. If you can't get enough of Castlevania, Chronicles is certainly worth picking up. Hopefully Konami will release a true sequel to the series soon.

I'm a huge fan of the Castlevania series. I've been playing since the days of regular nintendo. Now, with Castlevania Chronicles some a new, awesome addition to the series. Never before released in America, comes a game that every fan of the series will love. Get ready for a wild ride back to Drac's Lair.

You play as Simon Belmont, on a quest to stop Drac. There are 8 levels in the game, each having 3 stages. You have a whip, and a sub weapon that you pick up, and you alone face the evil of Castlevania. What are you Waiting for?

The game is good ol' sidescrolling action. The control is quick and responsive, and the action is intense. It's so much fun. The only problem with it is it's shortness. The levels go by fast, depending on how good you are at it. It's a tough game. Still, once you finnish it, you'll go back again, as the castle beckons you to.

You have no excuse not to buy this game, It simply Rocks!

Does any name in gaming quite conjure the same sense of gothic action platforming the way that of Castlevania does? From the NES to the Playstation, no multiplatform series has carried over quite so well, with such consistent quality. Even the lesser titles in the series, such as Dracula X on the SNES and the Game Boy Castlevania Adventures and Legends, are well ahead of similar titles in the genre. Castlevania Chronicles brings one of two Castlevania games to never see release on these shores, in this case Akumajo Dracula, a Japanese X68000 PC game (similar to US Macs, Atari ST's & Amigas of the time thanks to the Motorola 68000 under the hood), to the US for the first time, via Sony's Playstation. While there's a valid point that this was the lesser of the two, the other being the amazingly good Dracula X: The Rondo of Blood, a Japanese PC Engine CD/Turbo Duo game, there's no question that it's a more than welcome release to anyone that considers themselves to be even a casual Castlevania fan. The great thing, particularly for those of us that were weaned on the original Castlevania on the 8-bit NES, is that Akumajo Dracula, the game at the heart of Castlevania Chronicles, is in essence, a remake of the original Castlevania. You'll recognize the stages and most of the bosses, the weapons are the expected fare and the music, updated versions of what you've been listening to for years, and in the end, it's a welcome trip down a better-looking memory lane.

Graphics: Castlevania Chronicles' visuals aren't really bad, they're just dated. This is an 8 year old game, and it shows. While the Arrange mode does offer a few updated visuals (new sprites for Simon & Dracula by Ayami Kojima (SOTN), better 'lighting,' etc.), by-in-large, much of what you see is exactly what was there in the original X68000 version. While I would expect this from the original mode, I expected more from the Arrange setup. While the new character sprites are decent, it's not even close to SotN's masterful animation. Graphically speaking, it's definitely no SotN, but then again, it wasn't supposed to be. It's just a shame that more effort wasn't put into the Arrange mode, something that utilized a bit of what the aging Playstation hardware is capable of producing, as in many ways, the graphics are actually inferior to the SNES Castlevania games, particularly IV, and lack the flair that made Rondo of Blood on the PCE so captivating...

Sound: As is expected, Castlevania Chronicles' soundtrack is your usual series fare, which means for the uninitiated, that it's very, very good. The Arrange mode has a completely remixed soundtrack, so all your favorites (Bloody Tears for instance) are here, and in fine fashion. The one minor gripe is the fact that some of the music hardware options of the original mode have been taken out, meaning that there's only one selection available. While this is not a particularly big deal, I have always been of the opinion that the more options you have, the better, especially when all of these sound options can be emulated on the Playstation. Fortunately, all you need do is press L1 + R1 immediately after beginning in order to activate the sound option in either original or Arrange mode, so it's really a non-issue. Hmmm...maybe Konami can put the Minibosses' hard-rocking version of the Castlevania theme in the next one ;)

Gameplay: As usual in the series, Castlevania Chronicles' (or really Akumajo Dracula's) is a shining example of simplicity in game design that works every time. While there are a few areas that subsequent gameplay additions are truly missed (not being able to jump onto stairs, multidirectional whipping while standing still or jumping and separate buttons to control the special weapon), this is still the same Castlevania you've grown to love. Considering the game's pedigree, particularly its links to the original Castlevania, this is actually a throwback of sorts, so it really does not hurt the game at all. As is typical of most Castlevania titles (aside from SOTN, CotM, Simon's Quest and the...ahem...N64 wanna-be's), gameplay is very linear. Basically you have 8 levels, each with multiple 'stages' (the areas between the doors), and at the end, a level boss/guardian. The control is spot-on, and unlike some games, you can actually change direction while jumping. Actions consist of jumping, whipping and using special weapons (all the good ones are hear too). Limited? Sure. Fun? Absolutely. You might not have much incentive to play it through again for a while, thanks to things being so linear (if you've beat it once, you've beat it a hundred times...the exact same way), but while you do, it's a great ride. The only bump in the road is that the game is fairly hard. While that won't be a surprise to anyone who's whipped their way through Castlevania & Castlevania III, it might be a bit much for some of the more casually-inclined.

Theme: I could go into it again, but what's left to be said? Few games have provided more memories over the years than Castlevania, and frankly, I think that's due to the fact that its subject matter is something most gamers are already intimately associated with, and that's the horror movie. Dracula is a character ingrained into the American culture repeatedly over the course of the 20th century, in many shapes and forms. Movies, comic books, video games, he's everywhere. What Konami did was take a great game premise, and then throw in many of the classic monsters & myths we've come to love, recreating them in a way that no one had seen before. Add a larger-than-life hero in Simon Belmont, by all intents just a solitary, normal man standing against the odds, against the Prince of Darkness, with nothing more than his trusty whip, blessed items & a long-standing family history fighting the evil, and there you have it, all in a decidedly Japanese take. Castlevania Chronicles, as a remake of the original Castlevania, effectively takes you back to where it all began, to that very first quest, deep into the bowels of Castle Dracula.

Overall: Truth be told, there are better Playstation games to be had, and much better Castlevania games out there on several systems. Of course, that isn't why you've read this far into the review, you know these things. For what it is, Castlevania Chronicles does the job, and for the relatively low price-tag, it's well worth the meager price of admission. For all the Castlevania fans who have ever heard the name 'Akumajo Dracula' uttered in hushed tones, tried to get the ROM running on an X68000 emulator (more than likely to no avail), or overbid on a copy at eBay, this one's for you, and while Dracula X: Rondo of Blood would have been a better choice (my theory is that it's next to come), Chronicles offers more than enough challenge for those who believed the original game to be too easy. Chronicles is a refreshing look back into a series that has evolved into something much more in recent years, and in looking back, you see just how far Konami has taken the concept, as well as realize, that Castlevania games age gracefully.

The first Castlevania game I ever played was IV on the SNES back in 1992. I became a fan and even went as far as buying an old NES to just play the first three. As fun as the new Castlevania LOS and the 3D PS2 releases are, I'll always have a special affinity for the retro 2D classics.
Castlevania Chronicles takes elements from I, III, and IV to present entertaining, albeit slightly outdated, gameplay, graphics and sound. I say outdated considering Castlevania IV came out in 1991 on the SNES with Simon able to whip in 8 directions and swing over chasms along with some very creative levels which utilized the SNES' scaling FX chip. Chronicles came out two years later in 1993, yet Simon can only whip in 5 directions (horizontal, down-horizontal, and straight down) and there is no swinging ability. The graphics also took a step backwards, yet nothing too drastic. Even with enhanced graphics via the arranged mode, IV looks and plays better. I figure it's due to Chronicles originally being released on a system that did not have the same capabilities as the SNES, so the discrepancies are forgivable. It's just too bad the Konami didn't beef it up with more than just a few improvements in the graphics and music for the PSX release in 2001.
Still, this game should be a part of every Castlevania fan's library, if not of every retro gamer's. The graphics are not too much of an eyesore, the music is great, and the gameplay is fantastically fun. There is a great variety of enemies to battle and the levels have that classic Castlevania creativity. I've read some reviews that it is a more difficult game. But if you're a Castlevania vet, it's nothing you can't handle. Even in hard mode, I'd say it has about the same difficulty as Dracula X.

This game is the orginal Castlevania released in Japan only until now. Rare and out of print, this edition bring to light the inspiration for the old 8-bit NES classic that we all grew to love. Anyone who doesn't see this is too young to know that Castlevania and probably has no respect for that old 2-D game. Anyone who loved it or grew up playing it will find the orginal Japanese and even the UPdated Arranged Mode (there are 2 versions on the CD) refreshing. You get the oringal with all the orginal aspects and the updated with breathtaking opening and closing movies. A true Gem for the Belmont in every True Castlevania fan. Everyone else step aside and let the true gamers of the old school enjoy something grand.

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I have been a castlevania chronicals fan from the beginning and I was very disappointed by this game. Past games - even on sega genesis - were better looking and more difficult to play. I was surprised that they would release a game these days which was such a poor quality of graphics and design. It looks more like a mock up of idea's for the castlevania SOTN rather than it's own game. Dont waste time with this one.