Konami’s Castlevania series has a storied history dating back to the 8-bit era of video gaming, with its inaugural entry on the Nintendo Entertainment System establishing it as a side-scrolling action series focusing on the Belmont family of demon hunters focused on preventing Bram Stoker’s iconic vampire Count Dracula from wreaking havoc upon the world. The first entry proved successful to the point where they turned it into a franchise, with occasional variations of the formula along the way, especially early on with the first sequel Simon’s Quest, which bore elements that would influence the Metroidvania iterations of the series such as Symphony of the Night. Serving as a narrative predecessor to that entry was the traditional action title Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, not seeing an official English release until well over a decade later. Has it stood the test of time?
In 1792, the forces of darkness have resurrected Count Dracula yet again, with Richter, the current heir of the Belmont Clan, seeking to rescue his love Annette from the vampire’s clutches, along with a few others along the way such as the preteen Maria Renard, who can potentially become playable like the vampire slayer. The introductory cutscene, narrated in German, is cool, but developing scenes throughout the game are scarce, and the plot follows the typical “damsel in distress” cliché and the franchise’s “kill Dracula” goal, and essentially, once you’ve experienced one series entry’s plot, you’ve pretty much seen them all.
Given that the game’s scarce narrative reflects the fact that it originally released in 1993, the game itself plays as such, especially one originating in Japan. Richter’s whip has good attack range, although he can only lash it leftward or rightward, a step down from Super Castlevania where players could execute attacks in all eight cardinal directions. Consequentially, combat can be frustrating, especially in the case of small or flying enemies (or adversaries falling into both categories), their unpredictable offensive patterns not helping matters. Whenever Richter so much as contacts an enemy or a projectile, he receives damage, and can only take so much before he dies and the player needs to restart from a stage’s checkpoint, the degree of repetition in that case varying wildly.
In Rondo of Blood, players can expect to die a lot, with cheapness aplenty in the form of bottomless pits that lead to instant death, compounded by significant knockback whenever Richter takes damage, not to mention a mostly uncontrollable jumping and falling arc whenever the player has him leap into the air while moving. Upon death, the player loses one of four lives, after which the game brings Richter back to the beginning of the stage or last checkpoint (which go unindicated), amounting in significant repetition. Lose all lives, and players have the distinct honor of having to restart the stage they died in entirely.
Luckily, players can record their progress upon dying up to the stage they died in, and while there is also a quick-save feature, quitting and reloading it takes them back to the beginning of whatever checkpoint they crossed. Another system is the Item Crash, where Richter can find a variety of sub-tools throughout the stages such as throwing daggers, hurling an axe into the air, throwing a flaming potion onto the ground, and so forth, which consume a few hearts he can collect throughout each level, and carry one at a time. Dying loses him all hearts and the sub-tool he had upon death, further augmenting the myriad frustrations throughout the game. An additional move I discovered unintentionally is Richter’s ability to backflip with two presses of the jump button, though this barely helped me in my partial playthrough.
In general, the game mechanics are incredibly unfriendly towards novice players, with no way whatsoever to soften the difficulty except for cheating (which is pretty much impossible) and using an online guide would hardly dent Rondo. The enemy AI also involves heavy randomization in some cases (like a floating sword enemy surrounded by endless weapons, which can be easy or hard to kill depending upon whether it floats upward or downward), and even if you know how to defeat certain foes, putting any kind of strategy into play can still be incredibly difficult. In the end, this Classicvania still plays like a Japanese action game originally released back in 1993, given the endless degree of classic gameplay kusottare.
Apart from the mentioned quick-save feature (which is half-hearted) and ability to pause, control is really nothing to write home about, given things such as the inability to backtrack in levels (since there are occasional hidden things such as recovery items), alongside unskippable sequences before boss battles and the degree of repetition in the case of dying and/or getting a Game Over.
The soundtrack, though, is passable, given the rocky tracks in each stage and superb instrumentation, although there are indicators of primitive sound in cases such as the death and Game Over jingles (which you can expect to hear dozens of times), and sound can’t compensate for an overall lackluster gameplay experience.
The visuals also look good on the surface, with the rare anime cutscene, with well-proportioned character sprites and their respective animation, a choice of wallpaper around the game screen (since Rondo wasn’t originally made widescreen), although there are many palette swaps among the enemies, and the need to pay attention to dozens of things at once during gameplay doesn’t really aid the visual aspect, either.
Completing the game, if humanely possible, would probably take somewhere around twelve hours or so at the least, with much of the time consisting of endless repeats of the various stages, and while the potential alternate paths in each level, which can lead to acquiring a secondary playable character, would theoretically add lasting appeal, there would be little to no joy in investing any more precious time into such a masochistic experience.
Overall, Rondo of Blood is a disappointing experience, especially due to its unaccommodating difficulty, the maddening degree of repetition, the paper-thin narrative, and the artificial longevity that occurs due to said level of challenge. The game does have decent sound and sight, although those can’t atone for the countless gameplay foibles, and it very much plays like a Japanese action game originally released in 1993. This Classicvania is a relic of video games past, and those interested in the franchise would be far better off investing their precious gaming time into the contemporary Metroidvania entries, including its vastly superior direct narrative sequel Symphony of the Night.
This deep look is based on a playthrough of a copy digitally downloaded by the reviewer to his PlayStation 4 up to the fifth main stage of the game.