We get greeted by a nice shot of the Konami logo emerging from the ground. I've just came from the Xbox 360 version meaning some of this will be rather new to me.
Here is the game in question. This game can't decide what its logo looks like.
As you can see here I've done quite a few crash tests with the game to make sure everything is fit for let's playing. The top files were me experimenting with saves from GameFAQs.
I know you can muck about with your name so you can get particular stats, but here I'll keep it simple and call myself Lemon.
Yeah, this is meant to be a sequel to Rondo of Blood. I never played the game because I don't understand Japanese, there is a PSP version but I'm not buying the console just for that, and the SNES version kinda sucks from what I've heard.
Somewhere in Romania.
OH SHIT! I don't remember this in the Xbox 360 version. You may laugh now but this was 1997 where stuff like this was the sauce. They also managed to choose some cool close-up shots and the panning is well done here. I won't be talking like this for the rest of the game, don't worry.
I also don't remember these in the Xbox 360 version. At least they aren't too long though.
I'm not going to get too comfy here considering how we only play as Richter for only one bit. Although you can play as him in some versions after you've beaten the game.
Richter plays like how the Belmonts do in the first 4, although he can do a little dash. I won't grab this Cross over there because you can get the Holy Water, a much better weapon, on the upcoming boss.
Oh God, this is it. One of the most unintentionally funny moments in video games, although not as laugh out loud funny as Mega Man 8. Now that I've mentioned that, you'll know the punchline of this.
Richters voice actor, Scott McCulloch, sounds like he's trying to be like a generic protagonist, only worse. The choice of lines are hardly the best when facing Count fucking Dracula, and do does he have to deliver the lines in such a bored way?
If McCulloch sounds bored, Michael G. is too hammy. I swear he sounds like he's yelling all his lines as though he has a grudge on the staff. He growls "It's not by my hand" as though he's reluctant to be recording the lines and the staff were harassing him.
The text says "humans", not "hoominss".
Richter tries to reason with Dracula, badly.
This is the probably the lamest Shut Up, Hannibal ever: he sounds like he's delivering the line as though it's trying to be heartfelt and meant to be showing how much hate he has for him. It just sounds a generic high school drama student suffering from stage fright.
This is probably the most infamous part because of how cheesy the voice delivery is and how the lame these upcoming lines are.
See what I mean? Who talks like this in real life? Shame my fingers weren't fast enough to capture the wine glass smashing, which happens to be a very cliched way for a villain to try and look tough, I seem to think that a game called I Wanna Be the Guy had some fun with said wine glass.
This was why the Holy Water was the better power up because of the all powerful "Hydro Storm"; this move quickly reduces his health to almost nothing.
After a few whip swings; Dracula is now ready to reveal his second form, like he does in most Castlevania games.
Now who's being a miserable little pile of secrets?
Since I have the MP to spare, I may as well fire another Hydro Storm. Dracula will survive this one a bit better than he did in his first form, although it's still nothing too difficult. If you die; Maria will come and give some animal powers to finish him off, she appears to be the dogsbody of ROB.
Dracula screams in defeat and how "it cannot be", like a cliched villain. I would take this seriously had he not said "it cannot be" as though he never suffered any wounds and more like he lost a game of cards.
Here is the generic Star Wars-esque crawler. Pay attention to the name Shaft; it will be important later on in the game's so called plot.
I sure hope that Richter didn't get brainwashed or some shit like that.
This must mean things are pretty bad then.
I would take this guy seriously if he didn't such a lazy name as "Alucard".
At least Alucard tries to take action rather than brood about his problems like other pretty men do in video games.
I think I have a sporting chance of standing victorious.
They forgot the "Symphony of the Night", although the shot looks cool.
The generic dark and (hydro) stormy night, although I didn't capture the lightning flashes.
Suddenly Alucard! The reason why there are multiples of him is because of how his dash animation works. Better than the Belmont stride from the earlier games.
I wonder what would've happened had he been too late?
Let's start some action and fighting! But first, let's learn some spells.
We don't have the items to use some specific ones, nor the MP to use Soul Steal.
DARK METAMORPHOSIS! This drains the health of foes who bleed. Quite situational.
Tetra Spirit! A move which send multiple...things to attack foes. Useful when faced with multiple enemies.
Hellfire! Is a move which spurts fireballs in a linear direction. Its a mixed bag because how you can't fire in multiple directions but you get a little shield when using it which could be useful when faced with a marrage of enemies. Also, Disney joke goes here.
Summon Spirit is exactly what it says on the tin. Its generally an inferior Tetra Spirit but costs less MP.
These are all the spells which I can learn currently. I'll come back this once my MP goes to 50.
And here we are, the castle entrance. Its currently deserted and no music is here to accompany us.
At least there are some enemies here for me to slash for now. Don't let the wolf's size fool you; bigger enemies will be easy to kill and the little enemies are pests.
OH SHIT! The castle is now lighting up and looks stunning, yet intimidating at the same time, zombies start appearing in masses, and a very badass song starts playing in the background. I love this song so much; every part of it's epic, it gives a feeling that your adventure has begun and you have really powerful weapons to back you back, meaning everything would seem like a piece of cake. Plenty of the remixes for this song also kick ass: one is in the game's soundtrack as a bonus song.
Zombies aren't too hard to deal with despite they're quite fast and can easily respawn.
Some areas of the castle are only accessible once we have better power-ups, such as the ability to fly to get to the ceiling up there.
Bats are some of those annoying enemies which are small and can easily camouflage with the black backgrounds of the castle. I might want to be at least Level 5 or 6 for the impending boss battle.
Oh great, these mermen seemed to be at quite a high pedigree at this point of the game. No wonder I got a level up. Also, thank goodness this was the Playstation meaning they were allowed to have blood and say religion, even if it's used in such an embarrassing scene.
Pot roasts are always useful, but how are they edible if they're hidden in debris. I mainly like to use these if I'm up against a tricky boss.
This corridor is a near carbon copy of the one earlier, only without the red curtains. The Turkey is always nice though.
Death decides to show up and ruin my fun, what a dick! Dennis Falt gives one of the better performances in the game as Death, although he also acts another character in the game who sounds horrid.
Robert Belgrade delivers what is probably the best performance in this game. Even then some of the lines that he's given are humiliating. Some of the lines in this scene though make him sound cool.
At least Death knows that the characters have a hard time saying "humans" so he decides to just call them "mortals" for now. Death also knows that asking Alucard to come to his side would simply get him a cheesy "I'll never join you!"
I would ask or what, but this is the Grim Reaper we're talking about right?
Alucard keeps his cool even when faced with a force such as a man called Death!
Instead of killing me on the spot, Death decides to just steal my best weapons. Then again Dracula would be pissed had he done something bad to his son.
I believe people have had some some success with a "naked" Alucard. And yes I mean no equipment on him, not something for the Dracula X Alucard shippers to get hard over.
I won't even get used to using my fists as a weapon considering how I'll be getting a Short Sword pretty soon. I'm very grateful for how you can control your jump in mid-air, unlike the Belmonts in the original games.
Without the Soul of Bat, I'll need to time my jump pretty well to get to the ledge below.
This may take a few tries but it shouldn't be too hard, I like to hold left on my D-pad to try and get the best success. I suppose the Heart max up was nice for when I start using weapons.
Like I said earlier, we'd get the Short Sword not long after we're stripped. This is going on Alucard straight away.
Save points are a blessing in these types of games, especially how they fully heal your health. Expect me to use them quite a lot.
Here is our first relic in the game, the Cube of Zoe. This will allow us to collect hearts and weapons from the candles, basically a necessity when going through the game.
These are meant to be gateways linking one area to the other. This would mean that the awesome song has to end here.
This is the Alchemy Laboratory, a place where the gimmick appears to be that items are usually contained in tables containing test tubes. The song here is also pretty cool; it likes to shuffle from fitting a diabolic lab to just a song you can dance to, it's called the "Dance of Gold" for a reason after all.
This is also the points of the game when our equipment choices start building up. Usually I don't use shields without the Shield Rod in the game due to how situational they are; but at the earlier points they serve me pretty well.
I was expecting us to be acquainted with money at some point in the game, too bad I rarely use the stuff. Shop bought items in these kinds of games suck, period.
Other gimmicks in this area include Blood Skeletons, which are like Dry Bones from the Mario games, and these switches that bring down the spikes that get in your way.
The inlet to the right contained a save point; this will be the last time I show off any trips to them. I just wanted to show this one to show the "Overwrite data" screen.
This next room will be our first time with weapons like these; just too bad we have to start out with the crummy knife. Sure it has good reload but it's so weak and can only fire in one direction.
This room of the lab is our first time we can open some secret areas which will give us some goodies and more map completion. The bottom image shown our first Health Max item. These are very handy if you're miles away from a save point. And having more HP is never a bad thing.
These kinds of enemies, Spittle Bones, are very annoying at this point of the game. Why? Because they have really good evasion and can poison you. Poison isn't an annoying status, it just lowers your power for a bit. Although the level up was nice.
This enemy here took a bit longer due to how I was poisoned. Don't worry, it goes after a little while.
Aw man, how am I going to get to that ledge on the right?
By thinking outside of the box obviously.
And that little detour will lead us to a Cloth Cape, it will for now at least.
I'll congratulate you if you never got poisoned when making your way through these ledges.
I would be grateful for the Save Point had it actually cure the poison.
The axe is the much more useful weapon than the knife any day, particularly on the upcoming boss fight.
I'll be back!
I'll be grinding to Level 5 on these enemies here, because there are two of them in this room which will give 20 Exp altogether. Meaning I can just go back in and out of the room to kill them each time. Being at Level 5 will allow me to at least face up against the Level 6 boss.
That only took me a couple of minutes, now let's go and fight that boss.
You can tell that this is the boss' room because of how it locks us in.
Meet Slogra and Gaibon, accompanied with a boss theme that really fits the mood.
The main reason why I level grinded was so I could have an advantage against the rest of the game. This boss is very easy once you know what to do: you hit Slogra in order for Gaibon to carry him, you can then use this opportunity to smack the pair of them, it will then be a rinse and repeat process from here on.
Unless of course you either killed Slogra or put Gaibon on low enough health to make him turn red. Don't be alarmed though as his attack pattern is very predictable; he starts by shooting a fleet of fireballs, and then he shoots a flamethrower which the Leather Shield can guard.
He can also land and fire another flamethrower. You can duck to this and use your Short Sword to pick off at his health.
With a few more hits, the two went down. I was bound to get a level up at some point due to how they give 200 Exp each.
The game's even nice enough to let us have a Health Max up for our "troubles". You've got to love the little sound effect when the item is produced from the boss.
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