Castlevania: Dracula X Review

In short, if you like "old school" Castlevania, this will most likely appeal to you. If you're looking for a worthy replacement for the (one of two, actually) Castlevania games unreleased in America, don't look here. That said, I feel this game does a very commendable job with 2MB of memory to work with.
Hooray for misinformation, eh? Let's clear up a few things first and then get on to details.
CastleVania: Dracula X is spotted by its cover art identical to that on the PC-Engine (that's the Japanese PC-Engine Super CD-ROM^2 system; or TG-16 as NEC's system was known elsewhere), but this reuse seems more like a coverup of the fact that Konami didn't have a CD-ROM system to release the true Dracula X on in 1995. That said, a Super Nintendo box allows them to fit a larger picture on than the original PC-Engine game's CD-ROM case allowed--so it works out. From here out, the title I'm reviewing will be referred to as DX; the Japanese version of this game as DXX and the PC-Engine title as simply PC-E DX.
Now, this American version is inferior in a couple ways to the Japanese Super Famicom equivalent: Richter (your character) dies in a swirl of something odd and bluish in DX SNES--in Dracula XX we actually see blood. I'm not a big one for gore but Nintendo's magical blood-to-sweat potion has always made me uneasy. The second difference is that of the start animation: in DXX two snazzy silver crosses appear behind beautiful red kanji to the accompaniment of double metallic thumps (not a bad effect at all) while the American title, the one you're perhaps thinking about buying, has a quite slow and somewhat ugly scaling effect: the word Dracula appears suddenly and shrinks to normal size while an X is zapped onscreen Zorro style to the sound of two slashes. It's not as good looking as you'd think, but it's not horrible. The final difference is that of censorship, as another reviewer mentioned: DXX has an actual cross to throw around, just like the Japanese PC-E DX, while Dracula X for the Super Nintendo has the infamous boomerang. A small point, truly, seeing as the boomerang isn't that bad looking.
Onto the game. This is indeed a hard game, and it plays more like the original CastleVania than a story-based game like Dracula X PC-Engine was. Though your basic premise remains unchanged--save the girls--there's a lot less space to do it, and as a result even with the better platform the overall amount of detail suffers.
If you're looking for a PC-E DX replacement, don't come here. Dracula X for the PC-Engine has background details galore--that single skeleton in a chair that turns to dust when you touch him, the bell hunchbacks and money fall out of, the hidden staircase right before Dracula--those are gone here along with the alternate routes.
Instead, we have some levels that are new (and that's not always a good thing--the platforms in the very first level may be used to show off some of the original movement glitches PC-E DX hid quite well) and some that borrow from other games. Some levels are quite fun indeed--the falling bridge section is easily recognized by fans of Super CV 4, and many spots are taken directly from CastleVania Bloodlines (such as the room with only a staircase leading up to the last part of the castle).
This game features one of the best levels in CastleVania history--hidden level 5'. The Atlantis Shrine from Bloodlines sits in the background as water spirits and other monsters appear in a setting much more suited to them than their original placement in PC-E DX (for some reason, the water spirits were in a clock tower there). Following the theme from Bloodlines, you must beat rising water levels.
The often-reviled Dracula fight is among the most innovative I've seen, but it's terribly long.
A lot of new graphics reside in this cart, and as such it is certainly not a weak remix. Even those that appeared before are often given new locales; the most unchanged fight is that of the werewolf. Shaft is gone, and Dracula's second form is different.
Though there is less variety overall, many of the graphic designs are much more beautiful than the PC-Engine title's. Sound is still great--indeed, the music is among the best for the Super Nintendo, though not on the absolute top tier as the samples used don't quite hit notes as smoothly as a game like Plok can make them.
This is far from the worst CV game ever made. In fact, it's one of the best...if you have the patience for it.

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