From my opinion on classic Castlevania games, you will either love them or hate them. Don’t get me wrong, Castlevania games are great but the amount of “punishment” you need to endure is enough to make you throw your console out of the window. Okay I’m exaggerating about throwing the console but the fact remains that Castlevania games are hard, and this PSP release is no exception.

Dracula X Chronicles features the remake of Rondo of Blood, a classic Castlevania game that was never released outside Japan. A similar version came out for Super Nintendo in 1995 but due to too many changes, it was considered inferior to the original Rondo of Blood. Thankfully after more than a decade, owners of PSP now have the chance to play the real Rondo of Blood, in both remake and the original version.

The storyline is pretty straight forward. Shaft the Dark Priest has revived Count Dracula and its up to Richter Belmont to slay him and rescue his girlfriend. Richter’s main weapon is the Vampire Killer whip and along the way he can pick up sub weapons which includes knife, axe, cross, holy water etc.

As I have mention the game is indeed tough and it takes a bit of patience to get through this game. It’s common to retry the same level over and over again (I think I continued more than 5 times when fighting ‘Death’) but somehow, that game has some sort of attraction to make you keep trying until you succeed. Perhaps the feeling of completing a stage gives some form of satisfaction. Frustrating as it can be, I’m still hooked onto playing it.

Throughout the game, you can find secrets and hidden items which enables you to unlock sound tracks (You can set them onto any stage you like), the original PC-Engine Rondo of Blood and Playstation’s Symphony of the Night. I tried a bit of SotN and it plays pretty good. Smooth animation with great music. At the time of posting I have yet to unlock the original Rondo of Blood.

To sum things up, you get 3 games for the price of 1 and if that isn’t a good deal, I don’t know what is then. It’s hard, it’s stressful but the end result is great.

To be honest I can’t believe I manage to survive up to this stage. Today marked my submission for my final assignment and now I just have to worry about the exams. Hell at least the hard part has finally ended for this term. Feels really great! Next term will be a slow term for me. That gives me plenty of time to keep this blog updated regularly and to finish off tons of games that I have put off for the past months. There’s still two Legend of Zelda games to complete along with some PSP games.

After playing Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass, my hands starting itching for Wind Waker. I asked Neko to help me search on Ebay and we manage to find a copy. It arrived at his place last week and I should be receiving it pretty soon. He manage to help me find a 3rd party Gamecube controller and the memory card as well. Pretty hard to find a Gamecube controller in stores nowadays (other than PlayAsia).

Last week I picked up Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles for the PSP. It’s actually a remake of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, which didn’t see the light outside Japan back in those days. To sweeten the deal, Konami added the original (PC-Engine) Rondo of Blood along with Symphony of the Night. You get 3 games for the price of one. I will have my review on the game up later.

Lady luck was on my side last Monday. I went to catch Resident Evil Extinction (which is actually kinda erm .. lame?) with my girlfriend and I manage to find a copy of Resident Evil (Remake) for the Gamecube. I have been searching this ages, was going to get from Ebay if everything else fails.

I think I have enough games to keep me company for a long while, a long while.