Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (PC Engine CD) / Vampire’s Kiss (SNES) Review

It’s time to admit something: I was going to review Rondo of Blood alongside it’s sequel Symphony of the Night last year given they’re packaged together but despite slowly but surely making my way through it I never did in the end because I lost the screenshots I took when I cleared the Symphony of the Night folder. Well, now with the SNES port of Rondo (known as Vampire’s Kiss in the UK, Dracula X in the US) on the latest Castlevania collection I thought “Perfect, I’d hate to leave it unplayed and now I have an excuse!” … Jesus, I was not prepared for the increase in difficulty found on the SNES version. So I’ll admit given I’d already completed a version of the game I spammed save states like some sort of bitch, whatever that means. So while most of the later game screenshots come from a “cheaty run” I can promise you I have played at least the original legitimately…

With that overly long opening out of the way: Let’s take a look at it/them!

Continue reading