(Game Sack Theme) - Hello and welcome to Game Sack. Now, Castlevania is
probably one of my favorite series of games ever, and
the 16-bit era has some of the best Castlevania games, period. So I figured this would
be a good time to check and see which one of those is the best Castlevania game of that era. And we're gonna look at
them in the order they were released so let's start off with Castlevania's first foray
into the 16-bit world. (creepy music) Super Castlevania IV was
released for the Super Nintendo in December of 1991. Just a few short months after the console itself was launched. But my first experience with the game was when my friend Tom and I rented
the Super Famicom version from a local game shop and I played it on his Super Nintendo,
as I wouldn't get the system until Christmas of that year. The only other games
I'd played on the system at that point were F-Zero, Super Mario World, and Pilotwings. And this was also the first game with 8 MEGA POWER!!! that I played on this system. I had played a few other 8 meg games on the Genesis before this, so I had an idea of what to expect in terms of how much they could pack in here. Anyway, as I played the game
I was immediately blown away. I think a lot of this is because I went in without any
preexisting expectations. The sound immediately grabbed me. Some of it sounded like a real orchestra. (music that sounds like
a real orchestra!!) I thought we'd have to
wait until ActRaiser came out to hear music
like this, because that's the game that all the magazines were hyping for its orchestra sounds. So this was definitely a
very pleasant surprise. I was also glad to see
that the graphics looked a lot better than the
fuzzy pictures of this one that I was used to
seeing in the game magazines. At first it was weird
having the limp whip. It made us laugh as we
played, but both that and the whip swinging
mechanic were super easy to get a hold of. We kept playing and
playing and there was just so much variety here. I was amazed at how much they were able to fit into an 8 meg cartridge and we had barely even
gotten inside the castle. So I just surmised that it must be easier to put more data, and better data, in the same amount of
space on the Super Nintendo than it is on the Genesis. I don't know if that's right, but it sure seemed like that back then. Anyway, Tom went home
and took his Super NES with him, but I got the game later after I purchased my Super Nintendo
with Christmas money. Basically, this is a retelling
of the first Castlevania game and isn't an actual
sequel to the third game. So the title, Super
Castlevania, actually makes more sense than Castlevania IV. But they didn't care, they just called it Super Castlevania IV, which is by far the dumbest name of any of the games I'm talking about today. Since it's a retelling of Castlevania I, you're playing as Simon
Belmont on his quest to defeat Dracula once and for all. They censored the international release of this game, but I really
didn't notice at the time. They took out the crucifixes
and changed the blood level to a slime level. This is because, as
Americans, we're very weak and we just can't handle stuff like this. Or at least our parents were, and they probably would've complained to Nintendo. Or at least Nintendo
thought that they would. Actually it probably
would've all been fine if they had just left it alone. Another bizarre change is the sound of Simon's whip. In the Japanese version it
sounds much more like a chain. (chain grinding sound) In the North American release
it sounds more wishy washy. (chain slashes) Anyway, Simon has the
aforementioned limp whip, which puts a new twist on the gameplay. He'll come across rings in
the stages that he can use to swing across gaps and whatnot. It also has the traditional
style of play where you collect power-ups in
the form of roman numeral twos and threes. This will let you throw two
or three of your subweapons at a time, respectively. But if you grab a different
subweapon the number resets back to one. And as far as subweapons
go you have the weak knife, the clock, the holy water, the
axe, and the Cross of Fear, which the manual calls the boomerang. Unlike the real Castlevania
1, where the holy water is by far the best subweapon,
you'll want to stick with the Cross of Fear
for the duration of this game if you can. Also new here is that this
one assigns the subweapon to it's very own button. Personally, I like to
change my configurations so that the subweapon is X instead of R. Your whip also gets the
traditional power-ups with the chandelier icon. Actually it's not a chandelier,
but I always thought it was. The manual calls it a morning
star, and it's a sword with two snakes wrapped around it, I think. The control in this game
feels super precise. I never feel like I'm
not in total control. If I die, it's because I wasn't being careful enough, or I didn't
figure out an enemy pattern yet. Everything about the control is spot on. I absolutely love the
feeling of being able to whip in all eight directions. I also love moonwalking up the stairs. The stage design is very interesting here, as the level bosses aren't
always at the end of the level. For example, Medusa, who's
the boss of stage two, appears about two thirds of the way in. And when you get to the end of stage 2-3 you just walk off the screen
and go to stage three. Moreover, some levels even
have multiple boss fights. The enemy and boss patterns are very easy to predict after you've
played it a few times. And honestly this game is easier
than the first three games. But the dungeon stage does
offer up a pretty good challenge as it's instant death if you touch any of these spiky things. (ominous music) (sweet Super Castlevania IV music) As far as the visuals go, they're excellent,
especially for their time. You've got a wide variety of stage design, each with tons of colors
on screen simultaneously. Of course they've gotta show off some of the Super Nintendo's
special features, so you have a bit of transparency here and there as well as scaling and rotation. You even have this curvy room, which absolutely blew me away at the time. But this is where the
game slows down the most, as it's probably taxing
the CPU quite a bit. The music is even better
with the orchestral sounds I mentioned earlier. Not every piece is a symphony
though, and there's some fantastic and quite catchy stuff. (really cool non-symphony music
which increases enjoyment) It all does an outstanding job of setting the mood in the game. Truly one of the best
soundtracks on the console that really shows off what
the Super Nintendo can do. Though I have to admit, I'm
not super fond of the music in the treasury, but nyah, that's just me. (music that's... OK. Not bad, just OK) The sound effects are outstanding as well. I had never heard sound
like this in a game at the time I first played this one. (whip lashing) The game itself is fairly
long for a platformer with a bunch of different stages. Disappointingly, Dracula's
second form looks almost exactly like his first. Once you beat the game it
sets you back to stage one to do it all again, and it
seems to loop infinitely. Overall, this one is
really easy to pull off the shelf and play. It doesn't have a steep learning curve, and it's probably the most accessible Castlevania game out there. (adventurous Super Castlevania IV music) (whip lashing) All right, so the bar
has been set really high right off the bat, and
it'd be a couple of years before we'd see Castlevania again. But we'd get two
Castlevania games in 1993. The first of which would only be released for a personal computer in Japan. (exciting music) The next Castlevania
game that would be made would be Akumajou Dracula for the Sharp X68000 computer
system in Japan in mid 1993. Like Super Castlevania IV, this one is a remake of the original game. Yep, that's right. For the very next Castlevania
game they just had to go and remake the first one, again. But this one feels like a
George Lucas special edition compared to an all new re-magining like Super Castlevania IV was. A lot of the original stages are here, like the first stage
that is almost identical, boss fight and all. Medusa's stage is also here,
with the same rusty red color. But there are many more new
stages wedged in between. Once again, you're Simon
Belmont on your way to take down Dracula. Everything here is as basic as it gets and follows all of the 8-bit rules. And by that, I mean you
have extremely stiff and unforgiving controls. You have respawning enemies, so if you kill an enemy and come back to where he usually lives, there he is again. Who doesn't love that? Pressing up and attack
uses your subweapon, and once again you can get multipliers for you subweapons. Oh, and this game hates you! It's extremely unforgiving. (defeated music) Stage design and enemy
placement are perhaps the most brutal in the entire series. Plus, usually you can only
take four hits before you die. In fact, the difficulty kind of reminds me of Haunted
Castle, the Castlevania arcade game from 1988. This one has probably the
cheapest gameplay of any Castlevania game ever. And maybe even the weirdest graphics too. This game gives you only one life and a few continues. It's a very clumsily made game, but hey, at least the music is great. (upbeat chiptune music) The Sharp X68000 game here feels like a thoroughly refined version
of that one in a lot of ways. It's still cheap, but
at the same time gives you way more of a chance
to avoid getting hit. Your whip gets powered up
like the previous game, but often they spread those
power-ups aways apart. You're able to attack straight down and diagonally down though. Still, underneath all
of this is a great game. The stages are extremely fun to explore, even if at times they
make you want to scream at the game's designers. The graphics are really nice and feature some cool scaling and rotation
effects here and there. And it goes without saying
that the parallax scrolling is fantastic, you know I like this. The music has tons of
great melodies and you can even choose different versions of it if you own the MIDI modules. (upbeat MIDI music) (crash) Thank goodness this game allows you to save your progress, I
just wish you had more lives, even though it offers unlimited continues. And speaking of lives, there's hardly any wall meat at all in this game, so once your life meter starts going down, good luck getting it back up. That's what she said. You can get this game
on the PlayStation as Castlevania Chronicles and it has a cool arranged mode with some
slight graphical upgrades and CD quality arranged music. It also has the original mode, which is how I'm playing it here today. As a 16-bit Castlevania
game, it's far from the best but it's one of the
three Castlevania games that were in development
simultaneously at Konami. (whip lashing) (whip lashing) That's right there with
three Castlevania games being developed simultaneously, in fact, probably more if you count
the GameBoy versions, but... Anyway, the second one of these would also only be released in
Japan, but that didn't stop magazines around the world
from talking about it. (exciting Dracula X Rondo of Blood music) (cool music) Akumajo Dracula X Chi
no Rondo, also known as Castlevania Rondo of Blood was released for the PC Engine Super CD
system in October of 1993. At the time, all of the
magazines simply called it Dracula X. Yes, the letter X makes everything cooler. I pre-ordered this one before
it was released in Japan, but I missed out on the initial batch that Die Hard Game Club got in. But I was able to get my
copy in the second batch, which arrived shortly thereafter. And holy hell did Konami step
things up with this entry! It's hard not to be blown away immediately when playing this one, even
more so back in the day when it was released. And I certainly was blown away. I was also the only one
of my friends who had a TurboGrafx-CD and I
told them that it had quite possibly the best
Castlevania game ever. Two or three of them came
down, one of them was Dave. They were all blown away
as well and we spent many different nights
going through every nook and cranny of the game until we reached 100 percent completion. And there's a lot to explore. This is Castlevania at its rawest, and at the same time its most refined. This time around you're
playing as Richter Belmont who's a direct descendant of Simon. Gone are the whip power-ups. Gone are subweapon power-ups. In fact, once you grab a subweapon you're as powerful as you'll get in the game. But you do have a few extra
powers to make up for it. If you have enough hearts in stock you can press the Select button
and do an item crash, which is basically a super move based on the subweapon that you have. If you try to do an item
crash without a subweapon you get a quick flaming whip. There's also a backwards
flip that you can do which is more useful than you
initially think it might be. And, of course you can moonwalk. Early on in the game you get a key that replaces your subweapon. You need to hold onto it for a few rooms because you'll need it to rescue Maria. Once you do this, she
becomes a playable character. She's way more cutesified than Richtor is. Even her attacks are cute,
with a pair of doves instead of conventional weapons. Her subweapons are
usually living creatures, and instead of the typical
Castlevania wall meat, her health is restored by
Castlevania wall candy, or wall shakes. She also has a double
jump which is fantastic but on the downside she can't take as much damage as Richter can. She's definitely the game's easy mode, but don't write her off completely because you'll actually need her to
see all of the game's stages. Speaking of which, the stages in the game are bigger than you think,
and exploration is encouraged. One thing that I really like
is that the bottomless pits aren't always bottomless like
they are in the other games. You'll often end up in
a new area to explore. There are ways to find alternate paths, and these can lead to
new stages you otherwise can't get to. Some areas require Maria's
double jump to access. As a result, many stages
have two different bosses. Defeat the secondary boss
and you'll go onto stage 2', for example. And once you've unlocked
a stage you can choose to play it as either character
in the game's main menu. There's just so much to explore here and you can really tell
that they were absolutely serious about this game
during the design process. (more amazing Rondo of Blood music) The control is really
nice, though you no longer have a multi-directional whip at all. What is new though is
that now you can jump on and off of stairs. You could kind of drop off stairs and jump onto them in Super
Castlevania IV, but it wasn't until this game that the
technique was perfected. Another thing that's
new is that if you have a subweapon and accidentally
pick up another one, the previous one drops out,
allowing you to recollect it if you wanted to keep
the old one instead. This right here made me
want to stand up and scream, "Thank you!!" to Konami
for including this. Speaking of which, while
the Cross of Fear is again the best subweapon, the
others can and do serve a purpose in some parts of the game. You use them by pressing up and attack, just like the original games and unlike Super Castlevania IV. (epic music) it goes without saying that the graphics in this game
are just outstanding. They are way better than we've ever seen in any Castlevania game
we've seen until now, featuring lots of subtle
details if you take the time to look closely. From character and enemy designs to backgrounds, absolutely
nothing disappoints. You've got a half-eaten
beast trying to kill you, bats with fricken' swords,
skeletons with rifles, and even a naked dude! There's also a ton of parallax scrolling, all done on hardware that doesn't even natively support that feature. Again, they really went
all out on this game. This was one dedicated development staff. And that includes the
music, which is of course CD quality with arranged
tunes from previous games, as well as lots of new melodies, all of them very memorable. (more epic music) Even the sound effects are crazy. (flower screaming) Of course, there are some
voiced cut scenes here as well. (speaking in Japanese) The game as a whole is phenomenal, and it's just a shame that it was never released outside of Japan in its day. But that's because the
TurboGrafx-16 wasn't exactly a big seller and
things were beginning to wind down for the platform
in the US at the time. However, in 2007, we got a
remake of the game on the PSP and Konami took the time
to translate the PC Engine CD version into English,
both text and voice. That version's translation
has been extracted so now you can play Rondo
of Blood, in English, on your very own TurboDuo. - I am Richtor Belmont, Vampire Hunter. Death to you! The world is not yours to exist in! - It is not by my own power
that I am resurrected. It is the greed of humanity
which calls me back. - [Joe] I should mention that Castlevania Symphony of the
Night, which is a favorite among many, is a direct
sequel to this game. This game has been hyped
since its release in 1993, and became fairly expensive to acquire. By the time everyone
else finally got a chance to play it in 2007, and
even in recent releases on more modern platforms,
people discovered that it still lives up to that hype. (intense Bloody Tears music) (whip lashes) (church bell rings) All right, Rondo of Blood was and still is an amazing experience,
and yes, I know the PC Engine is technically an
8-bit machine, but come on, it's in the same era, so it counts. And no, that does not mean I'm gonna talk about the GameBoy games here. But anyway, the third game
in development at this time was Castlevania Bloodlines
on the Genesis/Megadrive. Would it turn out to be as good, or maybe even a little better? (still more amazing music) (lofty music) Castlevania Bloodlines on the Sega Genesis was released in early 1994. Only five short months after
Rondo of Blood came out. Looking at the pictures of
the game's prototype in the magazines, it really
didn't look that good to me in comparison to Rondo of Blood. But I was still curious. Curious
enough to rent it anyway. And my initial impressions of
the game were not that great. Something seemed off,
it just wasn't right. Was it rushed? Did they assign their
least skilled programmers and designers to this one? There was just so much
about it that was different. For example, you don't even
get to play as a Belmont. Instead, you now play as
John Morris from Texas, and the game takes place in 1917. He's related to Quincy Morris
from the Dracula novel, and is also related to the Belmonts. Okay, okay, so he is
technically a Belmont. But, I guess they were just trying to tie it into the book somehow. Like Rondo of Blood, there's
also a second character that you can play as. In this game, it's Eric Lecarde. But you can choose him right away, and you don't have to
unlock him or anything. At first I thought he
was kind of goofy looking and he wielded a very strange spear. What a sloppy game this
is, and it tarnishes the Castlevania name!!!! But, having said all that,
something about this game eventually clicked after I bought a copy. And once that happened, I began
to realize just how amazing this game truly is. (excellent Bloodlines music) This game changes a lot that's
familiar with Castlevania. Besides the aforementioned
protagonist, there have been other changes that kind
of make the game fit oddly into the series. When you whip candles you now collect gems instead of hearts for some strange reason. They took the Cross of
Fear weapon and changed it into something that actually
looks like a boomerang. And there's some
mechanized areas and bosses that just doesn't feel like Castlevania. But, the game does take place in 1917, so it's pretty modern
for a Castlevania game. Also, you're traveling
all throughout Europe instead of just around and
inside of Dracula's Castle. But I'm telling ya, if you
can get passed these things, it's pure Castlevania through and through. While John doesn't have the
eight way whip that Simon did in Super Castlevania
IV, he can do a lot more with it than Richter could do with his. He can attack diagonally
as well as straight down with it during a jump. He can also use it to
swing over large gaps. Playing as Eric is a bit different. He can attack straight up while standing, but can't do any upwards or
diagonal attacks while jumping. Eric also has a super
jump which can be done by pressing down and jump. As a result, the two characters
take ever-so-slightly different paths through
a couple of stages. John can swing over the
gap here for example. Eric can't get over there, so he needs to keep super jumping up
here, which John can't do. They both end up at the
same boss fights though. Eric's reach is much longer
and generally you should choose to play as Eric
if you're less skilled. For example, in this
stage, if you play as John, you need to hop up these moving platforms, which can be pretty tricky. But if you play as Eric,
you come in from the top and all you need to do is
drop down and go to the right. Literally no skill needed. Eric is the game's easy
mode, though it still not an easy game with him. Other's might argue that he's simply more fun to control than John is. Well I admit, he's
definitely fun to control, but since it's a Castlevania game, I've gotta choose the whip guy,
if I can choose a whip guy. However, the inclusion of Eric here did lead the way to including other non-whip wielding
protagonists in future games. The subweapon multipliers are still gone, but the whip power-ups
have made a comeback. If you do well you can
power your whip or spear to a flaming thingymabob,
which does some nice damage, but it goes away once you get hit. There's also item crash-like
super moves that you can do. (triumphant music) One of the game's greatest
strengths is its stage design. Although, there's not much
in the way of exploration, everything is extremely well thought out to make sure you keep coming back for more as you figure out the best tactics to get past each part of the stage. Like this crazy section where it splits up into a weird illusion
designed to trick you. You've gotta keep you eyes on your feet and it's very easy to get confused. I absolutely love it! Once this game clicked with me I simply could not stop playing. It's one of those that
calls at you to come back an play it when you're
away doing something else. You think about it a lot
when you're not playing it. To me, that's always a
mark of an amazing game. The control took a bit
for me to get used to, but otherwise they're right on the money. It just feels like John's
whip takes a nanosecond or two longer to hit its target than previous Castlevania games did. This can sometimes be an issue because overall the gameplay
is much faster than the previous games, thanks to the power of the Genesis' CPU and the Blast
Processing contained therein. I always have to change
the button layout in the options screen so that
C jumps and B attacks, but that's just me. And the subweapon has been
given its very own button again, which is perfectly fine. If you press up and the
subweapon button, you can get a special attack if you have enough gems. Unfortunately, you can't
moonwalk in this game. Trust me though, you
should play it anyway. (yet even more cool Castlevania music) The graphics are mostly quite amazing. The colors are done well
and there's some really cool effects like this reflection here. Or the rotation of this
statue head as you hit it. Or the rotation of the
Leaning Tower of Pisa, because, you know, that's what the Leaning Tower of Pisa does. (silly music) And evidently it's SUPER tall too. Or how 'bout this part,
where the sun is shining into the room using the Genesis' shadow and highlight function. But there are some weird
things here and there, like the way some of
the stairs are handled. John is placed way too
low on the stairs here, and it looks like he's
gonna fall through 'em. Just really sloppy in my opinion. But there's plenty of blood and gore here, especially early on in the game. At least in the US and Japan. Sadly though, it was just too scary and it had to be censored elsewhere. Still overall it's a
really nice looking game. And it sounds just as
good, at least musically. Michiru Yamane, who would go on to do the outstanding music for
Castlevania Symphony of the Night, took the reins here and
she did a phenomenal job, with tons of well-composed
and memorable tunes. (well-composed and memorable music) Not as good are the sound effects. While most of them are
fine, there are a few that are just poorly conceived or implemented. (supposedly crow wings flapping) Is that what it sounds
like when crows fly? Guack guack guack guack guack guack guack. Overall though, the game is just amazing, and I'm sad to say that
it didn't really click with me until fairly recently. But I'm glad that it did. Better late than never. I put it up here with the best games on the Genesis, and I
feel that a lot of people overlook this game because
it's on a Sega system. But it became very apparent
to me the Konami put a ton of effort into this,
and those who worked on it were proud of what they were making. If you don't play this
one, you are absolutely missing out on one of the
best 2D platformers ever. (more sweet Bloodlines music) Okay, so Castlevania Bloodlines
kicks all sorts of ass, but Konami wasn't done
with the 16-bit era yet. In fact since the
TurboGrafx-16 was a complete failure outside of Japan, Konami thought, maybe we can cook something
up on the Super Nintendo to help quench some of that thirst. (suspenseful music) (Dracula X music, but SNES-ized) In 1995 Rondo of Blood got
ported to the Super Nintendo, where it was known simply
as Castlevania Dracula X. This isn't a bad game by any means, but as ports go, it's not
tremendously faithful, and it certainly can't
live up to the original. On the plus side it has lots of new stages which weren't in the PC Engine CD game. But the gameplay mechanics
are mostly intact, so at least players outside
of Japan could get a taste. For example, you can
still deftly jump onto and off of the stairs. And you still have a choice
when you pick up a new subweapon if you wanna keep it or not. And again there's no
power-ups for the whip, and no multipliers for the subweapons. Sadly, the stages themselves are fairly boring and uninspired. The visuals are extremely flat and dull. A lot of the enemies
return, but even though they look good, they kind of
seem like pale imitations. However, there are new bosses to fight. The cartridge music does its best to match the PC Engine CD music. And some of the tunes actually
come pretty damn close. (adventurous music that's almost
as adventurous as CD music) There are a few alternate
paths and stages here, but they're relatively easy to find. For example, just fall
off here and you'll go directly to stage 4'. You don't have to fight a
different boss or anything, you're just suddenly here. Oh well, it's still better
than being completely linear. Like I said, this is a
good game, but you can tell that the passion just
wasn't there with the developers. (whip slashes) (awesome Bloody Tears music) (whip slashes) All right, that was my
super quick overview of the 16-bit era Castlevania games, but now it's time to pick the winner. Fortunately that's
really easy because it's Castlevania Rondo of Blood. I mean it has great action, great music, great graphics, great
platforming, great sound effects. Everything is just great! But what game comes in at number two, and more importantly,
which game is the worst? Choosing between Super Castlevania IV and Castlevania Bloodlines is
incredibly difficult for me. No matter which one of these
I choose, I feel like I'm overlooking the greatness of the other. On one hand, nostalgia
plays a huge role in my love for Super Castlevania IV. But even if it weren't
for that, it remains an amazing game that,
like I said, is extremely easy to pick up and play. On the other hand, my love
for Castlevania Bloodlines has nothing to do with nostalgia. It's certainly not perfect,
but it does so much right despite the fact that it
began life as a side story to the mainline Castlevania series. Man, this is really tough to choose, but I'm gonna have to go
with Castlevania Bloodlines due to its really cool
stage and enemy design. Still you really do need
to play both games, a lot. Now that leaves us to choose which is the worst 16-bit Castlevania game. Castlevania Chronicles,
as it's now known is pretty stiff and unforgiving. Castlevania Dracula X
on the Super Nintendo is a very watered down port of the best Castlevania game, Rondo of Blood. But at the same time,
Castlevania Chronicles is just another remake of the first game. However, it did have a lot of new stages, and I feel that those
stages were really creative. Castlevania Dracula X also has new stages, but many of them are
bland and uninteresting, much like myself. So Castlevania Chronicles
wins of Castlevania Dracula X. But even Castlevania
Dracula X is 50 times better than Haunted Castle, which
is the true worst 16-bit Castlevania game. All right, there you have it. The best 16-bit era Castlevania game is Rondo of Blood, followed
by Castlevania Bloodlines on the 16-bit Sega Genesis. And a very, very close number
three is Super Castlevania IV. Down bellow, we've got
Castlevania Chronicles, as it's now known, and in dead last is Castlevania Dracula
X, actually it's not dead last, because it's way
better than Haunted Castle on the arcade, and I
don't have an arcade PCB to hold up for ya, those cost 800 dollars, and I have a hard time
justifying even spending 25 cents to play that one. Anyway, what's your favorite
16-bit era Castlevania game? Do you agree with my list, or
you think I got it dead wrong? Let me know. In the meantime, thank you
for watching Game Sack. (Game Sack Credits Theme) - I'm the best Dracula X. Got me 16 bits, 32,000 colors,
and sweet sampled sound. Yes, I'm the king of all
16-bit era Castlevania games. - Die monster! You don't
belong in this world! - It was not by my hand
that I'm given silicon. I was called here by
humans who wish to play with my greatness. - Greatness? You steal other game's
features, and make them bland! - Perhaps the same could
be said of all ports. - Your words are as empty as your levels. Gaming ill needs a version
of Dracula X such as you. - What is a game? A miserable little pile of code. But enough talk, have at you! (smack) - Bitch.
