Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (PC Engine CD) Playthrough [English]
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- Опубліковано 4 жов 2023
- A playthrough of Konami's 1993 action game for the NEC PC Engine, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (悪魔城ドラキュラX 血の輪廻).
This video shows two playthroughs of the game for a 100% completion rating and a couple extras:
2:39 Richter playthrough, normal stages
56:31 Maria playthrough, alternate stages
1:34:43 Richter's alternate end credit roll
1:36:55 System card error and hidden minigame
I am playing a patched copy of the game that replaces most of the original Japanese audio with recordings from the 2007 PSP version's English dub. You can find the patch at www.romhacking.net/translatio...
I recorded a video of Rondo of Blood several years ago, but that one only showed Richter playing through the normal stages. Since that's only half of the game's content, I felt that a redo was in order, so here we are!
The PC Engine-exclusive Rondo of Blood, released between Akumajou Dracula for the x68000 and Castlevania Bloodlines for the Sega Genesis, was the eighth mainline installment in the Castlevania series. It was later loosely adapted for the SNES as Dracula X, and it saw a direct sequel in the form of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for the PlayStation.
Taking place a century after the events of Castlevania ( • Castlevania (NES) Play... ) and Castlevania II ( • Castlevania II: Simon’... ), Rondo of Blood introduces players to Richter, a descendant of the legendary vampire hunter Simon Belmont. A priest named Shaft has resurrected Dracula and has kidnapped several young girls, including Richter's girlfriend Annette, from the town of Aljiba (the same town as was in Simon's Quest). Richter is understandably not cool with that, and so sets out to save her from the lord of darkness. He is also joined by Maria Renard, a young magician he frees from a cell beneath Dracula's castle.
Rondo of Blood expands on everything that made the earlier Castlevanias so great, and was considered by many to be the best game in the series yet. That's no mean feat given how good most of the previous games were.
Most stages host secret paths that lead to alternate boss fights and a challenging series of hidden stages that run parallel to the primary route through the game. There's a ton of content to work through.
The gameplay has also undergone some major changes. Richter has been given a few nifty tricks that would've left Simon drooling: you can double-tap the jump button to perform an evasive backflip that grants temporary immunity to damage, and you can extend the reach of his whip with a well-timed tap of the d-pad.
And then there's Maria, a little girl whose nimble handling completely changes the way the game plays. She takes more damage from enemies than Richter does, but her speed, expansive moveset, and smaller frame more than makeup for this trade-off. She can double jump, slide, and roll to get out harm's way, and though she can't use the traditional range of subweapons, she can summon animal familiars to do her bidding. She can hide in a turtle shell, send killer cats after her enemies, or even call upon a dragon to lay waste to everything on screen with its fire breath. She also has a fantastically overpowered special move (done by quickly inputting D, U, D, DF, F+attack at any time, including mid-jump) that lets her project an invincible psychic copy of herself that dashes forward to attack.
Rondo of Blood still feels very much like a traditional Castlevania game, but the new features and changes made to the mechanics make the gameplay feel fresh and new again.
So does the presentation. Super Castlevania IV had already set the bar extraordinarily high, but Rondo of Blood ratchets things up several more notches. The moody backdrops brim with color, animation, and smooth parallax scrolling effects - something the PC Engine couldn't easily do - to great effect, and the sprite animation is excellent. The anime-style cutscenes are great, too, even if Dracula's look is a bit corny. The soundtrack is the real star, though. The redbook CD audio tracks feature some of the best music ever heard in a Castlevania game, and every single one is an ear worm. (Opus 13, Cross a Fear, Bloodlines, the remix of Vampire Killer... they're all so damned good!)
The Castlevania series is loaded with amazing games, and Rondo of Blood is a true titan among titans. Mankind may ill need a savior like modern-day Konami, but the world would be a much brighter place if the Konami of the early 90s was still around.
_____________
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games! - Ігри
Rondo of Blood is an incredible game that stands out for its excellence even among the Castlevania games.
The level design is perfect. They give you all the tools you need to succeed. It's up to your skill to succeed
Bing game
Hi! since this was originally released only in Japan, is the voice acting during cutscenes really in English as it is in this gameplay?
@@arestes The PSP version of Rondo of Blood was released in the west with English voice acting, the video uses a patch that translates the PC Engine version into English and replaces the cutscenes with their English versions
@@eduardoisme1590 wow, thanks for the info. So no chance of getting these voices on original hardware of a japanese Rondo of Blood... those patches are just for emulators, right?
Part of what made this game so great besides the CD-quality audio was that it had a great balance with its level challenge, atmosphere, easter eggs and even humor. I never get tired of Maria-mode.
"But Maria, you're too young for this. You just let the big hunter here take care of that bad man."
Richter my guy, she has a double jump and magical animals. I think she's ironically more capable of this task than you are.
But Dracula's thugs still captured and locked her in a cell. So yeah, better leave this to a real pro. A Belmont.
@@ivervj2923In Castlevania SOTN, it was Richter who needed saving throughout the game 😂 Idk I think they just come up with plot fillers sometimes just a few months before development is over! 🤣
📧 "Dear @EmployeesOfKonami: I want to thank everyone for their hard work over the past 14 months working on this game. We have over 4500 hours invested in development, so bravo!! 👏👏
So we have a poll going for Symphony of the Night: Why would you have Alucard, from Castlevania 3, playing through this game to kill Dracula, his Dad? We'd like everyone here at Konami to submit their ideas, within 2 weeks. The most interesting idea will be chosen to be a part of the game, and comes with a $45 gift certificate to Blockbuster.
Just want to remind everyone that we have 1.5 months to go before launch. So thank you all again, and happy Friday!" 📧📨
@@ivervj2923Maybe she was caught off guard (that could happen).
She wasn't sufficiently angry yet.
Ever heard of Hydro Storm?
Probably the best "traditional" castlevania game ever.
You could really tell that they wanted people to think of this game as THE castlevania game. Top of the line, gold standard.
"What is Rondo of Blood? A excellent piece of gaming history. But enough talk...Enjoy the video!"
You ask what is Rondo Blood, but how is Rondo Blood?
@@spicybreadproductions1972 I don't know why, but sometimes when I type messages, words will be missing from a sentence, making it look unfinished/unchecked. And I won't even realize the error until later.
It was supposed to be a reference to "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night." I feel dumb. 😔
@@Phantom.Gaming64 yeah it happens to me too sometimes, though I only notice months later and just leave it as is, forever leaving a stain on my literacy skills
Also don’t worry, even if you utterly disgraceful literary blunder on a website on the world wide web named UA-cam, I got the reference
49:10
"I am Richter Belmont. Last descendant of the Belmont Clan. And I! Kill! Vampires! Who's fucking next?"
The best possible thumbnail. 👌🏻
1:12:57 Nice curtsy to thank the boatman for taking you across. 🙂
My favorite Belmonts are Richter and Simon
Funfact:
The German Dude who voices the Intro Sequence is the one voicing Dracula in the Netflix Series.
While I like the English version very much (the new translation is excellent), I always preferred the original German narrator to the new one. But besides that, everything else in Rondo of Blood English version is fantastic. I'm so glad I got to play this on PSP with Dracula X Chronicles, it also gave me quite a good comparison between the original and remake.
What I like in this game especially, besides the music, is the cutscenes and the dialog in them. It makes Dracula seems like much less of a one or two dimensional villain he was until this point. He actually makes good points about humanity wanting salvation and him possibly being the panacea for their troubles.
One thing i loved about this game is. I had no idea Transylvanian saxons was an actual thing. Since i questioned... why would a guy with a German sounding name be in Romania? Then someone said "Look up Transylvanian saxons" and... yeah its kinda cool! Just to know that part of history.
As long a Belmont is not Running away from the sight of a Vampire like a complete Little Boy Belmont
then all is good happiness for the House of Belmont
That was total BS in the series when he ran away, no Belmont runs, it makes no sense he trained his whole life for that. They could have had him lose a fight since he had no magic and it wouldn't have changed the plot a bit. He loses then realizes the power of magic, same idea without making him look like coward.
i know brother totally and 999% feel you
i almost stop watching the whole show after that and it took me a while to recover
at least the episode afterwards introduced OLD JUSTE BELMONT and did love their interaction and chemistry
also when Richter awoke his inner Belnades/Belmont and start slaying the vampire hordes while divine Bloodline OST was playing in the background
i do not hate on the whole animated series and do not think that ALL about it is bad
but i totally DESPISED That moment
a BELMONT IN HIS MANHOOD running from the sigh of Olrox???????
HORRIBLE Writing decision
Richter should have BLOWN UP into BERSERKER RAGE!!! and gone into a complete savage rampage for the Vamp who killed his mother
@@GothicXlightning He should have lost control like you say, and Olrox, who is super powerful, uses magic to defeat him because he's going nuts and has no magic. But he gets away then meets Juste and realizes the power of magic, you barely have to change the dialog and the plot changes nothing at all. NO VAMPIRE HUNTER FROM ANY CASTLEVANIA RUNS LET ALONE A BELMONT, they may lose occasionally, but they would never run. I have a feeling that there was some injection of identity politics in that and it will stick in my head whenever I think about Nocturne. Him running doesn't even fit with how THEY wrote the character, let alone game series Richter Belmont, the King Shit of vampire slayers, he would stay and fight on ego alone. I like the rest but Nocturne left a bad taste in my mouth.
not sure if i would have it wrote with Olrox defeating Richter giving the chaotic nature of that moment
remember that Olrox needed him i would have make so that Richter goes all BERSERKER NUTS LIKE BLACK SWORDSMAN LEVELS OF BERSERK
but then Olrox lure him out of the place
living behind his friend
see that would have made WAY much more sense to me
is Richter belmont who we are talking here
one of the the most Alpha Belmont
fckkkkk Simon, Trevor, Juste, Leon would have SLAP him in the face for running away like that
but again is not Richter's fault, is just poor piss writing choices design to take away manliness from the Belmont
so that they can make they SH!!TTY balance script between Belmont and Girly powers i guess ??
they just simply took they worst choice possible specially at that point
i could have been ok with the series not been exactly the RONDO OF BLOOD made into anime i was expecting
so is ok if it is it's own thing even if it hardly would make sense with the 2 canon stories from the game
RONDO & SOTN
but in the name of Trevor Belmont and Sypha do not have him running away like a complete Little Boy Belmont Tw aat
that is not the Belmont way
i also cannot help to like a little bit olrox
despite the fact that i felt shitty on how Julia Died..
also do we 2 characters named julia ??
i guess that was a homage to cutie Witch from Castlev Curse of darkness
That fits more for soma Cruz and he’s Dracula in the future for crying out loud.
Best PC Engine game and the best Castlevania, even though Super Castlevania 4 is still my favourite one. I remember first playing Rondo of Blood back in 2009 on the Wii virtual console. It was the first PC Engine/Turbografx game i ever played and what a great first impression i had for the console. A true masterpiece game and a great introduction to the PC Engine.
What would be your 2nd and 3rd favorite pc engine games? Hopefully YS book I & II and Lords of Thunder are up there.
Cheers for posting. Playing as Maria Renard is really fun.
It's cool that they gave some bosses a death attack or last ditch attack.
Rondo of Blood is undoubtedly one of the greatest Castlevania games, but it’s also friggin hard
After that Netflix abomination it's great to see THE Richter Belmont.
Thanks for this playthrough 😊
Netflix sucks jajaja
The ghost ship stage is peak Castlevania. Zombies with shotguns is a hilarious image, and the fight with Death on the mast is genuinely eerie and tense
Man i really enjoy the anime Ryu Richter design. It's a bit cheesy but I like the youth it has compared to the grim and edgy style in SOTN
Sweet work! Hopefully we might see a subtitled "Rusty" playthrough in the future.
I started the serie with the remake PSP, played the original too, then almost every title available. Quite a long love story.
Thanks for the post love this game 😁😁
Best classic Castlevania game ever, one thing that Castlevania fans hate from this game is Richter can't peform diagonal whip attack like in Super Castlevania 4.
But I don't thing that really necessary cuz Richter can use item crash or his magic power and can peform backflip to avoid attacks.
I first watched the Netflix series, and I thought Dracula was so OP, because how he was portrayed in the show.
but then the game versions, His Plot Armor became nothing but air.
Não conhecia esse jogo. Mas vendo esse vídeo dá para perceber a qualidade e o capricho que tiveram com jogo. A ambientação, as músicas e o clima de terror que ele transmite.
Nice. Another game I always wanted to play, but never got around to.
To play this for the first time after what I've been informed of at the time was my only reason why I bougt a PSP. No regrets!
I'm kinda impressed how PC Engine is enough powerful to produce voice acted anime cutscenes.
Masterpiece!
Dracula X never stood a chance.
Any plans towards covering/revisiting either of the remakes?
20:05 i really like this version of gran cross
You thought it was Dracula, but it was I, DIO!
Потрясающе сыграно. С удовольствием посмотрел. Спасибо за прохождение! Не зря подписался на канал.
Thank you! :)
Very topical. Smart move.
Where does this english voice acting come from?! XD Never heard THAT in MY life!
It's from the PSP version.
Great game
Nice
There was never an official PC Engine english version of the game. For some reason it's also using the new german voice narrator that was added in the psp version, is this a fan's translation?
Yesh, they really made ritcher look useless in that recent Castlevania show.
I NEED a copy of this game and SOTN for the Nintendo Switch. PLEASE KONAMI, if you're reading this, PLEASE release these two on the Switch ASAP!!
This was my favorite Castlevania, (it was also on SNES). It was very difficult, and tbh I thought Super Castlevania had some rough graphics.
This one was very "classic arcade" style, with no imagination necessary due to the amazing graphics. The branching level paths also helped to break up the replay value & added to the secrets in the game, making it very similar to the NES Castlevania 3 (which was another favorite).
This was the bridge game in between Castlevania's "classic" era and the 'Metroidvania' of SOTN that was widely acclaimed. - this game also had the best music & remixes of older titles, IMHO. Just as rockin' & memorable as any of the famous Mega-Man series staples. (Although I do think that the SNES version had better sounds & music)
The PC Engine & the SNES versions do differ a fair bit in their level designs at times, while the PC Engine is quite a bit larger and potentially longer.
It is a TOUGH game. I remember beating it for the first time on Emulator without save states, and it took me about 5 months, working on it every day after school. 👍 Overall a great game, and incredibly overlooked.
Rather, SNES had Vampire's Kiss, which was an Wish version of Rondo of Blood.
The only thing I don't like is that Rondo of Blood didn't keep the multi-directional whip aiming from IV. After IV, multi-directional aiming should have become the standard whip moveset for all Castlevania games in my opinion.
@@AlexDWolf Yeah, what did they call it on SNES? I think it was "Dracula X" over here in the states
@@LtCdrXander sure sure, yeah that was a big deal to a lot of people. I can understand. The controls were really something great on Super Castlevania.
I would have liked it if they had kept it, but made it quite a bit faster; like a realistic whip!
@@MurseSamson indeed! It does make me happy that they kept the spinning whip move from 4 in later games. It's fun to just walk up to bosses and wildly flail the whip in their face.
I used to play this on New Nintendo 3DS XL via CIA downloaded from Ziperto somehow the Audio was too weak its hard to understand the voices of character yet I get 100% both 2 game files, I hope someone remake the files in Ziperto 3DS CIA so put some bass boost.
i love Maria Renard ❤
Bonjour,
Comment vous faites pour enregistrer ce jeu en 4K ?
Je cherche une solution pour enregistrer moi aussi mes jeux console en 4K.
Merci
I recorded it at its native resolution and then nearest neighbor upscaled the image to 4K.
@@NintendoComplete it's retrolink 4K you use for that ?
@@MorysseGilles Nope, it's emulated.
Wowee...
why is the opening in german for some reason?
The original opening is that way
I Really Like That versión
Like i play On PSP™
43:13 best moment
You mean a romantic moment?
@@o1sytone piece
Get rekt by a child, Dracula.
Where can I get this game?!
PS4
@@donkeykongisytpooping3002 don't have one....
@@Violetvisions86 Then get the fan made pc port.
pc engine, search the room, search pc engine emulator
1:29:49 I won the game as soon as I called the dragon.
1:12:05 Poor bird.
This is not compared with the PlayStation Portable or PlayStation 4 Versions.
Caracas o belmonte mandou um moon walk na 7 fase 😂
🎞️🎥🎬💻🎮👍👍👍👍
51:43
КАК ПОИГРАТЬ?
Okay... if a little girl with birdies and kitties can take on the forces of Dracula are we suppose to take those forces seriously? I mean was this game supposed to be... I don't know... challenging or something?
It’s called playing easy mode.
Зачем было менять видеоролик? Там было все нормально!!!
New castlevania show is good
Yeah, it is. It's gonna be a long wait for Season 2... If Netflix green-lights it, that is.
@@Phantom.Gaming64 least we'll have dmc to tide us for a bit.
Ok :]
He can't aim the whip in all directions like Simon could in Super Castlevania IV.
Nor should he.
People are always complaining about how Richter just runs and becomes useless after seeing Olrox in Nocturne. Let's just reminder ourselves that Olrox KILLED JULIA IN FRONT OF RICHTER. Richter was left traumatized because of that. I would be traumatized if anybody close to me was killed in front of me. But, after ENOUGH time has passed, I would build up enough courage to avenge them.
00:22:29 DON’T SAY IT, DON’T THINK ABOUT IT, DON’T MAKE A CONNECTION WITH A YT SHORTS TRENDING SERIES THAT GEN ALPHA LOVES. JUST KEEP PLAYING THE GAME, AND PRETEND THESE TOILET FREAKS AREN’THERE.
What are you talking about?
The power difference between this little girl, and a literal master vampire is astonishing, and very concerning. 🥺 🪄👧
My best Castlvania, one of my favorite games