Kid Dracula is not a Castlevania game, really. 'Tis a spin-off. You play as a Dracula's son (but not Alucard) who has to reclaim the title of Demon King from Garamoth, the king of time and space (for those familiar with Symphony of the Night, yes, that Garamoth). This game has a much lighter tone than the Castlevania games it came from, exemplified by the bright colours, slight comedic tone, character design, and the more upbeat music. As a matter of fact, if you listen, you'll notice that the music of the first stage is Beginning from Castlevania III in a major key. The gameplay is distinctly different, so one should not go into it expecting any similarity to Castlevania's in that regard. Though related to Castlevania it may be, the game has to be judged entirely on its own merit and not in relation to Castlevania. The game is quite easy and looks and feels like a kid's game, which it likely was. It was never localised until the Castlevania Anniversary Collection, so I have no idea how it was marketed. It very well could be for children. Regardless, the game is quite fun to play and one I still enjoy.

Game Review - originally written by Gideon Zhi (editor's note: founder of Aeon Genesis Translation Group)

God, I suck at this. I can't even beat the rollercoaster bit in stage 2 for chrissakes! But, um, yeah. This is sort of a Castlevania game, but it really isn't. It's a sidescroller featuring a cute midget version of Dracula as the main character. You go through levels throwing fireballs at stuff, and jumping over stuff, and, uh, stuff.

You can charge your shot by holding down the fire button (and the Kid gets this evil little grin on his face); this seems to be the only way I've found of getting Coins, which are needed to play the minigames. The only one I got to try was the “One Shot” game, which had a little Skeleton-T lookalike sticking out of a trash can, or something, but I didn't get to see what it was about because I didn't figure out the weapon-charging thing 'til I got to stage 2, and as I said earlier, I never made it past the rollercoaster. Doh. Also of note is that you can aim your fireball up by holding “up” on the gamepad. I didn't figure this out until about halfway through stage 1, and two of the three bats in the first hallway nearly killed me ‘cuz I didn't know this. Doh, again >_<

I don't know what the plot behind this is, unfortunately, because there doesn't seem to be one in the stage-and-a-half that I played. Maybe something kicks in later, but as far as I can tell, the Kid got woken up and he's pissed at whatever woke him up, so he throws a temper tantrum and goes bonkers on anything that gets in his way. And falls off of rollercoasters. And gets thrown off of clouds by witches and buzzards. And dies a lot. Doh.

All in all, this is a pretty cool game, I just suck at it. FUN!

Also, please note that this game has some really nasty emulator issues, so refer to Kit's readme for the full story.

pretty fun to play, for the most part the game isnt too difficult and feels pretty fair. its cool that there are multiple different weapons but also some just make others obsolete or some just have no use except for in parts when the game deliberately wants you to use them. for some reason though the final level just has like a big difficulty spike?? the previous levels have some obstacles that will just kill you and it feels like you have to die first before you even know theyre there but the game hands out lives often and has checkpoints, the levels themselves really arent that long either. but then last level just like 3 bosses and an annoying platforming segment and if you die you get sent all the way back to the beginning of the level which was so ass

Honestly, this game is really rough. The first stage is pretty great. A cute little homage to the original Castlevana.

But after this the game just gets worse and the system obviously can't handle whatever this game has, since it has massive slowdowns.

RG35XX

Kid Dracula is an odd inclusion in the Castlevania Anniversary Collection. This game does not play like the other games in the collection. It is more like a Mega Man game with you shooting and gaining new power-ups or magic in this game’s case. The level design is reminiscent of a Mega Man game.

The game is average. Some of the magic powers are good and some are situational. The best magic powers are the homing and bomb powers when charged up. I rarely used the bat or upside down powers unless the level design required me to use them. There is some cheap enemy placement here and there. Some bosses were easy and some were frustrating like the Sphinx boss where you are fighting him above a bottomless pit.

Kid Dracula is slow. His running speed is pathetic. After I beat the game, I went and loaded up the Mega Man Legacy Collection and played a stage in Mega Man 2, the game I am familiar with. Mega Man is faster than Kid Dracula. K.D., catch up to that blue boy.

I do like the music and how the game looks. It is a shame there is slowdown and sprite flickering.

Kid Dracula makes me want to play through all the Mega Man games. I only played and finished the second Mega Man game and I thought that was good. Kid Dracula is average.

Played this primarily because it was on the Castlevania Switch collection, but it's really only a Castlevania game by Konami's decision alone. Kid Dracula carries almost none of the features of the franchise typically has, beyond a few aesthetic similarities and the use of Dracula, a character not created by Konami, as a plot-relevant character. It plays more like a Mega Man game than anything else, which should be fine, but it isn't as tight. Like, nowhere close. Platforming is floaty, combat is slow, your character sprite is far too big, hit detection is wonky, stage design is creatively minimal, etc. The combination of Mega Man and Castlevania should at least provide some solid jams, but there aren't even any notable song selections. What a shame. 2/6

Complete playthrough. More Mega Man than Castlevania in its gameplay, Kid Dracula sees players taking control of the eponymous Kid Dracula, running, jumping and shooting across nine side-scrolling levels, seeking to recover his throne. Vividly-coloured levels take a variety of fairly common platforming themes, including cloud, city, ice and fire-themed areas. New powers earned upon completion of each level provide some measure of gameplay variety, replacing the standard fireball with a homing attack, an ice projectile, or more unusually, the ability to reverse gravity or transform into a bat - but for the most part these are very much non-essential and the standard fireball will suffice. Otherwise, the gameplay is fairly standard shooting and running - entertaining enough while it lasts, but not really all that memorable.