Truly a great game. Fun, smooth innovative and has that special sausce that makes a great game. It never feels to tedious and I found myself replaying levels to 100% without any sense of time wasted. Music is great but not the best the series has to offer. The remixes are better than Super Castlevania IV. I got a little confused first when I didn't realize that in the main menu you could go back to levels to try different paths and I was woried of a repeat of Castlevania 3 and having to replay the whole game to get the full experience.
What I really liked:
The multiple endings and cut scenes were really nice.
What I wish was different:
A way to go to change levels and characters mid game without a system restart.
What I didn't like:
I didn't like the movement controls going backwards. No whip tricks, crawling.
I felt the backflip was cool but Maria proved they could have had a cool movement set for both characters.
Next review I am going to try a new format.

If nothing else, the atmosphere is second to none. The intro cutscene spoken entirely in German(?), the chilling choral piece accompanying the main menu, the BADASS opening with Richter fighting Death on horseback, the effects of the turbo-grafx 16, the rockin soundtrack, the cutscenes (dated as they are) as far back as 1993, the almost comic book presentation. Come ON, man! I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that its atmosphere is what's kept classic Castlevania relevant, but I would say that you'd be hard pressed to find another game of this era so atmospherically impressive and immersive.

And the central gimmick (for lack of a better term) of this game, with unlockable alternate stages, putting an emphasis on secrets both in visuals and level design, and generally diverting away from bottomless pits, is SUCH a good direction, and feels ahead of its time. And even cooler is the secret moves and ultimate attacks between Richter and Maria and the subweapons. This game is so fucking COOL!

All of this to say, it's so PAINFUL to see how it's held back by unnecessarily restricted controls. In a post Super Castlevania IV world, why in the world can Richter only whip directly in front of him!? Why can you only sort-of manipulate your direction in mid-air?!?! Why, for the love of Dracula, do you get so few I-frames after being hit?!?!?! These archaic, sloppy choices clash so hard with a game that feels like it's going even further than its contemporaries could ever dream of. This feels like it was supposed to be the magnum opus of the series, and many people do consider it that. It's the perfect difficulty, made arbitrarily frustrating due to Richter's lacking mobility and offensive capability. Maria is a godsend, I exclusively used her once she was unlocked, because sometimes this game just isn't fun with Richter.

I will likely warm up more to this game with time and retrospection. It still captures the elation of victory that Castlevania does so well, and I think this series deserves to be remembered because of that. And the atmosphere, again, can't be praised enough. But until Dracula returns, this game sits at the bottom of my Castlevania totem pole. Wie tragisch.

You wanna talk about a good fucking Castlevania game, look no further than this beast. Rondo of Blood is everything you should be looking for in an old-school traditional 2D Castlevania game. Everything about this game is amazing to me. What I really love about it is that the level design is REALLY GOOD. Like I'm talking no more bullshit Castlevania moments that make me want to pull my hair out. The bosses are also a highlight. Them having actual enemy patterns and it just being a test of skill and no bullshit RNG is why I don't mind replaying these levels after a game over. Speaking of which, another thing is that these levels are SHORT and have multiple pathways and secrets to find. Leading to more replayability, and having a stage select really helps when you want to go back and do everything. Game Overs in this game don't carry the same weight as they do in other Castlevanias, you have unlimited continues and the worse it gets is just replaying the stage from the beginning. But again, may I remind you, these levels are not long to begin with. So that is just a non issue in my opinion. Richter may not be as nimble or capable of shit like Simon in Super Castlevania 4 but he doesn't even fucking need it. The level design is built around his moveset. And the music oh my god the music its all bangers. The main theme kicks so much ass and even the weaker levels have the best tunes to listen to. There's even 2D cutscenes with voice acting! A first for this series! The story is just "kill Dracula" but that was always the case with these games so it doesn't matter. Having an actual save file is also a first for this series up to this point. And little things like that you take for granted start to be more appreciative when you're a maniac like me who's marathoned like 8 games right now. I love that you can also play as someone other than a belmont, maria! Maria is like the easy mode of this game but I welcome it since she's just fun to play as. She reminds me of Grant, Sypher, and Alucard from Castlevania 3 except she clears all of them. Really the only flaw I can think of is that there's barely any invincibility frames when getting hit, leading to you getting juggled by enemies easily. But to be honest, I'll take that over any bullshit death from the previous Castlevanias.

Rondo of Blood is a game I think anyone can enjoy, and its definitely one you should be looking out for should you decide to ever get into the Castlevania series, it's the best of its kind.

Me ha gustado, es una experiencia bastante sólida y entretenida. Es un juego bastante difícil, pero no me parece que llegue al nivel de ser jodido y se me hace divertido y muy satisfactorio cuando por fin consigues entender que estrategia tienes que seguir en cada nivel y consigues pasártelo. El estilo anime que tiene el juego no me gusta tanto cómo el estilo más gótico que tiene más adelante el SOTN pero es realmente único y está divertido de ver, además creo que consigue llevarlo muy bien con sus escenas y consigue que veas a Richter de una forma muy característica. Una cosa que me ha gustado mucho de haberlo jugado y de investigar de la saga es que si que se notaba que querían ir un poco por el tema de la exploración pero que el SOTN fue un salto tremendo en todos los apartados.

This is largely known as one of the best of the classic Casltevanias, and it's honestly one of the biggest reasons I got my PCE Classic. I played through it for our Birds are Jerks Together Retro, and at Maru's pushing I then went and 100%'d the game, rescuing all the maidens and finishing all the stages. I'm gald he did, because it was really worthwhile! It's not the longest game in the world, nor is it the hardest Castlevania game out there, but it's still well worth going through.

The story is pretty bog-standard for a Castlevania game, Dracula's back and you gotta go give him his lumps again, but this game does spice things up a bit by adding some animated cutscenes with spoken dialogue using the POWER of the PC Engine's CD add on. An intro in German (with Japanese subtitles) as well as cutscenes and voicelines throughout the game help bring the story to life in a more entertaining way than prior Casltevania games. A lot of them are especially entertaining because the VA (when you can hear it, as it's very quiet due to PCE CD voice clips just not really emulating properly on modern televisions) is quite campy and silly (like how all the maidens Richter rescues are SO thirsty for him XD) and the animations used in them is often uncanny and unintentionally funny as well. It's a story that does the job of adding the set dressing, and it was fun to indulge in as someone who knows enough Japanese to know what they're saying.

This is a PC Engine game, so sadly the ability to throw a subweapon with a shoulder button is lost due to there only being 4 face buttons (including "run" and "select"), and the ability to whip in 8 directions is also scrapped from Castlevania 4, but the game plays great. It's still the case that there were a lot of times I ended up throwing weapons when I didn't mean to due to how the PCE's controller is a bit fiddly, but Richter always controlled well. This game even adds a second playable character, Maria, and once unlocked, she's basically an easy mode. She can double jump, has a weapon that does way more DPS, and has a sliding dash she can do. While it's a shame you need to unlock it, it's really awesome to have accessibility options, of a sort, in an old action game like this. And as an added cherry on top, Maria even gets her own versions of all the cutscenes for rescuing the other three maidens and beating Dracula.

The level design is top notch, and you never feel like you're getting horribly dicked over like so many of the earlier Castlevania games can feel like. Checkpoints feel fair as do bosses, and there was never a point I was frustrated to the point of wanting to just give up. After beating the game with Maria, I even went back to play most of the stages as Richter and had a lot more fun than I thought I would. There are a total of 13 stages (if you wanna count the prologue and the one that's just the Dracula fight as "stages") and they're all totally worth playing. Four of those are even hidden stages that you need to do certain requirements in each stage to find your way to, and the bosses guarding the secret stages are different from those guarding the normal stages. The hidden paths and cutscenes give the game a feeling of of being this sort of missing link between games like Castlevania 4 and later Castlevania games like Symphony of the Night, and that's really neat~.

What also makes this game feel like a missing link is the presentation. For the music, it's a greatest hits of the best of the old tracks as well as a bunch of new great ones. The soundtrack is heckin' excellent, and easily one of the highlights of the game. Looking towards the future, the graphics in this game are excellent pixel art, and it's art so excellent Konami would keep on using a LOT of them for as long as Igarashi was making Castlevania games. It was really uncanny seeing so many familiar sprites, from bosses to the simple medusa heads, that I knew so well from games that came out well over a decade after this one, and it just goes to show how well the presentation holds up (and how well asset reuse can serve those who wish to indulge in it, I suppose ;b).

Verdict: Highly Recommended. This is a game that I can easily say deserves its reputation as the height of classic Castlevanias, even dethroning my old favorite of Castlevania IV. Konami really outdid themselves with this one, and this is absolutely a must-play if you've already got a PC Engine Mini in some form, and if you don't have one of those already, then this is a pretty darn good reason to think about picking one up.

Perfeito, per-fei-to.
Superando seu antecessor Castlevnia IV, Rondo of Blood entrega o que é talvez a melhor experiência que se pode ter com um classicvania, os níveis fluem que é uma beleza, nenhum desafio é injusto, todos os bosses são interessantes e possuem mecânicas bem implementadas, cutscenes animadas extremamente carismáticas, jogar de Maria Renard é uma delícia (acho até melhor que o Richter); e além de tudo isso, o jogo possui múltiplos caminhos, os quais com certeza irei experimentar depois.
Infelizmente joguei a versão do Requiem de PS4, que é uma bosta e sem nenhuma vantagem de emulação, mas de forma alguma desmerece essa pérola.

Rondo of Blood is my favourite classic Castlevania, and the remaining titles I’ve yet to play don’t seem likely to change that. Releasing only two years after Super Castlevania IV, also on a 16-bit console, there is a surprising leap in audiovisual quality. This was due to Rondo of Blood being one of the first games released on CD format. This is fascinating as it meant that Rondo of Blood could feature CD quality music, as well as charming anime style cutscenes with fittingly corny and compressed voice acting all while still being a 2D side-scroller. These cutscenes still look great on the small display of a handheld device despite the limited animation, the best of these is the opening montage which establishes the simple premise of the game and acts as a bit of a hype reel for our new Belmont, Richter. Watching this after booting up the game for testing purposes skyrocketed it to the top of the games, I was interested in playing next and was what got me to consider Castlevania games pre- Symphony of the Night.

The first stage immediately makes an impression on you with a flashy confrontation with Death on top of a moving chariot, a significant step up in sprite work is clear, from the galloping horses pulling you along to the expressive animations of Death himself as he goads Richter, wagging his finger before vanishing from sight. God, I love parallax scrolling, Dracula’s castle just visible in the distance above the trees. The detail in this scene alone is astonishing, pure 16-bit perfection. After a fade to black you make it to the burning village in the opening, another beautiful intertitle slides in, reading “Dinner of Flames” before it dissolves away and the triumphant Blood Relations of Heaven and Earth kicks in, you step forward watching Richter’s Chad walk animation cycle gloriously, you whip the skeletons in front of you and smile, this is Castlevania at it’s peak.

The game ceases to lose this momentum one bit, as each successive stage introduces new locales that are colourful and distinct, alongside new enemies and exhilarating boss battles, which are some of the best designed encounters in any 2D game, certainly the finest in the series. The level design is excellent with lots of verticality and secrets to uncover, enemy placement is challenging but the stages are the perfect length for you to lock in for, without it feeling exhausting, this also mitigates frustration if you get a game over on a boss and have to restart the Stage, as it cuts down on the run back to attempt the battle again. Another improvement Rondo makes is in the removal of frequent insta death pits present in other entries, which can be extremely easy to fall into thanks to knock back and poor enemy placement which often times cannot be reacted to without foresight. Now in Rondo a lot of these ‘would be’ insta death pits lead to alternate paths, adding an element of exploration absent in previous titles, investigating these alternate paths, whipping suspicious blocks, can lead to entirely different alternate stages with hidden maidens to rescue and new bosses that are exclusive to them. I found myself liking the return to the two directional whip as it encourages you to learn effective sub-weapon usage and diagonals aren’t aways consistent on certain D-pads, because of this there is a form of resource management as you collect fuel for these in the form of hearts dropped from candlesticks, conserving hearts is important in giving yourself the upper hand against the concluding boss of each stage as the more your enter the arena with, the more Item Crashes you can unleash. Item Crashes are ultimate moves that you can perform with enough hearts, they launch you into the air where you perform an attack that reflects the current sub-weapon in your possession, these last a long time and deal lots of damage, and depending on the sub weapon can hit the boss when he is out of reach, they can also be used tactically to deal damage while avoiding incoming damage from attacks that cover a large area or are hard to avoid. Some more minor improvements Rondo makes is the ability to jump on stairs and pick up sub-weapons after they’ve been replaced, these changes sound small on paper but they make a huge difference, especially the latter as it allows you to be more tactical in what sub weapon you bring along with you whilst letting you optimise heart collection from candlesticks without worrying about losing you current sub-weapon.

In conclusion Rondo of Blood is a great entry point for the fans of the succeeding non-linear Castlevanias willing to explore the series roots. Rondo of Blood is one of the finest games of its era, sadly overlooked due to it lacking a worldwide release until many years later, with truly incredible stage design, boss battles and a spectacular soundtrack that is one of only two in the series that isn’t constrained by hardware limitations. It’s absolutely an essential play.

One of the better retro action platformers I've played. Controls are really tight, and enemy and level design is very solid. Boss fights are pretty difficult, which I don't really mind in a vacuum, but the continue system making you restart the level got really annoying so I'd often end up savestating before the boss after getting through the level a couple times. I like Richter's moveset overall but I wish his mobility was a bit better. The backflip is cool but feels a little less useful than it should be, and I wish he had the slide he has in SOTN. I think Maria might solve this issue but I missed the unlock for her, will have to replay as her at some point. Dracula was a bit anticlimactic as the final boss, much easier than some of the earlier fights. Overall a very good time though, the only pre-SOTN Castlevania I've been able to get into enough to finish.

The quality of this game varies wildly between playable characters.

With Maria, Rondo of Blood is an absolute blast, a 9/10, but that is mostly because she, differently from Richter, is equipped to properly react to the speed of the game's challenges.

Richter is just as stiff as the Belmonts that came before him, and while that control-style worked just fine for the games that came before, Rondo is often designed with reaction time in mind. Certain enemy-types are no longer predictable as they were in the NES games, and overall the speed of the game often feels like too much for that old control style, leaving quite a sour taste in the player's mouth the more challenging the game gets.

The early and mid game with Richter are mostly fine and quite fun, but as soon as you reach late game it certainly feels like it takes a nose dive in quality so harsh I almost dropped it there. None of that applies to Maria, this is just a great action platformer with her.

I love this game and I'll absolutely replay it... with Maria, someday. But since Richter is the starting character, and if you go into this game blind you might never unlock Maria and just play the game as him, I'll be judging the game as that.