GLORIA SENHOR, GLORIA UM BELO CLASSICVANIA TEMOS AQUI.

Apesar de ter UM chefe em especifico que é uma merda, o resto do jogo é só o brabo, ele é do caralho.

Primeiramente, trilha sonora, irmão isso aqui é perfeição demais, compila as melhores musicas da serie e introduz algumas que entraram em listas futuras de melhores musicas, e unindo com a trilha tem os graficos e a atmosfera, o grafico desse jogo é tão genial que ditou um padrão pra serie seguir depois dele, e não reclamo, isso aqui é lindo.

E acho que a coisa que amo mais nesse jogo são as fases e suas versões alternativas, toda fase tem segredos pra tu explorar, segredos que desbloqueiam:
-Uma personagem jogavel
-5 fases totalmente novas
-E 3 mais personagens pra salvar que servem mais como colecionavel.
É muito interessante e elas são muito bem escondidas, mas são possiveis, BEM possiveis de achar, nada impossivel, e eu louvo isso demais nesse jogo, pena que não conheço mais nenhum classicvania que faz isso a não ser o Bloodstained Curse of the Moon 2.

Enfim, acho que é isso, eu gosto pra caralho do jogo, só tem poucas partes que eu realmente me senti frustrado, e esse aqui da um pau no castle 4 namoral.

The music and aesthetics of this game are really great. Richter's character design is iconic, and I especially love how he looks in the anime-style cutscenes, which are also a cool touch.

Gameplay is pretty fun, if a bit frustrating because I suck at old platformers like these. Still, the game is pretty short so the difficulty doesn't bother me all that much. There's also a decent amount of side stuff because of the branching paths, so you can go the straightforward route or explore a little bit. Overall, just a really cool game.

Following Castlevania tradition as in: focusing on platforming sections that never work, filling the screen with so many enemies that the game bleeds in lag or having bosses that throw their patterns oblivious of you (Dracula) sucks. Following Castlevania tradition as in following its mythology/iconography: the Belmont who goes to face Dracula and his monsters in his own castle, with the staircase before the final battle or the castle getting destroyed in the horizon at the end, rules just as much as the many reinterpretations of the original Dracula tale itself.

True, this game has some of the Castlevania junk mentioned before, the good idea of the alternative paths is not that good when most of the times the optional routes are kind of bad and the idea of having Maria as a playable character could be a fun joke, but getting unlocked so soon is a risk to ruin a whole playthrough. Fortunately, this reinterpretation of Castlevania manages to stay focused enough on its combat, specifically a combat of distance and space.

Usually Castlevania games fail to maintain a 1 to 1 tension between the player and the various hazards. Either the games are in a moment where everything is easy enough to carelessly press forward or you are trapped in knockback and pattern hells relying more on precision and memory to survive. In Rondo, not few enemies will react to where you are at, try to take up your space or punish you for entering their zone, adapt a block stance, even some of the projectile elements like the medussas are a nice counterpart to your objects. The highlight of this is seen in bosses, where every safe reaction to one of their patterns puts you in a stance where they can throw an attack that is specially vulnerable for you at the moment, a constant reaction of both sides, never standing still, the boss health bar mirroring yours almost makes it look like a fighting game at moments. The best thing is that the climax of these fights could not be other than the boss throwing a last desperate attack when its health is already gone, what a more sincere way to show honor to your opponent than to bid farewell with a last punch?

1: richter is a hunk. best belmont i think

2. this has a really good difficulty level on a richter-only run RIGHT UP UNTIL the stage with shaft's ghost. fuck that part

3. the copy-paste CV1 dracula fight these games love to trot out sucks so bad! it's so tedious... at least he doesn't teleport on top of you so much in this one though

game is fun! I can see why CV fans love it and it did occasionally get me v hyped up when it was at its peak w/ music and level design

ok, friends of middle school past, i now agree. castlevania rocks. though you are and have always been right, i am also. castlevania is stupid. castlevania rocks and is stupid, and i have seen the light. dumb halloween music, chunky moving, beautiful pixel art, 90s anime, this game is a himbo. a himbo masculine, stupid, and kind enough to provide us with maria -- a chiller, gunner way to castlevania -- an easy mode that removes challenge not by nerfing enemies nor bulletizing the player, but by changing movement and aesthetics to feel freer. i admit, after losing many times on stage 2 as richter, i switched to maria and beat the game. however i know i've missed alternate stages, and haven't got that richter experience, so i plan on doing that soon, now that i have the confidence i can beat a castlevania. then i'll boot up bloodlines and get past the german ammunition's factory level. an no, i'm not playing any symphony of the night nor gba nonsense. i don't give a shit about no vetroidmania right now.

so ridiculously good it breaks my heart to say i am not skilled enough to beat the fight against death. honestly? people talk retroactively about SotN being a massive leap forward/huge reinvention of the franchise but rondo bridges the gap between bloodlines & co and SotN kinda perfectly? also jesus christ it speaks volumes to this game's deftness of level design that it works exactly as well to navigate with both richter and maria despite them playing so different they at times feel like they're from different games. wow! video games!