I'm pretty much swamped with work for this week so I haven't gotten enough time to sink into RPGs, so I decided to take it easy on my day off and replay something fitting for October: Castlevania Bloodlines. I'll say upfront that I used the Revised Edition romhack which doesn't really alter or change much, just unlocks the 9 Lives code, expands the story by including stuff within the manual and JP media, and has the Beginnings, Bloody Tears, and Vampire Killer alt tracks on the designated sound code immediately.

On that note, the OST is still one of my favorites from the Genesis games. It takes my disappointment with Super Castlevania IV's OST - that being the 'atmospheric' pieces are rather flat and boring with no real throughline between it and the more action-oriented pieces like in 1 and 3 - and fixes it wholesale by mixing between the two tones pretty damn well, with those pumping synths, percussion rolls, and solid horn uses. The aforementioned Bloody Tears remix stands as one of my favorite iterations of the tune, I'll die on the hill that Theme Of Simon is a lot more grandiose and epic-sounding here, and the final boss theme is an all-timer for sure.

In fact, speaking as someone who's first venture in the franchise was with SCIV, Bloodlines gave me a lot of what I was expecting that game to be like. Due to the game not taking place within the path to Dracula's Castle and instead being a globetrot around various places of Europe, the atmosphere and general design of the places oozes with macabre unease and gothic vibe in various forms, and has some rather impressive setpieces within the system's history. Like you got the go-to example of Stage 3's Pisa tower climb, but there's also the starting gardens area in Stage 5, the hustle and bustle of the Munitions Factory in Stage 4, and even seeing the text of Stage 2's opening reflected along the water never fails to make me smile with glee. This game's art direction and color palette basically screams with pride, and as a result I remembered a grand majority of the layouts and even some of the bosses from it.

To SCIV's credit, the control updates it had that I actually liked did make their way here. Eric Lecarde and John Morris, the protagonists this time around, can attack diagonally, jump on and off stairs, don't have as egregious of a knockback, and have the right weight in movement and jump arcs to feel like you can take on the places pretty smoothly. They do have their differences too, Eric can't attack diagonally in the air, but his spear is a little longer compared to the whip, he can do a charged jump that allows him to take on pathways John otherwise couldn't, and if lined up right can even damage enemies and bosses while doing so. I played Eric on this playthrough to complement the last time where I played as John, and I feel like Eric has some stuff that makes him easier to handle, and vice versa, which is good. Also, someone can correct me on this, I think this is the first time the series had Special Attacks for subweapons, where by having enough jewels (this game's equivalent of the hearts from prior entries) and pressing a button, you can use it to do a more powerful variation of that attack. The Boomerangs can fire three in a circular pattern, the Axe has three straight attacks at different heights, and the Holy Water basically bounces all around the place. You even have special mystics for Eric and John to have, the former getting a spreadshot-like energy attack that attacks everything on screen, and the latter getting a chaser that finds an enemy and sticks with it for big damage. Despite the subweapon variety being pretty low, I still found myself making some good use of each one when necessary, especially since it gets pretty evident when the game wants you to use them.

With all that said, the biggest stumble in my eyes, is the overall difficulty, specifically during the backend of the game. Now, the first two stages are pretty much perfect, they're not too hard but there are moments where you can get overwhelmed if not paying much attention and/or not utilizing your kits and subweapons properly. The third and fourth stage have some tricky and rather mean enemy placements and platforming sections, but again these feel rather doable and shouldn't pose too much trouble as long as you keep cool. The fifth stage, though, is when I bust out the rewind button. It feels like you always have to look out for enemies for different reasons, the platforms get meaner, and overall it just feels... off, compared to the rest of the game. Even the sixth and final stage, while having some questionable moments, doesn't feel as bad by comparison, and the final two bosses are probably some of the easiest in the Castlevania games I've played thus far. Weird...

Overall though, Castlevania Bloodlines is a fun-ass time, and I'm pretty glad its rep as a quality game is slowly but surely growing. I made it pretty apparent throughout, but THIS feels more like a successor to Castlevania 3's formula and tweaks than what Super Castlevania 4 was attempting to do.