After the release of Castlevania Rondo of Blood it would be logical to think that Symphony of the Night came next, however, two other games with the classic formula were made before, being these Castlevania Bloodlines for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive and Dracula X for SNES, being the first of these 2 the one I will talk about in this occasion.

This game is a bit strange compared to the past 10 titles, as both the visual aspect and the setting are quite different. This time the story is set in the 20th century, a more contemporary era. We take the role of Jhon Morris and Eric Lecarde, two vampire hunters who, in the absence of the Belmont family, have the role of stopping Dracula and his servants. Dracula as such has not yet been resurrected, however his niece, Elizabeth Bartley, plans to bring him back to plunge the world into darkness.

So yes, this game gives us the possibility to play it with two different characters. John Morris has the Vampire Killer whip, so his gameplay is based on the classic gameplay of all the previous Castlevanias, albeit with some nice additions like being able to swing with the whip by hanging from any surface. Another day we'll talk about what happens when someone other than Belmont uses the whip. And we also have Eric Lecarde, someone who fights using a spear made by Alucard, who can attack in several directions similar to Simon Belmont in Castlevania IV, but with a more limited speed and range, and we can also do a super jump if we crouch for a moment and then jump (reference to SMB2?).

This game was clearly developed by a different team than previous Castlevania games (the Contra team, I suspect) and may have been devised for Western audiences primarily. The game has virtually no religious references, for example, the crosses were changed to a common boomerang. The hearts were replaced by symbols with the letter “C” and blue orbs. The whip upgrades are now represented with an eagle (like the weapon upgrades in the Contra games) and the enemy design is a bit strange. It looks as if the monster designs are straight out of an 80s western cartoon... and it certainly doesn't look very “Castlevania”, it clashes quite a bit with the designs seen in both past and future installments of the series. However, where this game totally hits the nail on the head is in the environments, as they totally capture that gothic and grim setting of the series, but what makes it more impressive to me is that many of the locations in this game are based on real life locations, which also makes the set of levels feel more varied from the typical Castlevania game. Although truth be told, the game graphically doesn't look as good as the previous 3 installments either, it still remains one of the best looking games of the 16-bit era, even displaying a lot of graphical effects that I never imagined the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive would be capable of. There is also a continues system, so if you lose all of them you will have to start from the beginning of the game... well, this is actually a lie, as the continues become totally trivial if we take into account that this game also features a password system, so you will actually only have to start the level from the beginning and not the whole game as such.

Moving on to talk about the gameplay, Bloodlines decides to take an even more classic scheme that Rondo of Blood had already taken, and to be honest, I'm a bit disappointed, because it doesn't feel nearly as polished or satisfying to play. Controlling John feels very clunky due to how limited his mobility is and also how weird his jumping and walking animations are, you can only attack forwards, downwards and diagonally upwards (which I imagine was only implemented because of the swinging mechanics), and in this game you can't instantly jump down stairs either, I dare say it feels like a complete downgrade from Super Castlevania IV and Rondo of Blood, I'd go as far as to say that Simon in the remake for Sharp X68000 computers feels even better to control. It's not too bad, as it plays similar to the NES Castlevania and those still have fun gameplay, but it does feel like a step backwards coming from games that had presented more fun propositions.

Even so, it's not all bad, because this Castlevania does have some good new mechanics that are pretty cool. For starters, the swinging mechanic that I mentioned before is really fun to use, because while swinging you inflict damage to the enemies you touch and you are invincible, plus swinging can also reach more places. Another addition that I also like is the new maximum level of the whip, which is like a super powerful blue whip of energy that destroys all enemies very easily, the disadvantage, you can lose this upgrade just by receiving a hit, so it is something that ironically will only be useful when you have enough experience in the game, as a way to reward the player's skill. And finally, we can power up all the sub-weapons using ↑+C, which is pretty cool.

Ironically, one aspect where this game does feel very Castlevania is in its music. This was the first Castlevania game to feature the compositions of Michiru Yamane (the composer of Symphony of the Night and subsequent games), and for her first soundtrack in the franchise it was a very good one indeed. Her style completely nails the Castlevania setting; they have that touch of classical style music combined with that moving and catchy touch.

Conclusion
Although in some ways it feels like a step backwards for the franchise, making it the weakest of the good Castlevania games for me, it's still a very solid game, and still an interesting take on the classic Castlevania formula.