It's October babyyyy so I'm playing some Castles Vania and trying to clear a few I've never beaten. I have beaten Bloodlines but this time I played as Eric "The Other Guy With A Spear" Alcarde.
Bloodlines is always going to be attached to Contra: Hard Corps in my head for reasons that are probably pretty obvious: both Genesis entries in an established Konami franchise that are really weird and exist alongside a more well-known SNES cousin. The biggest difference there is probably that Contra III: The Alien Wars is considered like the bang-on pinnacle of that franchise where Super Castlevania IV is itself a weirdo that I have affection for in spite of the cruel insults and mockery hurled upon it from the rabble. But you know whatever.
The hilarity starts from the usual perfunctary backstory, as this game tries to bring the original Bram Stoker novel into canon without anybody involved having actually read it. Elizabeth Bathory also gets involved, and we all love to see that. You can play as the Belmont-surrogate John Morris, who is normal Castlevania whip guy, or Eric, who has a spear and is the traditional Castlevania leather skirt guy. At the time, this was the most modern setting for a Castlevania, and it does come up in exactly one level set in a German munitions factory where you fight goofy skeletons in WWI helmets, but for the most part everything here is just an extension of the NES games with some fancier bells and whistles.
Where CV4 on SNES was a showcase of gratuitous Mode 7 effects, Bloodlines understands the appeal of the Genesis and provides you with staples such as "vectorman floating ball enemies and projectiles" and "incredible number of mid-bosses." I don't know how much staff this shared with the eventual creation of Treasure, but the specific sensibility that they would eventually have is on full display in Bloodlines as it is in Hard Corps. Solid arcade gameplay combined with making you fight all kinds of weird shit in a variety of locations. Bloodlines sends you all over the world, but even the levels that take place in castles (fully half of them) you'll get wild stuff. One boss is that vase/two faces illusion but like, a ghost? And you fight it? The final level has a segment where a third of the screen has its view shifted to the right like you're looking through a series of mirrors. Indie platformers would eventually get into that kind of thing years later but it's really fun to see in a Sega Genesis Castlevania.
Playwise, this is very recognizably Castlevania. The whip and the staircases and all that. It's a lot more normal action game than the NES entries, for lack of a better way to put it. The subweapons are all a lot more similar than they normally are, and there's only three of them. They do each have a stronger throw mode that uses more ammo but since all three kind of just go forward in different ways it makes them even more samey. None of them are as broken as they could be in previous titles, either.
I don't say any of that to suggest the game is bad, or not a real Castlevania or any of that shit, but to note that the change to 16-bit consoles allowed for some exploration of what Castlevania could now be. Both Bloodlines and CV4 have whip swing moves that work totally differently, for example. This is the only classicvania as far as I can remember with a move that gives honest-to-god iframes, Eric's spring-jump. Playing a long time without getting hit can give you a big powerup that makes your attack much stronger and lets you activate a super subweapon, which isn't totally divorced from previous Castlevanias but feels more like you're playing Ghouls 'n' Ghosts or something.
So in my final evaluation this one kicks ass. Now I'm going to play the gameboy ones and suffer
Bloodlines is always going to be attached to Contra: Hard Corps in my head for reasons that are probably pretty obvious: both Genesis entries in an established Konami franchise that are really weird and exist alongside a more well-known SNES cousin. The biggest difference there is probably that Contra III: The Alien Wars is considered like the bang-on pinnacle of that franchise where Super Castlevania IV is itself a weirdo that I have affection for in spite of the cruel insults and mockery hurled upon it from the rabble. But you know whatever.
The hilarity starts from the usual perfunctary backstory, as this game tries to bring the original Bram Stoker novel into canon without anybody involved having actually read it. Elizabeth Bathory also gets involved, and we all love to see that. You can play as the Belmont-surrogate John Morris, who is normal Castlevania whip guy, or Eric, who has a spear and is the traditional Castlevania leather skirt guy. At the time, this was the most modern setting for a Castlevania, and it does come up in exactly one level set in a German munitions factory where you fight goofy skeletons in WWI helmets, but for the most part everything here is just an extension of the NES games with some fancier bells and whistles.
Where CV4 on SNES was a showcase of gratuitous Mode 7 effects, Bloodlines understands the appeal of the Genesis and provides you with staples such as "vectorman floating ball enemies and projectiles" and "incredible number of mid-bosses." I don't know how much staff this shared with the eventual creation of Treasure, but the specific sensibility that they would eventually have is on full display in Bloodlines as it is in Hard Corps. Solid arcade gameplay combined with making you fight all kinds of weird shit in a variety of locations. Bloodlines sends you all over the world, but even the levels that take place in castles (fully half of them) you'll get wild stuff. One boss is that vase/two faces illusion but like, a ghost? And you fight it? The final level has a segment where a third of the screen has its view shifted to the right like you're looking through a series of mirrors. Indie platformers would eventually get into that kind of thing years later but it's really fun to see in a Sega Genesis Castlevania.
Playwise, this is very recognizably Castlevania. The whip and the staircases and all that. It's a lot more normal action game than the NES entries, for lack of a better way to put it. The subweapons are all a lot more similar than they normally are, and there's only three of them. They do each have a stronger throw mode that uses more ammo but since all three kind of just go forward in different ways it makes them even more samey. None of them are as broken as they could be in previous titles, either.
I don't say any of that to suggest the game is bad, or not a real Castlevania or any of that shit, but to note that the change to 16-bit consoles allowed for some exploration of what Castlevania could now be. Both Bloodlines and CV4 have whip swing moves that work totally differently, for example. This is the only classicvania as far as I can remember with a move that gives honest-to-god iframes, Eric's spring-jump. Playing a long time without getting hit can give you a big powerup that makes your attack much stronger and lets you activate a super subweapon, which isn't totally divorced from previous Castlevanias but feels more like you're playing Ghouls 'n' Ghosts or something.
So in my final evaluation this one kicks ass. Now I'm going to play the gameboy ones and suffer