Kid Dracula for the Famicom is a weird and light-hearted spinoff of the Castlevania series, and it's cool that we finally got this localized inside the Castlevania Anniversary Collection back in 2019, which is where I'll be reviewing
Kid Dracula stars, well, Kid Dracula (obviously) as he traverses through nine wacky levels to defeat the almighty Galamoth. Kid Dracula is sort of akin to Mega Man. At every level you clear, you'll get a new power-up that can be used throughout your journey. My favorite is the homing attack, which sends multiple balls of destruction to enemies and deals crazy damage. Unlike Mega Man, Kid Dracula can shoot fireballs from his finger in four directions. The music and bosses are decent enough; my favorite boss is the Statue of Liberty. Seriously, we need more trivia-based bosses in video games instead of resorting to violence
I wouldn't call this game an excellent platformer for a few reasons. First off, most platforms have tricky and quite finicky platforming sections that sometimes leave me feeling frustrated. An infamous example is Level 7, where you're supposed to climb to the tower with platforms descending, but you have to be early to make it, or else you die. The final level is easily the worst because there are no checkpoints, meaning you must do the two mini-bosses and make your way to Galamoth again. Thankfully I restarted the game to get more lives instead of using the save state feature
Overall, Kid Dracula is a decent platformer with lots of charm behind it. It won't be anything amazing, but it's something worth checking out if you're a Castlevania fan
Kid Dracula stars, well, Kid Dracula (obviously) as he traverses through nine wacky levels to defeat the almighty Galamoth. Kid Dracula is sort of akin to Mega Man. At every level you clear, you'll get a new power-up that can be used throughout your journey. My favorite is the homing attack, which sends multiple balls of destruction to enemies and deals crazy damage. Unlike Mega Man, Kid Dracula can shoot fireballs from his finger in four directions. The music and bosses are decent enough; my favorite boss is the Statue of Liberty. Seriously, we need more trivia-based bosses in video games instead of resorting to violence
I wouldn't call this game an excellent platformer for a few reasons. First off, most platforms have tricky and quite finicky platforming sections that sometimes leave me feeling frustrated. An infamous example is Level 7, where you're supposed to climb to the tower with platforms descending, but you have to be early to make it, or else you die. The final level is easily the worst because there are no checkpoints, meaning you must do the two mini-bosses and make your way to Galamoth again. Thankfully I restarted the game to get more lives instead of using the save state feature
Overall, Kid Dracula is a decent platformer with lots of charm behind it. It won't be anything amazing, but it's something worth checking out if you're a Castlevania fan