First time starting up my PC Engine Duo and it works perfectly! Also I was able to capture gameplay footage through the Elgato! :D Yay!

Akumajou Dracula X Chi no Rondo.. that’s what I’ve been playing tonight, and damn this game is good!! :D

I recorded a movie of the intro, it’s awesome! And odd!! There’s a German voiceover, which made me think I had bought the wrong game. Then I realized it was only released in Japan and seeing the japanese subtitles made me come to my senses and understand that this was the way it was supposed to be..

Good thing for me though, since I can’t read kanji fluently but I can understand German! :D
Great intro ^_^ watch it >>

The graphics were stunning, you can really tell that they used the full potential of Super CD-ROM! ;D It’s a big difference from the HU-card games.

You control Richter Belmont, and he has a whip just like Simon and the others, and you collect hearts to use your special weapons, like the knife, axe, holy water etc. The first boss was a fire breathing flying purple dragon-thingy, a step up from the bat ^_^

You still collect orbs after each boss battle at the end of the stage like in the first game:

The second stage was extremely similar to the first stage of the first Castlevania game! You fought ghouls and you were inside the castle  and it looked the same! Just better graphics ;D

All of a sudden though I got chased by this giant beast! That freaked me out..

But I got away, and looked back to find that the giant beast had run into a wall.. and lost his head!!? lol, he must have been running really fast for that to happen!

The second boss was a pain in the ass.. I was stuck there for a while, even had to use a continue >-<

However, on one of my attempts in reaching the boss I found a key and went into a looked door to find a girl in need of my rescue! :D This added up to a cutscene:

On the third stage I encountered the seamen, much like the second part of stage one in the first Castlevania. It feels nice to get that feeling of recognition, while still having to find new ways of getting past enemy patterns :)

The sceneries are beautiful, and it really feels like you’re playing a Castlevania game!

Some parts also felt a bit like Symphony of the Night. It wasn’t as linear as previous Castlevania games, yet not as extent as SotN though, you still had the option to go in different directions but still reaching an end of a stage.

Most of the enemies could be recognized from earlier games.

And some appeared in this game that later appeared in future sequels like SotN, AoS, etc. Like this third boss ^_^

I bumped into these guys, the axe-throwing-maniac-knights. The difference between these dirt-colored maniacs compared to the regular axe-throwing-blue-knights is that these ones just charge you repeatedly and it’s super hard to dodge >_<  At least the blue ones have a dodge-able pattern… This guy killed me over and over again, and I eventually gave up for tonight.

Thankfully this game has a save function so I can give it another try tomorrow ^_^ I wonder what “Player Change” does though.. it wasn’t there before..

For those of you who don’t have the PC Engine but still would like to try this game out it can be downloaded for the Wii Virtual Console, and there’s also a remake (which also contains the original) on the PSP called The Dracula X Chronicles.

This game is an excellent example of why I hold Konami so dear ^_^

Check out my entire Castlevania Collection here >>