One of the greatest Castlevania gems that we never played retains all its original, unadulterated glory.
As the fated precursor to Symphony of the Night, players take on the role of Richter Belmont, one of the more powerful vampire hunters of the storied Belmont family, as he confronts the resurrection of Count Dracula in order to save his beloved and several other helpless maidens from becoming blood sacrifices. There are a grand total of nine stages to navigate--from burning towns, to evil forests---even a ghost ship in the middle of dreary oceans. However, the path ahead is never truly linear; in specific intervals within stages, you're given the opportunity to travel a different route to explore new areas of exploration. From there on in, you'll confront different boss monsters and discover routes; some of them ultimately leading you to one of four maidens trapped within the bowels of Dracula's evil dungeons. One of the hostages---a young girl named Maria Renard---will serve as a second playable character selectable from the game's title screens. She's quite a lot of fun to use as she can double-jump, slide and throw doves as weapons.
The game offers a battery-back up save option as instanced by the Turbo Duo---fortunately, the Wii's internal memory will serve that end most conveniently. However, the safest bet to save progress is quitting mid game via the Wii menu rather than purposely dying to be allowed such an opportunity which, in itself, is annoying. (Imagine how Turbo Duo owners must have felt.) The graphics are a little dated, but they're far from horrible. The CD quality music is quite good with some memorable tunes spanning much of the Castlevania mythos---the only gripe is that it's redbook audio, meaning the song doesn't play continuously and loops to the beginning, hurting the pace somewhat. But it isn't so much a distraction that it truly affects your experience.
As Rondo of Blood had been previously introduced to American audiences through the PSP port of Dracula X Chronicles, this is the first time that the game has been released in its original form; meaning much of it is in its standard Japanese language, apart from the menus which, thankfully, are in English. Still though, you are getting the game in its entirety---an experience that can finally be had after it had eluded us for nearly two decades. If you're a Castlevania nut, there's no reason or excuse NOT to download this important piece of gaming history from the catalog. For everybody else, Rondo of Blood is one game you'd do well to check out.