Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles Hands-On First Look

Konami is cooking up a real treat for nostalgic Castlevania fans. One of the series' most popular games that ironically never made it to the states, the PC Engine's Rondo of Blood, will finally see release on these shores in the form of a PSP game called Dracula X Chronicles. Diehard importers have claimed for years that Rondo is one of the best games in a series already chock-full of hits, and now the Western gaming community at large will get a chance to validate that claim. Luckily, Konami isn't taking the easy way out and merely shoveling an emulated version of the PC Engine original onto a Universal Media Disc. We caught up with famed series producer Koji Igarashi at a recent Konami event to get the details, and we didn't skip the opportunity to try out a brief demo of the new Rondo, either.

Those familiar with Symphony of the Night, one of the Castlevania series' most beloved games, will remember such characters as Richter Belmont and Maria Renard. Rondo of Blood is set a few years before that game and was the game that introduced these characters and began the storyline that led directly into Symphony. So if you're a serious fan of the latter game, you'll likely relish the opportunity to see where it all started. At the time of its release, Rondo also introduced a number of minor new gameplay features to the series, such as a backflip move and a smart bomb that uses your current special weapon.

Rondo predates the recent "Metroidvania" period of the series' history and is thus a Castlevania game in the old sense. You go through a series of mostly linear side-scrolling levels, fighting ghouls and monsters and picking up weapons like the axe and boomerang, as you trudge toward a final showdown with Dracula, who always manages to reappear in the next game. The short demo version of Rondo was modeled after the Prologue level of the original game, and it showed off the remade game's new 3D graphics, though the 2D gameplay remains entirely true to the original. There weren't a lot of surprises in the demo--we threw a bunch of axes, whipped some skeletons, and fought a flying dragon boss at the end--which is probably just how Castlevania fans want it.

But wait, there's more! Konami seems to understand the place Rondo of Blood holds in serious importers' hearts, so it's including the original PC Engine version of Rondo on the disc. The company describes this original 2D game as "unlockable," though exactly what backflips you'll have to perform to access it aren't clear at the moment. This should serve as a nice period piece for newcomers, though, and since the levels in the remade Rondo will be remixed to an extent, the old version of the game will be a somewhat new experience to boot.

But that's not all! If you're any kind of Castlevania fan at all, you'll be thrilled to know that the full version of Symphony of the Night will also be included in Dracula X Chronicles. As the scope of Symphony is far greater than that of Rondo, the game hasn't undergone a full graphical remake, though fans of the game know its finely detailed backgrounds and lavish animation ought to hold up well on the PSP. Iga did say the game's presentation will be widened to fill the system's widescreen aspect ratio, however.

As Symphony was the first Castlevania in which Iga took major part, he mentioned that on his second go-around working on the game, he probably won't be able to resist the temptation to polish and add elements where he deems necessary. Whether this means we'll see the extra content added to the Saturn version of the game or new features entirely, Iga wouldn't say. He also mentioned that the script and voice acting for both Rondo, and especially Symphony, will be examined closely to please the series' demanding fans. We're hoping that the occasionally atrocious English voice-overs in the original game will be replaced, and that this will ultimately prove to be the definitive version of one of the PlayStation's best 2D action games.

It sounds like the team that has produced such excellent Nintendo DS Castlevanias as Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin is the same team now hard at work on Dracula X Chronicles, so we won't expect to see a new DS entry in the series this fall, when the PSP game is scheduled to ship. But then again, Symphony of the Night is the exemplary game that subsequent portable installments have always attempted to emulate anyway, so who can argue with that? Besides, you can't really complain about getting not one but two versions of one of the series' previously unavailable darlings wrapped up together in one package.