Castlevania: Bloodlines Review
Played on Nintendo Switch Online | Original Release Date: 17 March 1994 | Review Date: 12 February 2025
OVERVIEW
Castlevania Bloodlines is the creepy, spooky, hard as nails version of the early Castlevania games that oozes Mega Drive vibes. From its challenging game play to its synthy music, the game never ceases to deliver a barrage of 16-bit spooky fun that deserves its place on the “games to play before I die list”. That being said it’s not perfect, but it’s sure is bloody fun!
STORY
As the title implies the Belmont’s are a bloodline linked by some cruel twist of destiny to destroy Dracula. I haven’t dug deep into Castlevania lore, but why the Belmont’s? What did they do to deserve to be tied to the most evil vampire in the history of the world? I’m sure if I watched the Netflix series or trolled through Internet forums, or indeed played later games in the series, I’ll discover why. What’s even more curious, and completely unclear, is some countess named Elizabeth Bartley, in the year of 1917, wants to revive Dracula. To do so she jaunts around Europe to ‘enlist the help of all the powers of darkness’ as if she’s on some royal death tour. Why? Again, no idea, I’m sure she has reason enough. But this is all our main characters need to know to spur them into action. Here to fulfill their bloodlines destiny are John Morris, a whip wielding, Texas born slayer of vampires. And, apparently his relative, Eric Lecarde from Spain who prefers a spear as his main weapon. Have these distant relatives ever met? I’d like to think they at least connected over some tapas, T-Mex and margaritas before setting out on their European conquest to lock evil away in the underworld. It’s a simple story of good versus evil and where two underdog human’s stare down the face of supernatural evil and don’t give up until they’ve eradicated it.
GAMEPLAY
I have a love, hate relationship with the gameplay in Castlevania Bloodlines. I like that there are two characters to choose from. I also like the fact that the play style of the two characters is very different. John Morris, has the traditional Castlevania whip and Eric Lecard has a spear. John’s whip starts off small with a short range, but as you whip candles you’ll eventually find an item that gives the whip more length. John can whip in front and behind him, but he can also whip at an angle, which comes in really handy for enemies that fly or some of the larger bosses. John can also use the whip to swing from ledges and try to gain access to platforms he can’t reach with a traditional jump. Eric Lecarde’s spear has two lengths, similar to John’s whip, but has fewer angles of attack. This might seem like it puts Eric at a disadvantage, but the speed of his attack is quick and efficient and Eric quickly became my favourite character to play with. An additional benefit of Eric’s spear is he can use it to perform a high jump which has a lot of use in traversing certain levels and evading boss attack patterns. Both characters move at a good pace and are well matched against the slightly faster enemies within the game - all of which I love.
The thing I hate about the game play is, not that it’s hard, because it is hard, but because the jumping is such a pain in the ass, and it makes the game feel unfair in places. Once you’re air born you can’t change direction. For the life of me, I have no idea why this choice was made, but it’s real annoying aspect that causes lots of cheap deaths, damage from enemies and an overall mismatch from the agility of the characters when they’re on the ground. However, I got the hang of it as I went through the game, but even in late gameplay, I definitely found moments when I died simply because of the jump mechanic, where in most other games, I would’ve been able to manoeuvre myself to safety with some twitchy game play reaction time.
But where this game really shines is its unrelenting hardness and that’s a good thing. Castlevania Bloodlines doesn’t pull its punches. From the first level all the way through to the final boss fight, the game is brutally challenging and I found that super fun. It’s been a long time since I audibly groaned, shouted or examined ‘C’mon!’, while playing a game, but I did that a lot during my play through. But the gameplay is so well tuned that I wanted to go back in and get better so I could overcome one hard challenge just to see what challenge was waiting for me in the next room or down the stairs. I especially loved the stages that mixed enemy challenges with environmental ones. And boy-oh-boy do the final boss battles bring together awesome graphics and challenging gameplay that makes the journey worth it! I was kept on my toes throughout my whole play through and never got bored.
Full transparency, I completely leaned into using save states and the rewind features of Nintendo Switch Online. I’m not ashamed and it’s the only way I would’ve seen this game all the way through. But even with these features, I died a lot, the features simply allowed me to ‘respawn’ close to where I died and figure out how to push on through. Regardless of how you decide to play be ready for some classic Castlevania gameplay that won’t disappoint.
GRAPHICS
The story may be simple, but the graphics are the real star of the storytelling in this game. Each level takes place in a different European location. From the ruins of Greece to factories in Germany, the sprite work of the game paints a stylised haunting picture of the locations they draw inspiration from. Castlevania Bloodlines isn’t afraid to use colour even though it’s a spooky game. Some levels have vibrant blue hues, contrasted with deep dark blacks which allows the gore and blood to really stand out. I don’t typically associate Castlevania games with a more vibrant colour spectrum, but it works in this game and I think stands out as one of the best looking Mega Drive games I’ve ever played. There are a lot of special effects used to manipulate stage environments, character and enemy sprites and most impressively the boss characters. Two standouts for me were the Gargoyle boss fight and the Gear Steamer boss fight. I won’t go into details here, but both the set pieces and graphics had me smiling and impressed. Both John Morris and Eric Lecarde are animated well and each have their own vibe which fit perfectly well into the overall style of the game. And not to mention, the game is creepy and full of gore. I loved seeing all the blood and death animations of the enemies. It’s a fun use of sprite work that leans into its 80’s slasher movie inspiration, but doesn’t go over the top or into Mortal Kombat territory, just the right amount of violence and gore.
MUSIC
This has to be one of the best soundtracks on the Mega Drive. Michiru Yamane completely set the tone of the game with this amazing soundtrack. With a quick Google I found out this was her first Castlevania game to compose for, but she was an established composer at Konami. Each level has its own standout music, which means it doesn’t get repetitive. Some levels have a vibrant pop energy to them, while other levels have more of a melancholiac eeriness. Michiru is a master at playing with the Mega Drive’s synth sound mixing the familiar bass sound it has with punchy high and mid notes that each standout as their own sound, but blend together effortlessly. If you never play this, at least listen to the soundtrack - it’s that good.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
I’m really glad I finally got around to playing Castlevania Bloodlines. The team at Konami came out swinging with this one and hit a home-run. From the eerie tone, to the perfectly paced game play the 8 or so hours I spent in this world were deathly fun. There are flaws, such as the cheap deaths because of the jump mechanics but none of the flaws outweigh the overall experience. Grab your whip or your spear and fill your destiny by taking down the evil scourge of Europe and eventually banishing Dracula to the underworld once more. And if you found out why Elizabeth wanted to cause all this mayhem - can you let me know?
OUT OF SYNC GAMING REVIEW SCORE | 8 out of 10
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