As I played through Dracula X: Rondo of Blood on Virtual Console, it reminded me of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. They’re both sidescrolling platformers where the heroes fight monsters with a weapon with limited range. Of course, the original NES Castlevanias, including Castlevania 2, were similar to Zelda 2 in this way, but the 16bit Dracula X for PC-Engine from 1993 is a bit closer to Zelda 2 for the NES.
For one, in Dracula X Richter Belmont was easier to control, ditching the stiff movement of the previous Belmonts, making him feel more agile with the ability to change the direction of his jump, not unlike Link. Dracula X has blue Axe Armors that can attack by throwing their axes high or low, like an Iron Knuckle in Zelda 2, which then come back like the boomerangs of Goriyas (Link and Richter also attack standing up or crouching).
The brick tiled backgrounds in Dracula X with their dark color palette remind me a lot of the palaces from Zelda 2, which each featured different colors like red, purple, and gold, but a with dark tone like the rest of the game world. Stage 5′ of Dracula X, the mishmosh of stage layouts into one crazy stage, gave me a similar unsettling feeling like I got from the Great Palace in Zelda 2, where it’s so huge with multiple paths that you don’t know what you’ll find on the next screen.
As annoying as they were in previous Castlevanias, the floating medusa heads in Dracula X aren’t nearly as tough as the floating statue heads in the palaces of Zelda 2.
I imagine if Nintendo had made a 16bit version Zelda 2 for the SNES, it would have looked similar to Dracula X: Rondo of Blood.
Tags: Castlevania, Dracula X, Rondo of Blood, The Adventure of Link, Zelda 2
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