Well, rather than actually spend my time with a good game, I finished getting 100% on Dracula X to replace my erased file.

Any comments on it? (even if they're older thoughts)

Getting 100% is pretty easy (I know I said the game is easy from an action perspective; it's also easy from an adventure perspective). Just as Castlevania III had more than one path, Dracula X has a primed and unprimed path for stages 2, 3, 4 and 5. The stages prior to those (1, and both primed and unprimed 2, 3 and 4) have a normal and a "secret" exit. So, there are technically at least four exits for stages called stage 2.

But you don't need to find all four exits to get 100%. To get 100%, all you have to do is beat all the bosses, and rescue all the girls (there are only 4 of them). The reason you don't need all four exits is that the primed and unprimed stages both have the same bosses for their secret or normal exits.

Getting 102% in Donkey Kong Country 2 is a much bigger achievement than 100% in Dracula X.

The stages are surprisingly short. You know how Castlevania 1 had three subsections per stage? And Castlevania III had anywhere between 2 to 7 (but usually more than less)? It seems like Dracula X most typically only has two.

With 11 stages total (plus a couple of smaller stages), and two routes through most stages, and some other secrets, I guess it could be argued that with only two short sections per path in a stage, it still nevertheless adds up. Well, the game in total might be larger than Castlevania 1 (though certainly not 3), but the issue isn't just pure game size. I've argued before that having to get through more than one challenge in a stage forces you to be really good at the whole stage (such as the multipart Goldeneye stage, Aztec).


I thought it was funny that this game's damage structure isn't as forgiving as Castlevania 4's, despite that the game is easier. Maria can only take 5 hits (independent of stage, I believe). I think Ritcher can take a little more (probably to compensate for his lesser agility. But because the stages are so short, if you don't care to play to avoid any taking hit whatsoever, you can still play carelessly without it affecting your ability to beat a stage. Somehow, for the type of game this is, only 5 hit lifebars seem as generous as Mega Man's huge lifebar.

I think the fundamental gameplay experience of Dracula X is to be fighting one big enemy, you whap it a whole lot of times really quickly, it draws back, you jump out of the way, and it does an attack that covers a lot of area. Then you move back in and attack again. Between "big" attacks, the enemies often don't do anything. This describes so many enemies in this game (the knight before the bone creature boss at the end of [IIRC] 2', the big knights in stage 7, the enemies with the maces in stage 5, the purple knights with spears, the rock monsters in stage 1, some bosses [eg., the second form of the Grim Reaper], probably more).

Though I've said that the game can be "fun" in a very simple minded way, I really don't think that fighting enemies like that is particularly enjoyable. It disrupts the rhythm of the game.

As for the sidescrolling sections of the game, to me the best way to describe them would be "devoid of interest". Of course, Dracula X is was an entry in a long running series, and most of its settings (Graveyard, Pirate Ship, Clocktower, etc.) were done before.

I guess there are some things in the game that are technically new. I don't remember seeing enemies riding on giant boulders in a Castlevania game before Dracula X. Skeleton enemies climb around trees in 4', and swing from bony "vines" in, er, stage 3, I think? But none of those things were created for the sake of being challenging. I guess they were there for the sake of being "cool" (enemies act more alive and aren't as limited in what they do -- again, animation-wise, not challenge-wise; and you can see more death animations).

Of course, some stages have slightly more to them than the videos I've posted, but I'd say the obstacles are basically at the level of nuisances. If you want to just cheese past a couple you generally can (going back to the lifebar issue), but if there's ever a time when you can't or don't want to, just a little bit of caution is all you'll need.

"Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood."
-Orwell