VinnyVania: Rondo of Blood - Part 01

Alex rocking the Vitus hoodie - 100% awesome.

Any reason you aren't emulating the unlockable version in the PSP game? It's the same TurboGrafx port but dubbed into English

I've only played part of the PSP remake (which I never finished, because this game is hard) but I distinctly remember having a way easier time with Maria even though she can't take as many hits as Richter. She's a lot faster, has a double jump, and can attack while moving (with doves, naturally).

Man, that said, it's kinda crazy how much slicker this game is than Super Castlevania IV on all fronts despite only coming out two years later.

Ohhh yeah! This is in my top 10 games ever. Watching gbeast play it is even more fun than I expected! Glad they're appreciating it. Vinny picked it up real quick, he's actually really good--there's a lot of subtlety to the controls.

About the end of the video: Oh god that boss he found at the end is the hardest in the game and it leads to the the absurdly hard almost unbeatable secret level (I think I've only beaten it once in my life). Hopefully they end up on the normal route by not hitting the bomb in level 4, avoiding all that!

"This is the Best Castlevania Game!" ~Austin Walker

In terms of Classic Castlevania gameplay (Pre Symphony of the Night) this in my opinion the peak of the series. Its really a shame that it wasn't released outside of Japan in its true form until much later after release. This game is truly a gem, I'm definitely looking forward to see how Vinny takes on the rest of the game.

Good times! Rondo of Blood was one of those games I used to dream about owning back in the stone age. Never got to play it til a few years ago.

That music, holy crap! The composers totally went nuts with all this new power given to them.

Maria is the only way to play this game, 'Magic Birds > Whip' and 'Dragon > All Sub-weapons' also anime

The amount of work they put into the music is crazy!

@psychopenguin said:

It's a musical term.

The return of this feature is just what I needed for a bedbound weekend!

I don't know if they even have a set up for broadcasting PSP games in GBEast.

A PSP emulator would be no harder to set up than the NES and SNES ones they used for earlier Vinnyvanias.

That soundtrack is pure fire.

@onarum said:

I'm not sure I have the vocabulary to describe it, but there's something about Super Castlevania IV I think looks nauseating(and not just the mode 7). Some of it is the colors, and some of it is the background details. Castlevania 3, at least as I recall it from just watching Vinnyvania, had a lot of pure black backgrounds with few features. Meanwhile, Super has a lot of colors and VERY detailed backgrounds, but those backgrounds are often completely bizarre, with very saturated blue pathways through lush green gardens or tons of draperies and textiles indoors.

Rondo of Blood has its clear blue columns and hallways, but that just looks pleasant to me this time around, probably because it uses contrasting colors more subtly. It's also got more pure black in its palette. Besides that, the animations for the enemies in this game is much cooler. Characters move swiftly and in normal physical ways like swinging on ropes or sliding on bannisters, and they have several attack patterns where their weapons move swiftly. Compare that to Super, where half the enemies float in the air while the other half walks boringly along the ground. Rondo looks more like an action anime(or a fighting game, as the crew points out), and I think it's a better look. So I'm not saying 8-bit is the best look for the series. Personally, I don't have much nostalgia for the NES even. I just discovered by watching Vinnyvania that I specifically don't enjoy the presentation in Super Castlevania IV.

Really glad they decided to go with original Rondo instead of Dracula X.

Also Rondo looks way better than Super Castlevania IV and is a better game too. Probably my second favourite Castlevania game after Symphony of the Night.

True. I'm speculating here, but I don't know if they're as comfortable with using emulators of (relatively) recent systems for broadcast. I know the PSP is a dead system at this point, but you can still buy PSP titles on PSN (including Dracula X Chronicles). Of course, the NES and SNES games they played are also available on the Wii VC and they still chose emulation there, so who knows.

@redhotchilimist: well I can see rondo of blood is the clear winner, but for me saying a nes game looks better than a snes game will never make sense.

Also Apparently the moderation team hates the fact that I suggested you might have an "eye ailment" because of that, I hope you didn't take an offense in it because that was not my intention, I mean I have an eye ailment... in fact I'm pretty sure those are common.. but these days almost anything is taken offensively I guess.. so if you were offended by that my apologies.

Remember that good looking and graphical prowess are 2 completely different things. Depending on how it done a NES game can look better than a SNES game.

I just thought Super Castlevania IV looked extremely cluttered and busy (the same was true for many early SNES games before they realized that having the ability to put more details and effects everywhere doesn't mean they should be put everywhere), I don't think the NES games look amazing by any means, but they had a clean art style that made it pretty easy to see what was going on on-screen (and not every NES game does that either).

Rondo of Blood looks pretty damn great though.

It's not only german, it's also a pretty prolific voice actor, don't now his name but I have heard his voice a million times.

@onarum: I get it if you don't feel the same way. On a pure technical level alone, obviously the SNES has much more advanced graphics. There are areas in Super Castlevania 4 I think look good, too. The Treasury was wonderful.

I wasn't offended, I thought it was just a figure of speech. No bad blood between us as far as I'm concerned. I appreciate the moderation team looking out for me, because they can't know what I'm thinking and they want the comment section to be pleasant for everyone, and I appreciate you apologizing too in case I was offended.

I can't help myself, but watching Vinny play this wracks my brain.

Gotta have that crow tech.

That opening narration sounds like a band I used to listen to call E Nomine.

Only halfway through the first episode and we have barkerville. This is a quality Castlevania!

I followed my tradition of playing the Castlevania games that Vinny plays on Vinnyvania today by loading up Rondo of Blood on my Wii VC. I ran into a snag at first, though, and it's all because I bought/downloaded Castlevania III last year. It took up just enough system memory for Rondo of Blood to no longer load off my SD card. Once I figured that out, I jumped right into my old saved game.

I was right at Dracula. After a few deaths, I killed him and got the bad ending. And then I took a look at my stage select and noticed I've barely done any of the alternate levels. I guess I'll have to work on that. I've actually gotten the good ending before, back when I was using the MagicEngine emulator to play the game, but it'd be nice to do it again on a legit version.

I suspect Vinny will have the most trouble with Shaft. And I do hope he uses the stage select to seek out the alternate stages; they all have different enemies, music, and bosses.

@kubertus: He sounds like Klaus-Dieter Klebsch to me.

I wish they'd started with the SNES version and then gone to this so they could see how dramatic the shift is. I'd only read about this game for years and when I actually saw it, it was breathtaking.

All i could hear when they get to the stage after the werewolf is...

GAAAAAAAAAAASP!

Vinny. ABW ALWAYS BE WHIPPING

Aesthetically I'm getting strong Vampire Hunter D vibes which is great!

I was really hoping for Bloodlines, although I guess the Japanese version of this technically came out first? Just hoping the Nintendo thing doesn't make them skip it (I know they're playing the TGX version, but they mostly got to it as a fallback for Dracula X).

Honestly, I find Rondo and Super Castlevania are both overrated. The level design in this one is weird and SCV's movement and balance are all screwed up. Bloodlines is my favourite 16 bit era one by far. Although, I'll give Rondo the Dark Souls inspiration stuff Austin keeps mentioning. It almost makes the weird-ass pacing in this game make sense retroactively.

@cav86: thank you - I completely forgot about that

@steevl: I was originally going to say just use a VitaTV, but I forgot that without having gotten really lucky when the whitelist was fucked up, or without hacking, Castlevania: Dracula X chronicles is not compatible :(

when does castlevania 64

Yeah, I'm really disappointed it wasn't made compatible with the PSTV. I actually have a PSP and a physical copy of that version, as well as the cables to allow me to hook it up to my TV, but it (the remake version, at least) doesn't look great on the big screen.

Hey @vinny, if you don't like the Classic Controller, a Wii Remote on its side should work. It's the SNES Virtual Console games that need a Classic/GameCube Controller; TG-16/PC Engine games can be played NES-style.

A for jumping and B/Y for whipping does sound pretty bad; is the Y button turbo-fire maybe? Per-button turbo-fire was built in to the stock TG-16 controller, with the toggle switches about where the X/Y buttons would be on the Classic.

Wow, this music is wonderful!

@austin_walker If I remember correctly, there's an item crash for when you don't have a subweapon, too.

They use it on the second or third stage once. Richter just jumps up and uses a flame whip.

WHOOP!

The painting before the boss looks like a 8bit version of Joseph Ducreux.

I wanted to address some things that came up in this episode:

Regarding the castle entrance being in multiple games (but the castle, overall, being different from game to game), this is explained to some extent by Alucard in Symphony of the Night. Maria mentions that the castle seems different, to which Alucard replies that the castle is a "creature of Chaos" in that it takes a new form each time that it reappears. So, it's the same castle, but the layout of the rooms (and even which rooms appear in general) can vary from game to game.

Regarding why Dracula has a gigantic cross in his castle (not to mention the chapel in general), prior to becoming the character we know as Dracula in the series, he was actually deeply religious. He renounced God in anger after his wife fell ill and died while he was away in battle (fighting in God's name). His pursuit of power and immortality was an act of defiance against God. I assume that he happened to have a chapel in his castle, so it just happens to appear in the castle from game to game - albeit in different locations - as per the aforementioned "creature of Chaos" thing.

As for what he (assuming that you mean Dracula) does with the hearts (or other items) that happen to be in candles throughout the castle, I believe that this was explained at some point (but maybe not in any of the games). It could've been in an interview with Iga or something. In either case, my understanding is that the candles (or other breakable objects that contain power-ups) contain souls or bits of souls of those people whom Dracula killed, and the power-ups are intended to provide aid to anyone who opposes Dracula. It's their last gasp in an effort to fight evil.

It's worth noting that Alucard doesn't initially get anything out of candles at the beginning of SotN. Once he collects the Cube of Zoe, however, items begin to materialize from candles. Note that Alucard happens to pick up the Cube of Zoe shortly after announcing his opposition of Dracula (his father) to Death. By continuing into the castle and collecting the Cube of Zoe, I believe that he's proving his intent to the souls in the candles.

While Alucard can immediately collect items from candles in Castlevania III, and you could argue that this is a plot hole of sorts, I'd argue that Alucard's intentions were clear because he joined Trevor.

In short, the Castlevania has a lot of weird little things in it that -regardless of how insignificant they seem - are legitimately explained in some form and considered to be cannon.

I love vinnyvania.

PUSH RUN BUTTON!

Yes! Rondo of Blood is pretty close to my favorite game. I also didn't like playing this with the classic controller and switched to just the regular Wii controller. Way better experience. There's no need for all the extra buttons on the classic anyway.

You can get english translated ISO's for an emulator (using the text and audio from the PSP remake) instead of playing this in Japanese on the (bad) Wii VC emulator.

Barkerville... ba-ba-barkerville... barkerville... ba-ba-bar-ker-ville...