Topic: Is Dracula x (Akumajo Dracula xx) (Snes) A sequel to RoB?

[X]

The Bloodletting for 32X was revealed to be a hoax, was it not?

That was Shin Dracula X. The Bloodletting 32X game evolved into the final product known as SotN.

[Nagumo]

That doesn't quite make sense since the earliest presentation in game magazines showed it to be a direct port, and then when it came time to review the thing it got borked.

Now I'm curious to see how it was handled in the Japanese game mags of the time.


Ha! That's a way better then what they did. Worthy of being hacked into the game. 

Actually, that's not true. I checked out scans of old magazines and early screenshots of the game looked exactly like the game does now. There's no evidence the game was a straight port before, and that they later changed it. Agreed about the Japanese magazines. They could shed some light on the matter.

[Drakon]

I always thought it's a watered down dracula x

[thernz]

that's basically what we ended up getting so it's not like you're wrong or anything.
it just had different intents in development. they probably decided early on to not make snes dracula x an actual port of rondo in any case.

bloodletting was never a hoax, but i believe it eventually became sotn. there's actually no evidence toward it being a sequel to rondo of blood though iirc.

[beingthehero]

The assumption that Bloodletting was a sequel to RoB stemmed from the fact it starred Richter.

While the sprites were resused for SotN, I wished the designs themselves were kept because they were the most 90's x-treme things and it would've been wonderful. Like a Street of Rage/CV crossover.

[Inccubus]

Actually, that's not true. I checked out scans of old magazines and early screenshots of the game looked exactly like the game does now. There's no evidence the game was a straight port before, and that they later changed it. Agreed about the Japanese magazines. They could shed some light on the matter.

I blame my point of view on this:



They could just be reusing the pics from the Rondo of Blood review, however.


In speaking about things being sequels, let us not gloss over the fact that SotN IS the sequel to RoB. After all both games have the same Belmont & Maria and are the only two games with the Dracula X title.

[Nagumo]

Yeah, I know you were going to bring up  that scan.  A while back I was also looking for early screens of XX that looked like Rondo, but I could only find previews that used images from the original version. I also found this scan:

http://www.castlevaniadungeon.net/features/magscans/bv-cv-dx-egm-1995.jpg

It says the game is still early in development, but the game looks exactly look it does when it came out. This whole "Akumajo Dracula X II" thing makes me suspect the intented sequel theory may have some merit after all.

Edit: In fact, this EGM scan comes after the Dracula X preview that you posted, Inccubus. So that seems to imply that those screens where from the original Rondo.

[machetespeghetti]

Under closer inspection of the top and middle picture you can see differences from the pc-engine version
pic 1 huge keyhole on door
middle pic in that screen of rondo I don't recall bone towers

knowing they could have made a better port pisses me off 

[Abnormal Freak]

That big cartoony lock has always been there (you have to beat the big skeleton and the lock breaks after the bell rings), and I'm pretty sure the bone pillar is in that spot.

An actual SNES port of Rondo would have been super awesome, though, had they used the system's wider color palette and touched up the backgrounds a bit. I don't see any reason why there couldn't have been a really faithful and even in some ways improved port, barring CD music. The cutscenes are mostly static and could probably be recreated faithfully (without voice acting), as Cybernator has a similar style of super cool anime-looking scenes.

[machetespeghetti]

No the bone pillars are non existant in that room in rondo I just played the level on my wii.
you were right about the lock.

[thernz]

They were probably reused press release shots from Rondo.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Someone, quick, hack the DraculaXX ROM so that it becomes Rondo of Blood in terms of stage design.
'cuz graphics-wise, I LOVE the way DraculaXX looks.  The backgrounds and foregrounds have a beautiful comic-book look and the palette is bright.

DraculaX (RoB, that is), by comparison, uses very boring 16x16 tiles very often, and uses Black a lot (like rgb0,0,0 black).  It looks very nice, but I know it can look better on a SNES...

[machetespeghetti]

differences

[Abnormal Freak]

As mentioned, probably early shots from Rondo, not a Super NES port.

[machetespeghetti]

You're probably right. If i can recall correctly i heard something somewhere on the deep web about an invisible staircase in dracula x (snes) leading to a boss fight and alternate route. probably BS but it makes me wonder if alternate routes where hidden to a point where only 1 can be found