In the mid-1990's, it was perfectly understandable for Nintendo to have cold feet over really getting into blood, gore, creepy images, and frightening deaths. But as the 16 bit era started picking up steam, and video game companies were getting capable of being able to depict things more realistically (for the standards of the time); it was getting harder for Nintendo to justify NOT doing those things as well! But when the Sega Genesis version of "Mortal Kombat" outsold the Super NES version by a factor of 3 to 1; Nintendo knew that they couldn't ignore trying to make their video games more realistic any longer. Luckily, in late 1994; the video game rating system was adopted all across the board, meaning that people would now know exactly the kind of content they were getting with each game! And what better way to test the waters, than with a "Castlevania" video game? While this game often gets over-looked, due to being a more stripped-down port of the long-time Japanese exclusive "Rondo Of Blood" for the Turbographx-16, this game does have some things that the Turbographx-16 doesn't. While in other "Castlevania" games, it's perfectly normal to be able to upgrade the power of your whip and fire it in every single direction; in this game, you are limited to just a normal chain whip and you can only fire it forward while standing, ducking, or while jumping. And while the normal additional "Castlevania" weapons make their return, they are more useful in this video game. For instance, a brand new feature is that whenever you have a certain amount of hearts; you can utilize a feature called an "Item crash". This feature is a powerful move that will allow you to deal a lot of damage on-screen to many enemies all at the same time! My personal favorite was utilizing the axe "Item crash". Also, the graphics, music, sound, controls, and ESPECIALLY the difficulty are more well-balanced compared to the Turbographx-16 "Rondo Of Blood". While the game only lets you play seven stages (of a possible nine available stages), at any one time; this game does have a unique feature to it. While it doesn't HAVE as many different endings as "Rondo Of Blood" has (due to memory limitations of the Super NES cartridge), it does have three different possible endings), depending on whether or not you didn't manage to save either girl, you manage to save one of the girls, or you manage to save both girls before facing and defeating Dracula; before you defeat Dracula, will alter which ending of the game you get to see! Try to save both girls in order to get the best ending! While this game isn't exceptionally long or too challenging compared to some of the other "Castlevania" video games, it is still a VERY solid effort from Konami; as well as one of the last great crown jewels of the 16 bit era. I highly recommend playing it for a solid Metroid-vania experience! Enough said, true believers!
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