Castlevania: Bloodlines (1994)

Preliminary: Ayyy another Castlevania game. Always a good thing. I'm not in love with the Look, it's too busy for me, but I'm sure the Castlevania hook will get me shortly.

It's weird that you can't whip upwards. And you can only whip diagonal-up while jumping?

Hmmm this might be the first Castlevania game I don't finish/give just a 3 star at most. I don't like the busy Look nor the level designs so far. The bosses are pretty decent so far. I also don't like that there aren't any of the nice QoL gameplay features from Super Castlevania. The stiff direction of jumping mixed with the lack of ability to smack in different directions (tho I did like thw downward attack while jumping)

Yeah I made it to Stage 3-3 and figured it was time to move on.

Look: 7/10 Cool in some ways, but way too busy for my eyes.

Sound: 7/10

Play: 7/10

Feel: 7.5/10

Attachment: 7.5/10 I know I will return to it to finish it. Maybe I'm just in a bad mood, but pretty wild for me to not be feeling a Castlevania.

Overall: 7.2/10

I'm glad I played this game during the internet age so I can look up how to get 9 lives and how to get infinite continues. I don't think I would have been able to beat this game without them (at least not without a large time investment). I do think it's strange that every Castlevania game prior to this one had unlimited continues, but they decided that they wanted to end that with this one. Maybe it's because the game would be much shorter with it. Part of me wants to say this is my favorite of the classic games, but I also don't think I can fully recommend it just because of how difficult it is to beat without exploits.
Pros

• I think this is the best looking game in the classic style. I usually like SNES games more visually than Genesis games, but this has got to be one of the best looking 16-bit games. A lot of impressive effects with reflections, scaling, and transparency.
• The level design is great. I think it has the most creative levels I've seen in the series so far. I'm also a big fan of the visual diversity in the environments.
• Big fan of having multiple characters. I will say that it seemed like one was way better than the other rather than having them having distinct playstyles though.
• The game controls great. It's fast and responsive. I love being able to jump off of and onto stairs easily.
• Using powered up sub-weapons is neato.

• There's some segments that are pretty annoying. The classic perfectly placed pit to fall into comes back in this game. And while the game feels great to control in general, the lack of air mobility doesn't feel great. Walking off ledges goes back to the NES style where you drop like a rock, which is fine until it becomes annoying when it makes some sections harder.

CASTLEVANIA THE NEW GENERATION REVIEW: (GENESIS)

Castlevania the new generation is a 1994 platform game.Konami, the producer and distributor of the game, have done a great job.The story of the game is as follows.In the nineteenth century, the largest countries of Europe had done everything possible to maintain a balance of power in Europe. The inhabitants felt that sooner or later a war would develop, and the countries formed various alliances, which fed feelings of distrust towards others. In June 1914, in Sarajevo, the crown Prince of Austria was assassinated, resulting in a chain reaction of violence across the continent. It was said that a strange beautiful woman joined the shadows. Elizabeth Bartley had conspired with the dark sorceress Drolta Tzuentes to unleash an international global War and use the souls of the dead to revive their Lord Dracula. Two men named John Morris and Eric Lecarde, descendants of the legendary Belmont family of vampire hunters, stood up to counter the threat. Together they went to the ruins of Dracula's Castle, but did not find any trace of the vampire Lord. After learning that Elizabeth was nearby, they followed her as she fought all over Europe. With a lot of effort, John and Eric were finally able to put an end to the threat of Dracula and Elizabeth after a final showdown in the Castle of Proserpina. The victory would soon be tarnished when they learned the terrible price that would come for using the ultimate power of the holy vampire Killer whip.The gameplay is as follows.in this game consisting of 6 sections, you are trying to kill the creatures and pass the section.The music of the game is beautiful.If you are not too obsessed with graphics and you like retro games, this game is for you.My rating for the game: 10/10 (y) Good games to everyone 🙂

I really had no idea what to expect from a Castlevania on the Genesis. To me the thought doesnt sound pleasant, having already played many times over Super Castlevania IV. The buttery smooth response and animation of that classic title is uncharacteristic of many Genesis games, how would Bloodlines respond to the challenge, I wondered.

I was immediately Vince McMahon'ed after the intro, seeing the weird video effect pizazz of the Title itself morph into view. "The Sega boys really did do some magic here, I said."

Throughout the entire game, the experience is a visual pleasure. Everything looks fantastic and everything has a theme. I'd be hesitant to argue against anyone who said this was the best castlevania of them all due to the variance in level theme. It's hard to beat a tour of Europe in a 16-bit playthrough. The game sounds great too. Familiar melodies of classic themes come back and sound surprisingly good on a console that often cranks out raw metal sounds of near-monotony.

The game has some flaws. Theres not a lot of non-linearity (at least it doesnt seem so?) and the levels dont fork like many Castlevanias. But who cares? This is a great looking, sounding, and playing game. One of the best for the Mega Drive.

Just finished this up. I found its levels and especially its bosses to be a bit of a mixed bag. While the bosses may look cool, I didn't find most of them fun to fight against. And not every little gimmick in the levels is all that great either—not a fan of most of Stage 6, for example. Luckily it still does most of the core Castlevania things right and adds a pretty fun new playstyle with its 2nd playable character.

It's interesting how the 16-bit games (Super, Rondo, and this) each evolved the original NES formula in slightly different directions, both stylistically and in terms of gameplay. Now having played them all, I see how different people could argue different ones as the best. Personally this is far from being one of my favorites, but I still found it an above-average game.

Now this is an awesome Castlevania game -- I don't get why it generally doesn't seem to be considered one of the top classics, or why it never gets re-released like all the others of that era have. In Castlevania's Genesis outing, you can play as two characters: one who uses a whip, and another who uses a polearm. They play similarly, but there's enough different to warrant two playthroughs. With the whip you can swing across certain areas, and with the spear you can pole-vault yourself upward.

The levels in this game are fantastic. Instead of taking place only at Dracula's castle, you get to go to a bunch of other places in Europe, and the game goes all-out in presenting fantastic set pieces. Water rises as you traverse ancient Greek ruins. You leap up foreboding platforms that circle about the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The vines of killer plants reach for you in front of the Palace of Versailles. Everything about the game just has a grand, epic feel to it. The music is excellent (and very Genesis), the controls are smooth (or at least less janky than the NES outings), and the difficulty is challenging but not overbearing. Don't pass this one up.