Kid Dracula (1990)

Preliminary: Whaaaa I didn't realize I had a Castlevania[-adjacent] game coming up on the list! Seems like this is an absurd cutesy parody of Castlevania or something? Well, I love the Castlevanias and Konami tends to not miss, so here goes nothing. I found a fan translation, so that's good. It looks a bit complex, which seems to be the usual with cutesy games: cute-em-ups and cutesy platformers tend to be harder and more complex than not cute ones :-p. I prefer simple and not-too-hard! Hopefully I enjoy this one!

I was nervous, because imo late 1990 means it's time to move on frmo NES and expect Genesis, PC Engine, and SNES etc. But right off the bat I'm loving these colors! Hopefully the Look remains this fresh and advanced-looking for an NES game!

Well, I'm loving the Look and colors so far, and the skills don't seem too complex and the UI is quite nice. I wonder if there's an RPG/leveling element too?! I tend to love that :-X I was going to switch over to Ironman OSRS but I might play a little longer >.>

Day 1

The movement is unfortunately slow, and the sprite flicker is already happening on level 1. I wasn't loving the level design of the first level but then I realized you can climb on ladders while in mid air and uh, that's a huge improvement compared to the classic Castlevanias :-X

Lots of graphical and level design references to the original Castlevanias so far . At least the moving spiked platforms aren't one-hit deaths in this.

Uh not sure how I feel about the explicit Nazi symbol and KKK outfit for the first boss, but I mean it is the boss you kill. So that's a positive. Very odd game so far, full of both great parts and meh parts. Something feels missing about it, but it's still an action-platformer and I likely will play through it all as long as the difficulty doesn't get crazy high. Turns out there is not leveling/RPG, I think that was just what level I was on haha, or maybe upgrades to my Fire power. Either way I got an upgarde and on to Level 2, not sure what this path selection screen means like is this like Castlevania 2/3 where there are different paths I can take? Or are they just being silly? (ah, turns out it's basically just between-level minigames).

Day 2

Well, the Look and colors are continuing to be beautiful, but the jumps are starting to get tacky on this cloud level. Ok and the scrolling in this water level is terrible

And the bubble boss there was manageable but annoying mechanics. At least make the bounce path make sense. The ice level unsurprisingly is also tedious. Why do I move so slow. And the slipperiness seems very rudimentary for a Konami game. And the minigames are quite meh.If it weren't for the cute premise and Look, the nice special attacks, and it being a genre I always push through, I possibly would have dropped it. But hey, you know I always love a nighttime skyline in games

Uh what in the world is this... kinda neat idea, not so good to actually do it tho

Lots of sprite flicker/lag which is meh. Over that with the NES. I'm officially burning out on this on the Desert level. It's good and everything, but just feels redundant. The Castlevania references essentially stopped after the first level lol and now it's just taking the different biomes from Mario 3. I do like the Skeleton enemies that throw their heads at you tho :-p good mechanics there

Not only was the space level frustrating, but now the boss is just outright tedious. How many more times of this same pattern do I gotta do this? Finallllly. And wow even the flying ship trope stolen from Mario lol, petty. Welp 2 more levels to go. Probly should've dropped it since it'll likely just be a 3 star anyway, but might as well at this point. Will finish it up later tonight.

Tbh for the NES, this is a phenomenal platformer and probly should be a 4 star. But in the context of 1990 and so close to Super Mario World, I've been dissing it a bit heh. I just don't like the tedious parts. but so it goes with Nintendo Hard. And more validly, the sprite flicker and slow-down really bogs it down compared to its 1990 contemporaries on next-gen consoles. I'm on the last level. Here goes nothing.

These first 2 bosses of the final stage boss rush were quite easy/just tedious. Like the 2nd boss (the drill robot head one), it really was just a waiting game, waiting to be able to do it damage. And then waiting for it too slowly decide to go back up in the air heh.

The final boss too was just a tedious task of following a certain pattern repeatedly. I suppose that's all platformer type bosses but I dunno felt blah. And then the ending tune is remarkably similar to Mario >> Should've referenced Castlevania tunes!

Look: 8.5/10 Really great Look. Among the best NES platformer Looks. Just sorta came "late to the party"

Sound: 8/10 Good catchy tunes, never wanted to mute it

Play: 7.5/10 Way too much randomness with the spawning/pathing of the bosses. But overall, a really solid NES platformer. Without the bogging minigames and usual NES limitations (sprite flicker/lag, etc.), this could've been higher.

Feel: 8/10 Tied to Castlevania? Always gets a boost. Tho this definitely could've been better.

Attachment: 8/10 This honestly should be at the top of the NES platformer list for ones I return to. Certainly higher than Megaman, etc. But it just seems very secondhand, hard to explain. And didn't reference Castlevania enough. If you're gonna parody something, parody it!

Overall: 8/10

Completion: Main Story

Playtime: ~1h 45m

I've seen and played a few games like this before (mostly cute-em-ups). Comical/satirical in tone, often chibi-fied/super-deformed (SD) versions or made cute or silly in some way (The best one being probably the Splatterhouse take in Wanpaku Graffiti, and my god i actually remembered the title of it,,, Guess it was that memorable)

Let me say that your enjoyment for something like this is going to scale and correlate with your appreciation for anime (particularly classic anime) that uses a lot of the same kind of expression and silliness at times. Honestly, I think its above and beyond in this sense. The art-style on these sprites is really nice-looking and expressive. Some of the best I've seen! You have so many 'tropes' that seem to be on parade throughout this game even.. You got the scene in Bad Dudes from NES, as you fight on top of the train. Then a scene where you are running across roof tops evading UFOs that beam down aliens feels like some kinda sentai series of the day. Then the game slowly starts to look more and more like Mega Man with lots of Tezuka-styled robots all over the place. So yeah i think the game is totally having fun with other players in the scene's copyright. Kid Drac himself almost seems to be mocking the industry having replaced his whip with a SHMUP like blaster... the first upgrade of which seems to be a joke itself HOMING MISSILE + SPREAD SHOT... literally the best upgrade in any shooting game i've ever played, and from a parody Whipper-Gone-Shooter? Oh my.

Despite this weapon the game still gets pretty tough. Most enemies take multiple shots. The spawn back if you move offscreen too much. The game features bosses that you steal power from. Some are abilities like turning into a bat.
The bat ability feels like the "Fuck you to every jumping puzzle/pit/spike trap in any game ever!" that every video gamer always wanted..

Most bosses are cheesy and easy. Some bosses also have weaknesses to certain weapons/abilities.

One missed opportunity the game could have had was escalators that go really fast instead of stairs that go really slow I had that thought playing the game walking up a ladder thinking "where are the stairs?" Stairs seem absent.

The game plays ok overall and the fun sauce on top is an enjoyable extra.

I played this one via the Castlevania Anniversary Collection. Which was great, because it was originally a Japan-only game! So that's something cool Konami has done recently (well, perhaps I should mainly thank M2).

And what do you know? Kid Dracula (as the title was translated here) is a great Famicom (NES) game that's' well-worth playing, whether you're a Castlevania fan or not. The gameplay is actually more of a run-and-gun platformer like Mega Man. You play as Dracula Jr, who must throw fireballs at all the rebellious monsters in the demon world who have made Galamoth (a kind of dinosaur man?) the new ruler of hell.

The graphics are great for a NES title, with expressive characters and cute renditions of classic Castlevania locales. The controls are even better. I may get some pushback for this, but I feel like I can maneuver Kid Dracula here a lot better than Mega Man (at least in his NES titles). You get a variety of different fireballs to use as you progress in the game, and there are goofy gambling mini-games to earn extra lives with between levels. All in all this game is a solid romp, and one of the best 8-bit platformers I've played. A shame it didn't leave Japan back in the day, but it's great to see it get an official English release now.

I MUST APOLOGIZE FOR THE HARSH LANGUAGE IN ADVANCE BUT THIS GAME MADE ME UPSET SO HAVE FUN READING MY TEMPER TANTRUM

I fucking love Metroidvania games, or rather I should say I have loved the Metroidvania games I have played. The platforming, exploration, item-upgrades and challenge that comes with games like Super Metroid or Hollow Knight are things I cannot get enough of.

With that in mind, it would be quite the surprise that I haven’t played any Castlevania games….. Yeah, the game franchise that lends half of its name to the genre I claim to adore.

I have always meant to get to playing something like Symphony of the Night but other games kept grabbing my interest first. Little did I know that my Castevania-virgin cherry was about to be popped when I spent the night over at my best friend's house where we played a variety of new games he got for the Nintendo Switch. Among the titles he presented was the Castlevania Anniversary Collection.

Several games were included from the early years of the series and among them I was the most excited to try Super Castlevania 4 but as a joke he put on for me a game I had never even heard of before: Kid Dracula.

What the fuck was this game even?

It’s whatever, the joke is on him, motherfucker I didn’t let him on the Switch and beat this fucking game in one sitting lol.

Honestly, I have no idea what Konami was thinking when they released this enigma in 1990 for the Famicom in Japan only. Under the original title of Akumajō Special: Boku Dracula-kun, Kid Dracula had almost nothing to do with Castlevania whatsoever. No ties to the original lore of the previous games, no returning characters or storyline, not even the gameplay or mood are remotely identical. Kid Dracula was designed to be a parody of Castlevania directed towards children with a more comedic tone. Just look at the box art and the character designs, it’s all goofy and more cutsie than anything from Castlevania.

As for the premise of the game’s plot I had to look that shit up because I honestly had no idea what the fuck was going on. The player takes control of Kid Dracula, this squinty-eyed motherfucker who looks like he mastered ultra instinct.

Drac Jr. here is supposedly the king of the demons but some asshole named Galamoth tried to take his throne while Drac was trying to sleep so it’s up to Batty Boo to fuck Galaxian’s shit up so all the monsters in the land know who is in charge and want to be Kid Drac’s pal.

Basic enough but my question is why the fuck do these monsters flock around Kid Dracula at the end when these are the same monsters that were trying to kill him the whole game?

Kid Drac kills them too so what the fuck is going on, were they mind-controlled by Galaga because it wasn’t mentioned on Wikipedia. I guess the best way to make friends is to kick their ass first or get your ass kicked by them?

The art style is really cute and cartoony, it kinda looks like what the song “The Monster Mash” would look like in a game form. The enemies are all round and squishy-looking even most of the bosses are big-eyed and cuddly looking, my favorite being lady liberty at the end of stage 5. Her fight is the best because it’s just a quiz show about the history of the statue of liberty and it’s charming as hell and lady liberty herself is how do I put this… busty for an NES sprite.

KID DRACULA GAVE ME A STATUE OF LIBERTY WAIFU.

Anyhow, what surprised me the most about this game was the core gameplay. Kid Dracula has no whip, he’s a fucking vampire so he’s got all of these special powers as his main offense and as for the level progression, it is completely linear. No exploration to be seen, just a mad dash to the end of 9 freakishly tough levels, each capped off by a boss fight. The whole game consists of Kid Drac flicking his vampire snots at enemies and making pixel-perfect jumps.

At the end of each level No-Nose-feratu gets a new ability that can be swapped with SELECT. These abilities grant Kid Drac exploding boogers, freezing boogers, flight, gravity reversal and the most useful ability: homing multi-boogers.

It’s amazing how a character can have multiplesnot-based moves while remaining nose-less.

A lot of this gameplay reminds me of Megaman more than any Metroidvania. What separates Kid Dracla from Mega Man other than the lack of level choice but the addition of minigames. If you kill an enemy with an ability they usually drop these coins that can be used to play one of 4 random minigames at the end of each level. I only got to play 2 one is called Jab n Pop and it’s pop-up pirate with a skeleton who seems oddly aroused by the idea of you poking him with swords???

The other I tried was just roulette and believe both games are just a way to get extra lives.

This game spanks you with the worst jank.

Jumps are inconsistent as hell, Kid Drac feels like he’s floaty at some moments and like he’s made of lead at others. The game will CHUG like Thomas the Tank Engine at certain points making platforming a godawful nightmare. The most notorious example of this is during level 7 which is, without a doubt the most dificult and poorly designed level I had the displeasure of playing through. You get shot up into outer space and have to hop from moving platform to moving platform while the game’s framerate droops downward like an old and shriveled teat and the spacing of the platforms are so close together, you will often snap Kid Drac’s neck by hitting his head on the bottom of a platform sending you plummeting down to start over again.

And that’s not all, there are enemies that if you don’t kill, they will push you off and kill you and if you survive that, there are rockets that fly from the bottom of the stage and can spawn right under your ass and penetrate Kid Drac’s anal cavity as he’s about to land, causing him to fall again and again and it never ends. That is only one level and while the rest have their annoying moments as well it doesn’t get as bad… until the final level. Level 9 is a peudo-boss rush begining with a teleporting fire dragon-horse -dog that can only be hurt by the ice boogers.

This fight takes for FUCKING EVER because the dragon fucker dances all over the screen giving you almost no opportunities to land a hit. After that slog, you have to murder some drab little crabs while using the up-down and if you don’t kill them you get poked by spikes. Then comes a second RNG fuck-fest with a swarm of yellow robots running at you from both directions while you run for your life to avoid more spikes.

At this point comes the second boss, a giant floating robot head that has a giant spike to crush you with.

You seeing a pattern here?

Wait for him to fall and flick boogers at his face until he disintegrates. Right afterward is the final boss, Galamoth and he is honestly an absolute joke to fight.

Just stand in between his lightning hands and shoot into his open mouth while avoiding his bolus he spits on your Saiyan hair. What got to me with this level was everything else that came before. You get 3 hearts at the beginning at each level and sometimes you can pickup extra hearts along the way. In addition to that help, every level has a checkpoint so it makes all that much more convenient. NOT LEVELS 7 and 9. You have to do level 7 without getting hit once before the boss but the level is relatively short so it isn’t TOO bad but FUCKING LEVEL 9 throws so much guano at you, you are bound to die before you even get to the robot head. I just lost my fucking patience. I was so tired at that point and not just because I stayed up until 5am playing the damn thing. Then my buddy said something while watching me play that shook my entire reality: “You know you can use save states right?”

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!

HERE I WAS KILLING MYSELF RESTARTING LEVEL AFTER LEVEL RUNNING OUT OF LIVES HUNDREDS OF TIMES AND JUST NOW AT THE LAST LEVEL HE MENTIONS SAVE STATES!?!?!?!?!

I could have strangled him ;-;

I got to Galamoth, set a save state and died twice before killing him. A final group photo and the credits signaled the end of my trials.

ALL HAIL KID DRACULA, KING OF THE DEMONS AND THE COOLEST KID THAT ALL MONSTERS SHOULD BE FRIENDS WITH.

Fuck that, I ain’t playing this shit again holy fuck my EYES WERE BURNINGBY THE END OF THIS BULLSHIT

Kid Dracula could have been a short and sweet journey made was made unnecessarily and bitterly long by terrible jumping physics, unfair RNG and confused level design. While it’s really charming and even has a cool soundtrack I can only recommend it if you use save states and even then, have a ton of patience. After playing this game I believe I deserve my own coffin to sleep in for thousands of years.

Boku Dracula-kun! or I'm Kid Dracula! is a surprisingly fun little game for the NES, borrowing a small bit from its Castlevania parody but quickly becoming a unique and fun platformer on the console. The Demon King, Kid Dracula, has woken from his slumber and has been challenged by the demon Galamoth! Can he best the demon and be the most popular kid among the monsters?

The game sets out with nine different levels, some having multiple stages. Kid Dracula starts out with a normal shot but grabs different powers as he moves from level to level, with an excellent homing shot, a powerful bomb, a freeze power, flight power, and walk-on-ceiling power (Hang, yeah). He also has a charge shot (much like Mega Man, hmmm) that is a little trickier to fire but can produce coins from enemies killed with it.

The coins allow Kid to partake in a variety of gambling games at the end of every level, whether it's spinning a lottery, guessing at Can-Can, stabbing a barrel with swords or other luck-based activities. It's gambling, plain and simple, but it encourages plenty of charge shots to get as many chances to succeed and win extra lives!

Each of the levels has unique little challenges and catchy little tunes, with hitting flying turtles off roller coasters, taking down giant robots, running from boulders and collapsing rooms in a pyramid, making one's way through a parody of Dracula's Castle, space elevators - it can get pretty difficult near the end but nothing is really repeated or feels boring.

I'm Kid Dracula! is a game with nails a little less sharp than the game it parodies but combines fun and varied run-and-gun gameplay with questionably addictive gambling and simple but effective set pieces. It's well worth finding a translated version!

Platform:

NES version.

Graphics/Sound:

The graphics are very good for the NES. The character style is consistently cute throughout the game. I actually like the style here much more than in Castlevania. And for some reason it reminded me a bit of Bonk, in the way that there was also a finale in space, whereas you started in an environment that you would never expect to include space in the end.

Gameplay:

It's a platformer that is supposedly a spinoff of Castlevania. I never managed to play through any Castlevania game so far, since every game I picked up in that series I kind of lost interest after a while. This one, however, completely hits the spot for my taste. It's a platformer alright, but as far as I can see doesn't have much in common with Castlevania. At least the dreaded stairs from Castlevania are thankfully missing completely from this game, it overall feels a bit more like playing a classic Mega Man game, although there is a linear level progression. The levels are varied enough, and there is a bunch of funny minigames in between levels (most of them I didn't really understand sadly, since I can't read japanese).

Difficulty:

It starts out pretty easy but gets harder each level. The last levels are pretty unforgiving, and some of the deaths are cheap, but it's all still in good fun. Interestingly it was very easy to reach the max amount of hearts as heart containers were easy to find, and there were more than enough of them. (Usually items to increase your max health are hidden away pretty well in games, or are at least very uncommon). The controls are pretty tight.

The game is a very good platformer on the NES. I would give it more points if Konami would have localized it at least to English. It still puzzles me why sometimes the best looking games weren't even published outside Japan. Sadly much of the humorous aspect of this game gets lost when you don't understand the textboxes. It's still an enjoyable game, and easier to pick up than any Castlevania game I tried so far.