Bram Stoker's Dracula (1993)

Bram Stoker’s Dracula, for SNES

Rating: 5.0/10; Average

Waste of time. Not recommended at all

Dracula is a 2D sideview action platformer that feels like a cheap knockoff Castlevania that could have been a free "prize" from a box of cereal. The story is minimal even by SNES action game standards, the sprites and animations are simplistic and stiff, and the gameplay does the bare minimum to be a functional game. Your guy can move around, jump, crouch to pick up loot\activate the exit, attack, and shoot 1 of 3 lackluster special weapons. The beginning of the game is terrible because you start with a knife that does not have enough range to kill dog enemies before they run into you and do contact damage. You get no invincibility frames either so you can die in seconds if an enemy touches you. Before starting a new game you can go into the options to increase your health and lives. Dying sends you back to the last checkpoint, which is a brazier you have to hit, or a boss fight. Other than being warped back, death does not reset your progress. Bosses even keep damage done so you can just throw lives away to bull them down.

So after jumping over the dogs and walking on tables you find this guy who gives a thought balloon with a sword in it. This spawns a sword nearby which actually allows you to defeat enemies without taking damage. Why you don't start off with a sword and why this whole thought balloon thing is in the game, are very good questions. This guy appears in just about every level to spawn secondary weapons, which have a limited number of uses. I think you also need to talk to him to reveal the exit. The thrown wooden stake and bouncy bullet shotgun are the only functional secondary weapons as they allow you to inflict some damage at a longer range than the sword. This is important later in the game as enemies get tougher or stack together since you can only hit 1 enemy at a time. The dynamite is useless because it bounces off everything, making it extremely unlikely to ever damage anything with it. Maybe if you turn your back to the enemy and throw it at your foot it could possibly hurt something. I know whoever coded this knows basic physics because the stake has a ballistic trajectory that limits its distance, so it must have been a design choice to make the dynamite function like a basketball.

A little arrow on the screen points where you need to go, which is a nice touch for the genre. The levels are not that big or complicated though. There is platforming that will result in damage or instant death if you fail, traps that require extremely precise timing and positioning to get past, and infinitely respawning enemies. A few spots have them respawning while you are on the same screen, which makes it very difficult to get past without taking damage. Only 2 enemies stand out a bit; skeletons that poke their swords out to actually do more than just rely on contact damage, and sleeping drunks that wake up to throw bottles at you. Being the only ranged enemy in the game, they can be among the most difficult, but who thought that was a good idea for an enemy? And why does running into a layabout drunk still cause contact damage? The levels are pretty generic but there is 1 that stands out. Not for the scenery but because you have 3 brides floating around you that can't be hurt for some reason, despite being a boss fight later. Of course they do contact damage and you are expected to time every movement so as not to touch them. Even simply walking up a slight incline can be enough to touch them, nevermind having to jump. This is an unbelievably tedious concept, but they move slower than you so the only sensible thing to do is take a hit to jump through them and run for it. So why even have them there?

The last thing to discuss are the bosses. At first they are daunting because they are so large and intimidating, easily wrecking you with contact damage. After several seconds though you will see they operate on a very simple and short pattern. Often they just move back and forth with your challenge being to figure out where the safe spot to be is. The final boss is nothing special compared to the others and there is really nothing worthwhile in this game. Maybe the music. While not a bad game there is little reason to play this instead of one of the many true Castlevanias.

Beat on Normal. My first impressions were very poor. The garbage knife you start with can't kill a dog fast enough, so you take contact damage. I learned to just jump over enemies and take the high road. Then I got the sword and that was a good weapon. The dynamite was one of the most useless weapons I have ever seen in a game; what good is a bomb that bounces off the target? The gun and stake were better and I found it necessary to use a ranged attack in one level where the enemies come in groups of 2, because the sword can only damage 1 enemy at a time. I had to slow to speed to 30 frames per second to get past traps; they were ridiculously close together. Bosses were extremely simple with an obvious pattern, but contact damage + no invincibility frames mean you will die from anything in seconds. I only died a couple of times thanks to save state scumming. The worst part of the game was probably the 3 brides circling around you for an entire level. I ended up just jumping through them, eating the damage, and running through the level ahead of them. I set health and lives to max. Feels like a cheap Castlevania ripoff.

5.0/10