In the days of old, the people thrived on peace and prosperity.Indeed, fears of unrest were not among their thoughts...

Everpresent, however,is the underside of tranquility, evil. Evil,which spurns prosperity and disdains peace.

Gather they did,those who wished to summon the powers of darkness andcleanse the decadence of the world. And, with smiling contrnance, theyanxiously awaited the coming fo their era.

A hundred years had past, and he was ressurected. Able to become bat,wolf, or mist at will, he lived in the night. He drank the blood of youngmaidens, and lived an eternal life. The lord of Demon Castle, the god ofevil, Count Dracula was reborn...

In Dracula X, Dracula has not only ravaged the countryside in search fora young woman to quench his thirst for blood, he has found one in Annette,Richter's lover! Richter must make his way through nine stages of demonsand devils to rescue not only Annette, but three others Dracula hascaptured: Irisu, Maria, and Tera, and finally make his way to Dracula'schamber and stop Dracula's plot to take the country! Thus begins, without a doubt, the greatest PC Engine game ever made. Ihave always been a fan of Castlevania games, all the way back to the firstfor the NES in 1987. When I heard that there was absolutely no chance of atranslation of what many said to be the best Castlevania ever, I decided togo for an import. I have never once regretted it! This review will be broken up into four parts: Gameplay, Graphics,Sound, and Overall. Each of these will be rated on a scale of 1 to 10, withone being the worst and 10 being the best.

Gameplay - 9

There is also a new weapon, the book of magic. On top of eachof these, if Richter has enough hearts, he can use a special attack that isdifferent depending on the weapon he has. For instance, the dagger producesa solid stream of knives for about five seconds, and the holy water producesan acid rain that severely damages all on screen enemies.

---

One of the most innovative aspects of Dracula X is the addition of asecond player, Maria.

She is also a Belmont decendent and Annette's littlesister. She balances out Richter in that she is much more agile and has a slide, a double jump, and a shadow type attack.

Maria also has her ownweapons, but because she is only twelve years old, an axe or dagger isinappropriate. Her weapons include a cat (weak frontal attack), a red bird(diagonal attack), a turtle (creates a shell around Maria that protects herfrom most attacks), a dragon (most powerful weapon for Maria, straight arialattack), an egg (which hatches into birds), and a music book (which is veryweak).

All of these items also have special attacks that are graphicallyquite impressive, however, one that must be noted is the music book. WhenMaria uses it's special attack, she destroys the enemies with her badsinging! As I have said before, this is not and ordinary action game. Over thecourse of the game, you traverse nine stages to reach Dracula. What makesthis unique is that there are several paths to take (a la Dracula's Curseonly much more complex).

There are 13 stages in total, with stage 2, 3, 4,and 5, and alternate stages 2, 3, 4, and 5. Stage one has two exits, onethat leads to stage 2 and one that leads to stage 2'. Stage 2' has twoexits, one that leads to stage 3 and one that leads to stage 3'. The samewith stages 4 and 4'. Stages 5 and 5' are unique in that if you enter stage5, you have to fight Death to enter stage 6, but if you find your way intostage 5' (which is VERY difficult to do) you bypass Death altogether. Asyou can see, there are MANY ways to tackle the game, and that doesn't eventake into account the hidden areas and items in many stages. This game hasexcellent replay value!

Graphics - 8

While it may not match up to the likes of Castlevania 4 (for obviousreasons), overall the graphics are quite good.



One of the things aboutCastlevania is that the graphics have always been very important to the moodof the game.

The very theme of the game is dark and forbodding and DraculaX definitely pulls this off well. They are detailed, but not as detailed assome TG16 game I've seen. If there's one complaint that I have about thisgame, it's a flaw that all TG16 games suffer from. No matter how hard theytry to simulate depth, it still looks like they're three pieces of papermoving over top of each other. It's a minor complaint and in no waydetracts from the game itself.

Now, the one thing that will immediatelycatch your eye (and that you can't see in these pictures) is the silk smoothanimation. This is one of the benefits of a CD, and it really gives thecharacters lifelike movement because of it.

Sound - 10

One of the things that has always been important to me in a game is themusic. Dracula X is a Castlevania fan's dream come true! All of theclassic Castlevania tunes are here, including the original Castlevania theme(fully orchestrated), the daybreak theme from Simon's Quest (complete withfull pipe organ...BLAST THIS ONE!!), and the beginning theme from Dracula'sCurse (which has been remixed into a kind of hip hop beat with a KILLERbassline, very nice...). Other than these, it has all new music, all ofwhich is definitely worthy of the Castlevania heritage. Definitely some ofthe better if not THE best CD game music I've ever heard. Oh, did I mentionthere's a sound test?

The sound effects also take advantage of the CD's storage space. Thisgame is chalk full of digitized screams, moans, screeches, wails, roars,clanking, thumping, splashing, and breaking glass.



It's enough to make thehair on the back of your neck stand out!

Now, from what I could tell, the acting wasn't bad, in fact it wasactually pretty good. Although I'm at a disadvatage here because I don'tread or speak Japanese. But, I liked the cinemas nonetheless because theywere well paced and animated.

Overall - 9

Overall, Dracula X is definitely worthy of the Castlevania name itholds. I would strongly reccomend this to anyone who likes their actiongames with a little exploration and brainwork.I would call it a MUST BUY (if you can find it) for any Castlevania fan(like myself). Take it from this vetran vampire hunter, you won't regret it!

---