Publisher: Konami
Platform: PSP

I received Castlevania: the Dracula X Chronicles (here for known as CtDXC, and I will use this to refer to the "main" game on the UMD) for Christmahaunakwanzika this year. This is the long awaited re-make of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, a previously Japan-only chapter in the Castlevania saga released for the PC Engine game console. The game is famous for being the only "storyline" Castlevania not released in the US, and infamous for making everyone who played Symphony of the Night think "Why the hell should I care about these brand new characters?" when they meet Richter and Maria in that game for the first time.

Speaking of Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night, both games are unlockable through the course of CtDXC, which makes the game have a much higher value that at first glance. You can also unlock a short little Japanese game called Akumajyo Dracula X Peke. I'll talk about them in their own section later on in the review.

You begin the game as Richter Belmont, descendant of Simon Belmont, the famous Dracula slayer. Kinda like Buffy, but wang enhanced. He wields a whip made from a chain with a spiked ball at the end, and can equip the standard Castlevania sub-weapons (Cross, Axe, Bible, Dagger, Stopwatch) when they drop from whipped candles. He cannot whip up or down, or dangle his whip like Simon can in Castlevania IV for the SNES. He also cannot double jump, the best he can do is a back flip when you press Jump twice, which causes you to die more than it saves your life.

Eventually you can unlock Maria, the plucky girlie sidekick to Richters bad-ass vampire slayer. She wields (I'm not making this up) a pair of doves as her weapon, and can equip sub-weapons of her own: Kittens, Flaming Doves, a Songbook, a Turtle, an Egg filled with Doves, and a Dragon. (The Kittens are my favorite!) She can also double jump, which is really useful.

Graphics:

The graphics in CtDXC are surprisingly nice. Done if full 3D with a 2D side scrolling viewpoint, the game is the best looking Castlevania game to date. The colors are vibrant, even when you are in darker-toned areas. The character animations are solid, and very faithful to the original game. Here's a few screen shots to illustrate my point:

(Thanks to Konami for the screen shots)

The engine really shines when a cut scene occurs, seamlessly transitioning to the full 3D cut scene from the 2D viewpoint with no loading times.

Sound:

Konami did an amazing job remixing the original Rondo of Blood soundtrack in CtDXC, and adding in classic tracks from Castlevania games before and after Rondo of Blood. The version of "Vampire Killer" in Stage 2 is wonderful, and will be made into a ring tone as soon as I get my grubby hands on a copy of it.

The English voices aren't so hot. They certainly didn't hire high quality voice actors for the parts, I'm sure they just grabbed some interns and forced them to play the different parts. There isn't a lot of talking, but if you get annoyed by the voices you can switch over to the Japanese voices, which are of general Japanese quality, I.E. you can't friggin' tell if they are good or bad unless you speak Japanese, and most of you don't.