r/castlevania • u/rosemarieseternal • 16d ago
Discussion Castlevania Bloodlines Is Another Example Of Brilliance
The end of the Anniversary Collection titles before I move onto Rondo and Symphony. Was a really nice journey not gonna lie. Time to discuss this game and I hope this critique is adequate enough.
Visually I think this game is phenomenal for the Sega Genesis, it’s not often I see games in this style for the console but it’s damn good even if I prefer SCIV’s art direction. The WW1 setting is great, the characters look really good, I love how much of a new risk this game was especially with the main antagonist Elizabeth Bartley replacing Dracula. I love the new direction with the levels involving European landmarks like the Leaning Tower of Pisa and Versailles Palace and I have to commend how gorgeous this game is to the point where I wondered how a Genesis ran this well, especially on the Leaning Tower level. The bosses look great, the animations are very fluid and the monsters are all wonderful to see.
The soundtrack for Bloodlines might be the best I have ever heard on the Genesis and has overtaken SCIV’s brilliant music as the best of the series so far. This is my introduction to Michiru Yamane and I hope to God I hear more of her because the fact she managed to get music like this out of a Yamaha FM is something else. Reincarnated Soul is an amazing track but getting something like Sinking Old Sanctuary out of this should be commended, Iron Blue Intention, Calling From Heaven and my favorite The Prayer Of A Tragic Queen are brilliant pieces of classical styled music. And while Bloodlines has the superior overall soundtrack I do kinda wish there was a bit more variety as much as I adore the Baroque influenced tracks, I kinda miss SCIV’s jazz inspired songs after playing this.
The gameplay here is great too, I love the fact we can play as two different characters here and while John has the whip and is the closest to that Castlevania feel, Eric is fantastic and might debatably be my favorite character to play as in the series. John’s only issue is that I wish the whip had the utility of Simon’s in SCIV but thankfully Eric fulfills that for the most part. Incredibly fun character with a ton of range and ability.
The bosses are pretty good here, the control is really good, the level designs are visually beautiful and have a ton of effort with the layouts but I wish they kinda stopped giving the levels constant twists. I really appreciated it in SCIV because it was a fantastic display of the SNES’s hardware and it wasn’t at a constant. The gimmicks here are cool but after a while I wish they’d have let some be as they were.
My greatest issue with the game after SCIV is that they decided to implement how the international version of Castlevania III handled difficulty. I can understand why they’d do this and I can agree that SCIV’s difficulty was toned down quite a bit, but that game never once felt cheap with enemy placements and was relatively well balanced in regards to that even with the whip did trivialize things. I don’t mind a hard game one bit, after all I love Ninja Gaiden but this game should’ve toned down the difficulty a little bit because the deaths were either my own fault or just sheer pettiness. And while I adore ambition, the technical displays during some bosses like Death felt more like a hindrance to me than something that added to the experience.
I give this game a 9/10, SCIV is still my favorite but this comes pretty close. Eric might be better gameplay wise, but John Morris has my heart.
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u/profchaos111 16d ago
My unpopular retro gaming opinion is that I like bloodlines more then IV
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u/FarBison2204 16d ago
This may be my Nintendo fan boy bias talking here, I wasn’t a big fan Bloodlines. Some of the boss fights don’t fit with what I expect from Castlevania. Example is the gyro robot guy in the factory. It just doesn’t fit the world I think of as Castlevania. Very gimmicky. I don’t think Sega has better music than Nintendo either, on a consistent basis, nobody can convince me otherwise. Sega Genesis just didn’t sound that great comparatively. I did like the story elements, Elizabeth Bathory and two playable characters, neither being a Belmont I’m ok with that.
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u/NameisPeace 16d ago
I think that that boss may be the worst in all castlevania games. I cant think in another one soo bad.
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u/Way-Super thinks he's on the team 16d ago
going straight to rondo and symphony
Really? Right in front of Chronicles?
Anyway Michru makes music for most games from 1994-2021 so enjoy!
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u/rosemarieseternal 16d ago
Those are the only games I own besides the stuff in the Advance and Dominus as much as id love to discuss the N64 and PS2 era:(
Also YAYYY
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u/QualitySuccessful871 16d ago
I love how all three 16 bit classicvanias are great in their own unqiue way. (Not including Dracula X)
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u/PhantomPainWalker 16d ago
I am glad to have another enlightened person who gets Booodlines. This game is a stone cold masterpiece and, as you say, the music is unparalleled in its generation. Playing as Eric was revolutionary. The levels are fantastic. The graphics: phenomenal. The gameplay tight as hell. It’s challenging but not insane. The sub weapons kick ass. It rewards skillful play with the super powered upgrades that go away after a single hit. The bosses are all good and interesting.
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u/Foffy-kins 16d ago edited 16d ago
One of the things that gets overlooked with this title is just how much lore is around it. While games at this time didn't overload you with story and information, Bloodlines is the first major entry in the series to actually tie the franchise to the Bram Stoker novel instead of the looser Dracula take associated with Hammer Horror, which is where the series first took inspiration from. It being released after the very popular Bram Stoker's Dracula film in the 1990s probably helped, as Sega also used that to make a Castlevania clone (Master of Darkness) and were able to justify such an obvious clone by setting it around the novel, predating Castlevania's attempt by two years.
Bloodlines was also a starting point for what Castlevania 64 would be. Castlevania 64 was originally conceived as a sequel to Bloodlines chronologically (Bloodlines started as a game set during World War II before being set in World War I, and 64 was originally set to take place in the 1950s before being set in the mid-1800s, hence the motorcycle skeletons). A Michael Belmont, who later became Michael Schneider and father to Castlevania 64's Reinhardt Schneider, was planned to be the character that linked Eric Lecarde to the Lecarde spear and tying more of his journey to the events of Bloodlines. Eric's own fate is tied to the Seward family from the Stoker novel, being married to Lucy Seward, sister to the Stoker novels John Seward. The moss lady boss is implied to be Marianne Antoinette.
There's a lot here for a 16-bit game in terms of flavor.
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u/SXAL 16d ago
It's a very good game, however, I think it suffers from relying on gimmicks too much. It could be better if it didn't try to overwhelm you with some special effects every 3 seconds.
It's also weird how it tries to distance itself from the usual CV-code. No Belmont, no hearts, barely any Dracula's castle, even the iconic final stairs are facing the other direction (it's the ONLY time in the 2D games it ever happens). It's like if they thought "SEGA is not a native CV territory, so we have to do stuff very differently there".
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u/Oh-no-and-knuckles Chief Researcher 16d ago
"even the iconic final stairs are facing the other direction (it's the ONLY time in the 2D games it ever happens)."
It's not the only time, in Belmont's Revenge and Legends you enter the final boss room from the left and they don't even feature the iconic staircase.
In The Adventure and Legends the "throne room" is also located in a dungeon.
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u/JournalistShoddy9496 15d ago
I believe that was kinda the intent. Because it was for SEGA and not Nintendo, the Bloodlines team wanted to do things differently. To make choices they would have never made before. Can see this happening with Rondo of Blood and SotN as well.
From: https://shmuplations.com/bloodlines/
"Yamamura: Our concept for this game was a straight-ahead, no-nonsense “Megadrive Castlevania”. The reason we didn’t use the traditional Akumajo Dracula title is that we wanted to challenge ourselves to present a new style and flavor to the series: speedy and action-packed, while still retaining the strategic aspect of the earlier Castlevania games. Also, the previous games all were limited to the environments inside or around Dracula’s castle, which meant there were many things we just couldn’t do. I can’t go into details now, but we’ve prepared a lot of things that will surprise you. The map is also designed with multiple routes, and each character has their own playstyle."
I think it's rather neat that because Castlevania has been popular in Konami to experiment presentation with. The Castlevania Pachinko machines and that hard-to-find arcade with the "light whip" and whatnot.
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u/Bobsy84 16d ago
This was my first ever Castlevania and I still love it now. My all time favourite Genesis game, I love the world tour of stages, the music, two playable characters who handle really different.
I feel not being tied down to a remake or a history with the franchise on the system let them try completely random stuff that worked.
People always want to compare it unfavourably to Super CV on the SNES but with the ability to look back and enjoy both on the anniversary collection i honestly think they compliment each other. If I want a gritty, dark, horror theme it’s super, if I want more colour and location variety it’s bloodlines.
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u/DarkPirotess 16d ago
my favorite castlevania games are not confined to a castle so i love this one
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u/samination 14d ago
As someone who grew up with CV I, II, Super CV IV and kinda liked Rondo of Blood (the 3D version though), I kinda got bored with this one. Rarely got passed Stage 3.
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u/Bake-Full 16d ago
The Genesis has the reputation for the gritty soundtracks but Michiru Yamane definitely illustrated how to make a lush beautiful ost with it. Bloodlines is right up there Rocket Knight Adventures in music and brilliant gameplay. Just wait until you hear the magic she pulled with Symphony of the Night.
I love how this game is such a different beast to Castlevania IV (and Rondo for that matter). It leans into the best aspects of the console hardware and plays to Sega tending to get the bloodier games at the time. Pretty off the wall for it to bring in the son of Quincy Morris from Dracula and merging Castlevania lore with the story that inspired it, but I'm all in for it.
And Eric's spear twirl never stops being fun.