3.5/5 ★ – Kalle_Deimos's review of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood.

TLDR: Its pretty good but I don't completely understand the hype surronding this entry. Gameplay: Castlevania with NO omni-directional whipping, why even live. Not even a downward or diagonal whip either. Just the basic attack. In exchange, Richter has much better control over his sub-weapons, which I'm glad are relevant again. Now we can do something call an Item Crash which is a special move that changes depending on what item you have. That's pretty cool. There's also the new character, Maria, who attacks using a dove? Im not too interested in using her but it's nice to have the choice. Level design is pretty good but the ENEMY design, lets just say got me pretty angry frequently. So many stages have infinitely respawing enemies that slowly float towards you while you deal with other enemies. And small orbiting enemies are the WORST enemies in every Castlevania game. ESPECIALLY the ones with no control over the whip. And it feels like almost every stage has some segment like that and it's incredibly frustrating. I resorted to moving my ass through a lot of the stages most of the time instead of dealing with enemies properly once I did it once because it is not fun. Other than that there's plenty of fun to be had and I feel like Rondo of Blood does give you everything you need to succeed without being too annoying. But it is frequently annoying. And I feel kind of bad because I thought this was one of the most beloved entries in the series? Why? Just because of Richter? I'm just kind of happy that I've finally reached the RPG's as I was getting a bit tired of all the action platformers. Story: I'm pretty sure this is the first Castlevania I've played so far with cutscenes. Like, fully voiced cutscenes. And they're pretty decent. The story isn't any deeper than "Belmont hunt Dracula" but at least we get to see some characters speak to each other and get a sense of some personality. Even if all the characters are one-note. Graphics: Games looks pretty good. Sprite work looks nice. Uhhhh. That's all I got. Sound: Tunes tunes and tunes. New tracks and remasters of classic ones too. I do find some of the tracks to be a bit out of place though. Most songs sound like real instruments and are quite high quality. Then there's songs like the boss walk-up music that feels like a tune from the SEGA Genesis or something. The voice acting is crisp at least. Extra: There's some bonus levels to play after beating the main game. And even hidden girlies to rescue which don't do much besides grant you some extra scenes. I think they're worth it. Favorite Thing: Grand Cross is absolutely fantastic. Not My Favorite Thing: TRACKING FLOATING ENEMIES.