Note: I originally posted this in issue 7 of 2.5D

     Highly anticipated by Genesis owners at the time, Castlevania: Bloodlines, was the only installment of Konami's long running series to appear on Sega's 16-bit machine.

     One striking difference that Castlevania fans will notice in this version is that the game lets you chose between two different heroes, and neither of them is a Belmont. John Morris is an ancestor of the Belmont clan (whatever that means) who uses the traditional Vampire Killer Whip with which to vanquish his enemies, and is given the ability to swing from ceilings with it. Eric Lecarde ditches tradition, and uses the Alcarde Spear which he can vault off of to do a high jump maneuver.

     For those of you not familiar with the classic Castlevania games, they played through in stages as opposed to the newer games in the series which mimic the Metroid games. You start on the left side of the screen and move right while vanquishing hordes of tricky enemies, making platform jumps, and taking care of pesky mid-level and level-end bosses. Bloodlines is classic Castlevania in that everything clicks. the controls are great, and the graphics were a great showpiece of what effects the Genesis was capable of with some outright trippy stages (especially stage 6), The gameplay though challenging will keep you hooked. Bloodlines will challenge players, and force them to play with a certain amount of finesse.

     The Castlevania series has always required the right amount of finesse. Whether it be perfectly timing your swing to hit a Medusa head, or timing your jump on a tough to reach platform, Castlevania is a game of perfect timing, and Bloodlines both requires oldschool patience.

     Bloodlines, in fact, is one of the harder games in the Castlevania series for the simple reason that, unlike it predecessors, it limits the amount of continues you're allowed. This makes the game a lot harder to get through then other games in the series, because it makes password saves less effective. You might have a password to make it through the first couple of levels, but that doesn't matter if you don't have enough continues to finish the game on. This however is a small complaint that can be remedied by either cheating, or by learning the game and making skillful runs through it's levels. The second option is perfectly doable (and is preferred by this author), but is made harder by the limitation on continues.

     Another complaint is that, despite coming out after Super Castlevania IV, Bloodlines lacks a few gameplay refinements made in that game. This made Bloodlines seem like a step back in the series because it played more like the earlier games in the series. This is another small complaint, because Bloodlines is still great on it's own merits.

Bottom Line: Though not quite as good as Super Castlevania IV, Castlevania Bloodlines on the Genesis is still a top notch adventure for those willing to partake in it. Be ready to be challenged, but also be ready to have some good oldschool fun.