Another re-hash or something to cheer about? That’s a good question, here are the answers.
Difficult to say
Aside from these elements, the difficulty of the game stays true to the original form. It is best described as a fine mix of environment hazards and enemy over-abundance. To break that down more specifically, you have so many things in the environment to watch out for. For example, when you’re facing the Grim Reaper on the pirate ship, you’ve got to not only watch out for flying scythes, but also be weary of falling off the ship itself. When you get hit by the reaper you’re flung back a bit and you slide as well. The game’s difficulty is evenly balanced and you’ll find yourself cursing your own wits before you turn to the game and declare that it’s way too difficult. Basically, you’ll have to be a defensive multi-tasker to take this title on. It certainly doesn’t create a frustrating situation, which is surprising considering that I had to play the damned Grim Reaper over and over and over and over again.
The game is definitely worth the trouble and it’s probably one of the most fun Castlevania, ranking somewhere between Symphony of the Night and Dawn of Sorrow. Since it’s basically a nice remake of a PC-Engine game.
Two for one
While your main quest is Rondo of Blood, you also have the opportunity to unlock and play Symphony of the Night. For the younger gamers of the world, this may not be a big deal, but for those of us who actually were there when Symphony of the Night came out, you’ve got yourself one heckuva deal. There is, of course, one simple problem – they don’t give you the game, you have to earn it. What I mean by this is that you’ve actually got to go find it inside Rondo of Blood. Sound easy? Well, rest assure that it is not one bit easy. I’m not going to spoil the surprise, just remember these words… the bull will come rolling. That’s all I’m going to tell you.
Once you find and unlock the game though, you’ll find some differences from the original PSOne game. First and foremost, they’ve updated the voice-acting. All I can say to this is… THANK GOD! I’ve got the original disc and the voice-acting is only slightly above Resident Evil (the original). They not only got some good actors in there, but they actually translated the dialogue much better. Ultimately this doesn’t mean much, other than you won’t giggle. As for the other differences, you’ll notice one annoying difference, the screen size is about ¾ that of the PSP screen. I’m not sure why they did this because the actual screen is in widescreen format. It might have been because of the PSP disc size, who knows. All I see is a very annoying smaller screen to play one of the best games of all-time on. Create your own judgment on that one.
Final Thoughts
The game is no-doubt one of the hardest Castlevania games I’ve had the pleasure of playing. And to my credit, I’ve been through them all. From the first to the last, on all platforms, I’ve seen the difficulty rise and lower through the years and this game is by far the hardest. With that said, if you can move forward through the game and appreciate the updates, like the 3D and the cut scenes and you can appreciate how well they’ve crafted this game (level design and enemies), then you’ll truly fall in love with this as I did. Add to this the additional unlockables (and there are more, you have to discover those though), and you can’t help but think the value of this game is huge!
Anyway, let me know what you think, I would certainly be interested.