Comments on: Retro Journal #7: Castlevania Bloodlines

By: Jarrod Nichol

Jarrod Nichol — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 23:38:26 +0000

Agreed! The music in CV IV was just incredible. I actually have the soundtrack to that one :)

By: Enhas

Enhas — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 21:19:24 +0000

Super Castlevania IV still holds up incredibly well today, and despite being one of the first titles for the SNES it has some of the best music on that system by far. It’s also a fairly difficult game, but not overly cheap like the NES Castlevanias and Rondo of Blood. I still haven’t finished it in hard mode yet though.

I have no idea why Bloodlines hasn’t been released on Wii’s VC, and at this point it’s unlikely it ever will (along with others I was hoping for like Lufia I & II, Claymates, etc…). It’s pretty decent and the events are acknowledged directly in some of the later games in the series.

By: Jarrod Nichol

Jarrod Nichol — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 19:23:04 +0000

Super Castlevania IV is one of my favorite games of all times, so you’ll hear no such argument from me ;) Like you, I felt that Konami tried to do something different with these properties on the Genesis and because of that people have fond memories of both these games. They’re good, but not quite up to par, like you mentioned. Either way, another excellent entry in this series Tim :)

By: Tim MacKenzie

Tim MacKenzie — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 18:18:31 +0000

Bloodlines’ and Hard Corp’s greatest strengths are that they are different. I like that. Konami knew the Genesis didn’t have the same power that the SNES did, so rather than try to port watered down versions of Super Castlevania IV and Contra III The Alien Wars (some of my favorite games, by the way!), they went with something new.

I grew up with Nintendo, so I didn’t get a Genesis until much later. Even though you could argue I’d look at the SNES library with a rose-tinted filter, I still say that Super Castlevania IV is unquestionably better than Bloodlines. Still, with that being said, I loved playing Bloodlines and appreciate what Konami did. They tried to make it stand out in a way I appreciated.

By: Jarrod Nichol

Jarrod Nichol — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 14:02:32 +0000

This is one of the most underrated games released on the Genesis. I’ve been a huge fan of this series since day one, and quickly grabbed this one when I heard it was coming out via EGM or one of those early gaming magazines. While it was a little disappointing in some regards, it was an excellent action platformer that I still go back to from time to time. Along with Contra: Hard Corps, Castlevania: Bloodlines was a nice breath of fresh air.