Dracula X: Rondo of Blood is one of those elusive games that every collector wanted in their hands. Not only was Rondo of Blood the first ever Castlevania game to have been press onto the compact disc format, but also it is probably the finest example of classic formula Castlevania and one of the best platformers to ever grace the PC Engine console. This is old school Castlevania with branching paths and is the precursor to the ever-popular Symphony of the Night storyline, which also helped increase interest in the title.
Yeah the year was 1998 and I can safely say that Rondo of Blood was the first game that I ever stole, download, and burned onto a CDR. For the longest time, my only copy of Rondo of Blood was a shitty CDR where I downloaded the 15 individual files and compiled on my shitty PC running Windows 95 and downloading at blazing speeds with my 56k modem. The 15-1.5 mb files took me over 5 evenings to download and eventually the payoff, after destroying 10 CDRs trying to burn the game correctly, was finally worth it. Fast forward several years and I eventually hunted down a copy through a gaming forum and purchased my legit copy of Dracula X: Rondo of Blood from a seller who also happen to be non other than Jedah Doma himself. I paid $150 for the game and funny part is I still play this game on a CDR that I copied from the original game because I’m too afraid of scratching the original.
Most gamers lack the liquid assets to procure a copy of Rondo and PC Engine to play the game on it. For years the only way to play this game was to burn your self a copy or pay the big monies for a legit copy. Then Konami threw the North American market a bone by re-releasing Rondo of Blood as a remake for the PSP called Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles and as a 2.5D game with Symphony of the Night and the original Rondo of Blood in there as a bonus, the game wasn’t too bad. The remake played great and overall I’m glad I picked myself up a copy, too bad the port for Rondo was shit due to the wonky screen resolution and overly dark color pallets. Botching the holy grail of Castlevania games made a lot of gamers sad. 
Well, happy days are upon us as Konami FINALLY decided to release Dracula X: Rondo of Blood for the Wii’s Virtual Console this week. I must say this is the closest port yet! The game looks absolute amazing with all of its pixilated glory up scaled on my HDTV. The audio is mostly perfect (more on that later) and the game is vivid and bright. You know, how most games use to look, bright with colors.
I’m playing Rondo with my Wii controls sideways which is not my preferred method but it is satisfactory. I need to invest in the newer classic controller because my clunky hands keeps bumping into the B trigger causing Richter to rapidly swing the Vampire Killer. Besides that, the game controls nicely. My only major complaint is that a creepier German guy has redubbed the infamous German intro dialog. It sounds wrong to my ears even though I have no idea what in the hell he is saying since the Virtual Console port, for the most part, is the original version of the game so no ENGLISH subtitles or dialog.
Overall I have to strongly suggest downloading this game since it is only 900 Miyamoto bucks. Yeah it has the 100 points import tax but this game deserves to be played today. It holds up very well and gamers to prefer the classic linear Castlevania games will find themselves at home with Castlevania: Rondo of Blood.
–Jangofatt
