Editorial

Castlevania: Rondo of Blood and the TurboGrafx-16

Sep 16, 2024

For some reason, the Castlevania franchise was primarily in Nintendo hardware during the 8 bit and 16 bit era. So as a Sega fan, I always envied Nintendo gamers because they could play these games and I couldn't. Eventually Komani released Castlevania: Bloodlines for the Genesis. I played it and I loved it.

Through the years I also heard that they released a Castlevania game for the TurboGrafx-16 back in the day called Castlevania: Rondo of Blood. The reviewers consistently said that it was an excellent game. On the back of my mind I always wanted to play that game. I never bought the TurboGrafx-16. The Genesis had more games, so I bought that instead. Now, looking back, I believe that although it ended up having less games than the Genesis, it ended up having "enough" good games to justify its purchase.

Now that I'm playing old games primarily through emulation, I realized I already have a portable console that could play Castlevania: Rondo of Blood for the TurboGrafx. So I downloaded a hack that translated the text at the beginning of the game to English (this game was never officially released in the US).

I didn't play enough of it, only about 25% or so. This game was hard. It seems all of the Castlevania games are hard. I remember the Genesis version was hard too. I did finish the Genesis version. I played enough of the TurboGrafx version to realize that yes, it was an excellent and beautiful game. After playing that game and a few others, the TurboGrafx reminded me very much of the Genesis. Yes, it had more colors than the Genesis, and yes, I don't think it would've been able to handle fast paced games like Sonic the Hedgehog. Still, the games it had felt very similar to Genesis games.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the time or the money during the 16 bit era to play all the good games from all three consoles. I chose the Genesis and I'm not sorry. It was still a good experience to enjoy a little bit of the TurboGrafx era now.

signature