Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles

[The Dude]

Anyone pick this up yet?
I ordered my copy but as im in the UK its gonna take 3-4 days to arrive from the US, but I downloaded an ISO of the game, its pretty good, however I have alot of gripes with the Port of SOTN and Dracula X: Rondo of Blood *original* copy.
I can't say I like the new English Dub either, its almost as bad as the original!

The Remake of Rondo of Blood's english VA is so horrendous im having to play the game with Japanese Dub and English Subs, wonder what crack IGA was smoking when he proposed the ultimate version of the games.
Especially considering SOTN suffers from frame lag, and poor sound effects.

[Rombie]

Compression and platform perhaps. Mind you I guess you'll have to see if it's ROM access issues instead of game load when you get your copy. Sad news, I was looking forward to it seeing as Sony/Konami hasn't offered SOTN off the PSN outside of the US.

[The Dude]

Back, friend of mine got her version *living in california and all*

Apparantly its not bad UMD compression.
Sadly its the game code.

I finally got SOTN and ROndo Original working on mine *had issues due to bad compression and needed a newer rip*

Ok

A) The English Dub is dire, Richter sounds like 2 different people, his normal voice is ok, but every once in awhile his "Big man" voice kicks in and it totally throws the mood of cutscenes off place.
B) I know Maria is meant to be a brat, but sounding like a bad VA on meth really doesn't help things, I had to play most of Rondo Remake in Japanese and even then she sounds like a screechy 10 year old *which to an extent works but not when you're trying to enjoy the game*

SOTN Problems:

The game suffers horrendous slowdowns even in parts the PSone game doesn't, while I thought it was my mem stick as it was loadign away apparantly Konami poorly compressed the game code, so really "Ultimate port of SOTN my arse" should be the phrase here.

The game also looks like its been glazed over due to interpolation *sp*, and stretching the screen to near wide screen *there is no true widescreen in this game you can only stretch the borders which have artwork in them* doesn't help, although its possible reducing them may reduce slow down which I have yet to do.

Richter uses his old Rondo costume in the fight against dracula, they didn't bother a sprite reboot here.

The game has been totally retranslated; notable points form the outset.

A) The text has been retranslated and re-written, in my opinion the overlay of text on screen looks shoddy, although im ok with the new translation
B) The conversation between Richter and Dracula is a re-hash of the last boss/conversation Richeter has with Drac on Rondo Remake, dialogue ripped straight from the game.
C) The intro explaining the games narrative has now been retranslated and dubbed
D) Alucard has been Redubbed, *by the guy who played the Prince of Persia*, however he sounds very well, normal, I preferred the original english dub.

Not yet gotten to find adult maria yet but im sure its a matter of time till I do as i've just gotten to the end of Alchemy Laboratory.

Btu in my opinion, IGA really f*cked up with this port.

Its a shame as IMHO Rondo remake is VERY good minus the bad voice acting, it brings the horrendously hard difficulty back to Castlevania which will unsettle fans though as theres no option

EDIT: Im beginning to treat the ports like the PSP port of FF Tactics, despite their slowdowns etc on parts they're still very good.
The English VA on SOTN was a bit of a shock and doesn't have the hilarity value of the old PSx version but its alot better.

[Carnivol]

The English VA on SOTN was a bit of a shock and doesn't have the hilarity value of the old PSx version but its absolutely not better.

I fixed that end line for you


I think this port and remake was somewhat horrible.

The 2.5D in the Remake is somewhat screwy in terms of design and they didn't do anything to actually make the game up to par with "today's standards" (except from the visuals, which aren't even nearly as lovely as Capcom's efforts at 2.5D on the PSP. I'm not entirely sure about giving the thumbs up for the remixed music.) In terms of gameplay, they should've gone with an original mode and arrange mode or something. (Arrange having gameplay enhancements that makes the game follow more of the rules from later incarnations)

If you've got an older blurry screen PSP, this game is a headache factory (Visually like playing when you've had a good round out on a town)


The re-translation of Symphony of the Night is really awkward, as it sounds like it's unpolished dialog and basicly just written with one goal in mind "this must not sound the same as the original translation". The intro narrative for SotN sounds really retarded too.

The subtitle timing in the intro for Rondo of Blood (both remake and original) is totally messed up and the translation is somewhat awkward sounding at times.

The voice acting in PC-Engine rondo is horrifyingly bad and for some reason the voice acting between the remake of Rondo and Symphony of the Night sounds totally different, and that's not a good thing, it's also not a good thing that Shaft and Dracula in the Rondo Remake sound like a couple of dudes in their late 20s.


Dunno if you've noticed, The Dude, but the Symphony of the Night on that disc is basicly just the PSX version with a new file structure on the disc (just open the ISO and go to the folder named PS and start to match around files between the versions, the only really new addition is the new ELF launcher, a slightly altered PSX executable called MAIN.EXE in a subfolder, and all audio from the XA archive on the PSX being unpacked and stored as two sets of AT3 streams for JP/EN)

The screen size thingy is really awkward, as the game switches resolutions many time (especially between 320x240 and what I guess is 256x240) and it does not maintain aspect ratio when it does so :/ (it scales everything proportionally, so when you enter menus and such, suddenly the image gets cropped on the sides, basicly, and when using scaling, certain scenes look weird when the resolution change kicks in)

Also, since L2 and R2 are missing, Mist form is mapped to L+R, a controller option you can't change (But you can change the other)

In overall, you get a nice solid package for the low price, but I hate that the PC-Engine version and Symphony of the Night are unlocked through secrets found in-game of the remake. PC-Engine version could've just as well been available from the start and Symphony of the Night could've been an award for beating either remake or original.

Also, the PC-Engine emulation works fine "most of the time", but during some of the more complicated/animated bosses, it really tugs high on the slowdown-o-meter (beyond that of the original hardware).
For anyone trying to deny this; Go play against the Alternate Route 1 boss, to then try and tell me that the game is still running smooth and perfectly fine.


Please do note:
This is NOT the perfect super package some people might try to make it sound like it is, but it's in no way an "avoid at all costs". It's worth your money ($30?), it's just that it's not God's Gift to Castlevania fans.

[Dot50Cal]

I love it, except I keep getting my ass kicked. I almost wish they put proper save points in the game ala SOTN. Though Im sure Carn and other freaks will now assault me. But bleh. I just want to have fun with the game, and playing the same part over and over is not fun to me

[The Dude]

I fixed that end line for you


I think this port and remake was somewhat horrible.

The 2.5D in the Remake is somewhat screwy in terms of design and they didn't do anything to actually make the game up to par with "today's standards" (except from the visuals, which aren't even nearly as lovely as Capcom's efforts at 2.5D on the PSP. I'm not entirely sure about giving the thumbs up for the remixed music.) In terms of gameplay, they should've gone with an original mode and arrange mode or something. (Arrange having gameplay enhancements that makes the game follow more of the rules from later incarnations)

I disagree here, the game was meant to be an homage for people who weren't able to purchase the original for ludicrous amounts, and giving new gamers a chance to play a castlevania game before it was given the metroid esque enhancements.

On another note about the Voice acting, your editing my quote is possibly just due ot the fact you prefer the old VA due to its horrendous delivery and nostalgic value, I disagree, I feel with exception to Alucard the voice acting in the game is in fact stronger then the original *which for me is saying something after having all incarnations of SOTN minus the PSN version and having SOTN on PSX since US home release*, I like the new translation.

If you've got an older blurry screen PSP, this game is a headache factory (Visually like playing when you've had a good round out on a town)

Again, I haven't had any such problems, and my PSP is nearly a year old, my only gripe is the low resolution of the ported versions and the constant res change between the menu screens and actual gameplay.

The re-translation of Symphony of the Night is really awkward, as it sounds like it's unpolished dialog and basicly just written with one goal in mind "this must not sound the same as the original translation". The intro narrative for SotN sounds really retarded too.

The subtitle timing in the intro for Rondo of Blood (both remake and original) is totally messed up and the translation is somewhat awkward sounding at times.

The voice acting in PC-Engine rondo is horrifyingly bad and for some reason the voice acting between the remake of Rondo and Symphony of the Night sounds totally different, and that's not a good thing, it's also not a good thing that Shaft and Dracula in the Rondo Remake sound like a couple of dudes in their late 20s.

Admittedly Rondo original is a terrible conversion in its entirety, and like I said before the VA for Rondo is pretty horrendous, however I haven't really had gripes with SOTN, but never once did I say it was an amazing VA, which to be honest is disappointing as compared to previous english dubs like Curse of Darkness, they could have done alot better with casting.

Dunno if you've noticed, The Dude, but the Symphony of the Night on that disc is basicly just the PSX version with a new file structure on the disc (just open the ISO and go to the folder named PS and start to match around files between the versions, the only really new addition is the new ELF launcher, a slightly altered PSX executable called MAIN.EXE in a subfolder, and all audio from the XA archive on the PSX being unpacked and stored as two sets of AT3 streams for JP/EN)

Actually I have noticed, this is one of the reasons why many people who downloaded the ISO have had problems activating the original ports, with the game crashing unless they change their recovery menu settings.

The screen size thingy is really awkward, as the game switches resolutions many time (especially between 320x240 and what I guess is 256x240) and it does not maintain aspect ratio when it does so :/ (it scales everything proportionally, so when you enter menus and such, suddenly the image gets cropped on the sides, basicly, and when using scaling, certain scenes look weird when the resolution change kicks in)

Again, yeah I noticed this change and to be honest its pretty annoying, however, if anyone honestly thought Konami were going to fully edit the souce code and fully optimise the PSP port of SOTN for DXC when SOTN was meant to be a bonus, a fully translated version of the Japanese PSX sotn with a few extras like a newly re-designed Maria thrown in then they're really expecting too much when this was just a relatively low budget remake/compilation for Konami to judge PSP gamesales to see if it'd even warrant any more games on the format, from what im gathering since everyones pirated it, the answer will undoubtably be no as a new DS title is in development along with next Gen.

Also, since L2 and R2 are missing, Mist form is mapped to L+R, a controller option you can't change (But you can change the other)

This I didn't understand considering you can map the d-pad to the analog stick which made the game imo more awkward to play, they should have also optimised spells to make them easier to access for the PSP as in my PSP and PSP Slim peforming Soul Steal, Bat form's speed attack and dark metamorphisis are a nightmare, and allowed shoulder buttons to be mapped to the analogue stick if not in use.
I didn't have any problems with Mist anyway, only using it when needed and to avoid spikes in the inverted castle's Royal Chapel *with walk armor equipped to boost its DEF through map coverage*.

In overall, you get a nice solid package for the low price, but I hate that the PC-Engine version and Symphony of the Night are unlocked through secrets found in-game of the remake. PC-Engine version could've just as well been available from the start and Symphony of the Night could've been an award for beating either remake or original.

Also, the PC-Engine emulation works fine "most of the time", but during some of the more complicated/animated bosses, it really tugs high on the slowdown-o-meter (beyond that of the original hardware).
For anyone trying to deny this; Go play against the Alternate Route 1 boss, to then try and tell me that the game is still running smooth and perfectly fine.

Please do note:
This is NOT the perfect super package some people might try to make it sound like it is, but it's in no way an "avoid at all costs". It's worth your money ($30?), it's just that it's not God's Gift to Castlevania fans.

At the end of the day, it was really an attempt I feel to ingratiate newer fans with the older practices of how Castlevania used to work, while most got the game probably for the Re-worked SOTN and will probably come out disappointed with comments like OMG NEW VOICE AXTING!!! WHY DOESNT HE SAY THEY STEAL MENS SOULLLLLLLLLLLS or OH NO! SLOWDOWN AT SAVEPOINTS to go along with their criticisms of replaced/poor soundeffects in parts of the port, its a good game for those not familiar with the original, the re-worked translation and option for a japanese voice dub on both Rondo Remake, and the ports should also be pulling point.

While im irritated by the fact that like with Final Fantasy Tactics, homebrew proved that the games could be fully optimised and run without any slowdown, yet the final PSP products proved otherwise, DXC is a very good game and shouldn't be missed despite its niggly flaws.

Im also irritated by the reception the games getting from "hardcore" castlevania fans, which to be honest really are the bane of the franchaise, and frankly if they had their way we'd be stuck with more 8bit versions of castlevania, Simon Belmont and blips and bloops.

The game is far from perfect, but its definitley worth buying and deserves its 7.9-8, and open minded gamers should go for it as the remake etc IS actually fun to play despite the minor problems.

For those who don't like it, what can I say really, Get over it if you pirated it.

[randomwab]

I love it, except I keep getting my ass kicked. I almost wish they put proper save points in the game ala SOTN. Though Im sure Carn and other freaks will now assault me. But bleh. I just want to have fun with the game, and playing the same part over and over is not fun to me

I have yet to play it much, but isn't there a quick save when you press start? Not having used it I can't say how it works but none the less.

As for the game itself, I have mixed feelings. The graphics look alright, though they are clearly not pushing the PSP's graphical limit. The gameplay is standard old school Castlevania, which is great.

The music so far seems fine too, I myself prefare the original songs to the remixes I have heard so far, but I do not have any gripes about them.

The script and voice acting is, however, horrendus. I don't understand how they could go out and talk about how they would improve SotN's text while they themselves cannot write anything good themselves. And this is not a "The original is better" bias or anything of the sort, in my opinion the dialog is just plain bad. I have yet to play SotN yet, but from the snippets I have heard from it, they have taken a step back from the original.

[Carnivol]

if anyone honestly thought Konami were going to fully edit the souce code and fully optimise the PSP port of SOTN for DXC

Given that they pre-release said the version of SotN included would be built up from the ground, especially for the PSP, I kinda have to say that was somewhat expected.


And since the topic was brought up, no, I'm not biased by the nostalgic value and bla bla bla of the original translation and so on.

For over 3 years now I've worked with videogame localization and it is the stuff found in Dracula X Chronicles that we try to prevent. And seriously, that type of shit only happens when some idiot producer or other moron in charge of stuff has taken the first piece of English text he's been given and sent it off to the first studio he finds in the yellow pages. Translators in the videogame industry are rarely great writers, in fact, they usually have no friggin' clue and the only reason they work as translators is because they're bilingual.

[Saint_Eve]

I bought a PSP and this game purely for the SOTN port, as soon as I unlocked it I quit the main game, now I'm rocking SOTN everywhere I go.

Hey Carn, how much do translators make? Im trilingual and thinking about working for like a publishing company or something, uh.... I guess Bjorn would be the one to ask this right? Also how hard was it to get into the VG development world? Its my dream sort of but I dont know if I can do it...

[Dot50Cal]

The SOTN port is kinda poor on the visuals. The worst part about it is the dithering/streaking that appears. Its most noticeable during dark scenes (like Alucards entrance).

[Carnivol]

Hey Carn, how much do translators make? Im trilingual and thinking about working for like a publishing company or something, uh.... I guess Bjorn would be the one to ask this right? Also how hard was it to get into the VG development world? Its my dream sort of but I dont know if I can do it...

I can't really speak for the prices, as the prices can be anything between lunch money to half a fortune. Some translation jobs might not pay very well right away, but later on might bring you money as you're entitled to a certain percentage of the product income.
-You might get paid pr. word
-You might get paid pr. hour
-You might be working on a regular payroll for a company
-You might be doing freelance at your own pace and prices
-You might not produce the quality the buyer expects/wants
-You might not have the required experience (school background, knowledge of the subject, fluent in both languages, cultural understanding, understanding of technical difficulties while translating, etc...)

As for getting into the Video Game Industry, that depends...
If you're aiming low (QA), then it's not hard to get a job at all. But then it's often not much to live off of and you might not really be in the position to get any business opportunities and may get stuck there until you get yourself some sort of experience/skills (school background or through other means) that is actually useful elsewhere in the system.


My experience in general with people having "dreams" of working in the video game industry is that they come in the door with the "w00t, I'll play video games all day and get paid for it" attitude, without realizing that even though the job is exactly that on paper, it still means that you'll probably often have weeks such as this:

Day 1:
-Played game X for 6 hours, keeps crashing and completing stage 1 is impossible. Filled out reports and left the office at the end of the day.

Day 2:
-Played game X for 6 hours, keeps crashing and completing stage 1 is impossible. Got a mail that says we'll have a new build tomorrow. Filled out reports and left the office at the end of the day.

Day 3:
-Played game X for 6 hours, keeps crashing and completing stage 1 is impossible. Got the new build, but the guy from FedEX couldn't find the office. However, the build doesn't boot. Filled out reports and left the office at the end of the day.

Day 4:
-Got another build, stage 1 could finally be finished, but the stability of the game is now even worse. However, time could not be spent on starting testing of stage 2 as I had to answer angry emails from higher ups about why we're behind schedule. Left the office after filling out reports. Got home a few hours later than usual.

Day 5:
-Got in to the office and got a new working build. Pause menu is all black, so maps, items and settings are off limit. Received angry email from higher ups about how I'm lagging behind the guy on the other side of the room who's doing the exact same job as I am, but claims he's already done with level 3. Need to explain to higher ups without sounding like a total hate monger that the other guy is a lier, level 3 doesn't even work yet. Filled out reports after getting no work done thanks to constant email flow and left the office at regular hour.

Day 6:
Saturday morning, get call that says I need to get in to the office and work to get things back on schedule. Someone higher up has an ass to cover as he/she screwed up. Same build as yesterday, so no new progress can be made. Filled out reports and left the office after a few hours.

Day 7:
Sunday, a new build is being FedEX'ed over, ETA 1pm, got in at 11am to wrap up things on the old + check email and whatever.
2pm, no new build has arrived. 3pm, wrapping up things and getting ready to leave office at 4pm. On the way out, you bump into FedEX man, new build is here! 10pm, you leave the office.


The thought that you'll probably have more play time on the games opening stage than the average dedicated WoW player has in his game of choice will soon draw you to ritual suicide or slowly take away your will to play games outside of work.


That's QA for you, the dream job of every teenager out there!
Ofcourse, not every part of the system is like that and not every company. But chances are that unless you have the skills and talent to more or less run your own show, that is the way things work as you'll only be able to grab a seat at one of the entertainment giants.

The SOTN port is kinda poor on the visuals. The worst part about it is the dithering/streaking that appears. Its most noticeable during dark scenes (like Alucards entrance).

'cause the PSP is still not the super entertainment system Sony wants it to be and the so called "port" is nothing but a glorified PSX emulation.

[lanaka]

Hey all, just gonna throw in my two cents about DXC. I got it the day it came out, and had already downloaded an ISO of it (never opening my copy ). I tore into SotN first as well, because, as was already stated, it was supposed to be a brand new build, from the ground up, new content all over the place...or so IGA hyped it that way. Shoulda seen the lack of videos and screens of it as a red flag. >.>

Anyways, if you can overlook the nearly impossible spell execution, funky mapping of the mist familiar, arguably horrid voice acting and script, and complete lack of extras (two new familiars? pfft, who does Iga think we are?), then this version isn't TOO bad...beats having nothing at all, right?

Rondo of Blood, the remake, more specifically, is quite awesome, however. If you enjoy old school Castlevania games, then this remake is well worth buying the collection for. I had more fun with the Remake than I have with any of the Castletroids. Definitely hope Iga can provide more of these style of Castlevanias to us in the future.

[Dot50Cal]

Piracy talk is frowned upon here.

I beat the *real* ending finally, pain in the ass really. I doubt I'll go back to the game but it was fun while it lasted. Its just very difficult. I probably won't be playing SOTN or the original Rondo. No real desire, and the SOTN port is inferior.