Castlevania: Bloodlines - 16-bit Supremacy - IMPLANTgames 

As the year comes to a close, I've gotta say that your channel is easily one of the best I've found this year. You put out such consistently great work. I always look forward to the next upload.

Bloodlines was one of my favourite Genesis games at the time, and still stands as my favourite classic Castlevania. This was the main reason I grabbed the Castlevania Anniversary collection

While I will debate the limited continues thing on other games, I have to say that this game DOES have unlimited continues, theyre just behind a cumbersome password system.

Why don't you have more views, these analysis are fantastic

The greatness of this game cannot be overstated. It looks, sounds, and plays outstanding.

Bloodlines definitely feels like a game released years after 4 (as it was). The way the visuals stood out felt much smarter, and it seemed like the devs had grown since 4. The welcome tweaks give it the edge.

If you thought reviewers were Nintendo-biased here, wait until Castlevania 64 vs. Symphony of the Night.

Rondo is my favorite, but I didn't play it until the 2000's. Castlevania 1 is my second favorite, everything just comes together so well in it. Bloodlines though. Man Bloodlines is something else. It has this wild experimental side to it like 4, but it plays in a way that scratches that traditional Castlevania itch in a way 4 completely fails to, and I don't just mean the controls, the difficulty balancing and pacing feed into that too. Konami was on fire on the Genesis with this and Hard Corps, which I also prefer over the SNES counterpart Contra 3.

Although the game only gives you twon continues it does have a password system (which keep of the amount of lives and continues remaining).

My favorite classicvania, love how fast-paced it feels compared to the rest

The best of the 16-bit Castlevanias for me, just ahead of the X68000 remake. You know it's a great game when my biggest complaint is that the sound effects could be better.

Honestly man, I started watching you a few years ago, and your content is amazing. I even like watching your analysis on games I haven't even played, keep up the great work

Limited continues seems to be a common thing of Genesis games in general, for whatever reason.

I completely agree with your review. Finally someone points out that the colors in Castlevania IV are boring and muted, with poor contrast in background. I like to call it a layer of mud over everything.

This was masterful. I really appreciated your time and detail that you dedicated to the music and also the emotions the game offered you. Great job. Your content is fantastic!

Take this over CV IV all day long.

Great video as usual. I just wanted to let you know that your channel is one of the best (retro) gaming channels on youtube (and trust me, I know a lot of these channels). Criminally underrated but I hope more and more people will realize how good your content is. I like your thorough analytical approach and the fact that you are very critical. I do not agree with you on all points when it comes to Bloodline vs Super Castlevania but I can totally understand your arguments because they make sense and are fully explained. Looking forward to seeing more quality content from you.

Fantastic Video! I would agree I enjoyed Bloodlines quite a bit more than Castlevania 4 (although still awesome). I really dug all the boss fights and the soundtrack in Bloodlines.

Finally got a chance to watch. Great work, as always, and yeah, I feel like that "it's a step back from Super CV4" vibe had been the mainstream feeling until the last couple years. I'm glad to see that take getting re-evaluated these days, because I love Bloodlines.

You need more subs amazing video as always. 👍

Damn great video, man! Bloodlines (along with Sonic3&K, MMX, Super Metroid, and Hard Corps) was one of my favorite and most played games of that year.

Finally, hearing somebody on YT talking about Bloodlines in a positive manner is refreshing. Not the same-old same-old "SNES Game is better because colours!" argument. PS. Bring back the podcast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've beeen waiting for this for months great video thank you

Amazing, your reviews are very accurate and entertaining. You should have much more subs.

Excellent. I couldn't agree more with your appraisal of Bloodlines. Iron-blue Intention is exactly as you described. Perseverance music. "goosebumps*

Hey man great your reviews are great, I really like how you think critically and look deeply into what makes a certain mechanic good or bad, like, I 100% agree on you on Bloodlines' controls, them being limited shouldn't mean a bad thing, it's how they're used and built upon that decides their quality. Anyways It's been awesome watching all your Castlevania reviews, I wish I found your channel sooner. Keep up the great work!

Excellent review, easily my fav of the 16 bits. Love that you're reviewing series but wish you'd break it up with a different game here & there in between but do what you do, its a win win for me. Have a good Christmas.

Well done as always dude.

Well, you've convinced me to give this game a shot. Besides the lack of continues, this seems like it might be up my alley. But regardless good video dude. Probably my favorite of the Castlevania marathon thus far.

I love how they tied Bram Stoker's novel into the Castlevania universe even if it causes some plot holes

I didn't have a chance to play it in 90s and rediscovered this game much later during emulator era on my quest to play ALL Castlevania games. It instantly became one of my favorites.

I for one find this game very enjoyable to play for a variety of reasons. Mostly because I feel like some things are at least a bit more subtle than most seem to see, such as Dracula himself. I think the reason Dracula is so easy in most Castlevania games is because he's old. He is immortal yes, but yet because of the previous heroes efforts, he spends most of his time sealed up and relies more on old flashy moves instead of effective ones. He may be immortal, and have superhuman strength and whatnot, but I feel as if his old mind and thought process is slowing him down considerably, making his movement sloppy, and his patterns easier to predict. The music was very nice to listen to, I'm not a musical professional, so I can't judge a track by saying stuff like "7.4/10 Too many synthetic sounds." But for what it was, it was nice to bob my head to the occasional drumbeat. Also, the final boss music gives me Earthbound vibes because of the 'crunchy' sounds. And while I do miss laughing at Simon flailing his whip around, I feel as if these changes were intentional since they made Super Castlevania IV much easier than the original. But only adding two continues is just unacceptable even if you can raise it to five, and I do agree that it is a big blemish when it sends you all the way back to the beginning, so I feel your frustration at that. The game wasn't the absolute best Castlevania game, but it was certainly better than the biased reviews claimed. It was fun and enjoyable, but if they could have given you the ability to alter the amount of continues from the start, and let you challenge yourself later down the line, than that would've been infinitely better than adopting the old Arcade Quarter Stealing tactic.

Intro to Simon’s Theme in Bloodlines is the tops. That Castlevania techno from Contra Hard Corps is great as well

Terrific video as always! I hope you review Castlevania Chronicles, which is essentially the "Zero Mission" take on Castlevania.

really hoping to see one of these about Rondo Of Blood! It's my personal favorite Castlevania title and I would love to hear a more in-depth analysis of it, especially from you

Excellent review as always Kris. A couple of things I’d hope you mention which didn’t come up we’re the length of the game compared to Super IV and why the need for two playable characters with very little change to the game (were so used to “true endings” these days). Anyways keep up the great work!

Good stuff man, I need to go back to this one again soon.

Fantastic review as always, man! Hope you'll do Dracula X as well. ^^ Truly an underrated game, that one.

Great in depth analysis of both the positives and negatives of this gem. Underrated in its day, I do feel like it is more appreciated now. I do love the music, and ROM hacks exist to tweak the colors if you are so inclined

I always thought Castlevania Bloodlines was a good game on the Genesis? I know alot people hate on Dracula X for SNES as well but I've always enjoyed the artstyle and music of the game.

Great analysis!

This is by the best review I've seen on Castlevania Bloodlines. I just finished yesterday for the first time and it's a fantastic game. Having played now all 16-bits Castlevania games this one is my second favorite, after Rondo of Blood. Thank you for your deep review on every aspect of this game and the edition also. You nailed it!

Is Symphony of the Night next? These videos are fantastic and I've looked forward to each one every time you upload.

It was all nice and respectful until this man roasted SC4 in the end, damn

I finally bought this game and played through it last year, and I didn't mind the limited continues so much. Took me a two or three tries to get though it, but that seemed acceptable. Yeah, the bosses felt a bit more clever and engaging than SCIV. A lot more movement and you need to actually figure them out to pass more often than not. Just watched this on an actual TV, instead of my phone for once , and I gotta say it looks and sounds great! Happy Holidays!

Great video as always! Love your in depth look at these classic games. While I still prefer Super Castlevania IV for it's atmosphere and approachability I agree that Bloodlines surpasses it in some of the game design choices. Happy Holidays!

Best reviews on RU-vid period. So detailed and on point. I remember the Gamespot reviews as well. I was a SNES kid coming up so I believed the BS. So I missed out on this great game. Everything you said was on point esp. the music. Gamespot had alot of questionable reviews like symphony of the night. And doom from jaguar being rated lower than 32x. I rate this game a hair below super castlevania 4, but it could be b/c of nostalgia. This is a great game

How come we never got a co up team more when we got two characters in this game of in Curse Of Dracula, huh??

Love CastleVania Bloodlines and great video 👍👍👍👍

I know you’re taking a break, but this playlist just feels incomplete without Rondo of Bloood. It is my favorite Castlevania game, and one of the best 2D action games of all time.

Awesome review man, I think Bloodlines is awesome and wish I had known about it back in its day. 👍🏻

Great work. I like hearing why people prefer Bloodlines to SCIV. I look forward to your Rondo analysis. Rondo is most likely the best game in the series.

Another great video! I was never into Castlevania, but this series has got me interested. On a side note, your overall feelings on this game versus it's SNES counterpart almost mirror my opinion on 16 bit Contra. The Genesis game is far superior, but NEEDED infinite continues (which is probably why they were added to the overly expensive Japanese release). I think all of the Nintendo-based Contra games are easy enough to beat with the life limit. But Contra Hard Corps is definitely not. Also you should do a Contra series 😉

I've been enjoying these videos in the last few weeks and I liked this one too. Just one thing about the format: you'll talk about music for much longer than we're allowed to actually listen to the songs you're commenting on. It's not that I mind the commentary, it's just that the ratio between telling and showing is off. By contrast, when you talk about graphics, I get to see the thing you're commenting on at the same time as I listen to the commentary. The exact same solution can't work for audio of course, but maybe having the confidence to simply let a song play for 10-15 seconds without you talking over it would be good enough. Keep up the good work!

Good video. On top of what you said : I really like the LIGHT/HEAVY attack mechanism. This is a game that's fun for powerplay : just demolishing everything in a very satisfying manner. And I gotta highlight Michiru Yamane's masterpiece of a soundtrack here

Back in the day, having real Konami-Castlevania in Genesis was a hit. The gameplay focused in arcade experience with the characteristic music and graphics, they even managed to snesize some effects and pixel-art was awesome. Genesis soundchip was great for music, but sound effects needed crafty work to not sound thumpy... try Contra: Hard corps, they nailed sound and, man, the soundtrack...

Can't wait for *Sympathy of the Night* review love it! 👍

The japanese version has a password system. Awesome video BTW.

This game is fantastic but the "Death boss" is really hard. It would be nice if you review the Contra series,especially Contra Hard Corps.

Would you ever consider reviewing Dynamite Headdy?

I love this game, definitely my favourite non-metroidvania Castlevania game. The soundtrack is amazing, the graphics were great for the time and the hardware and the stage design and gameplay is tight and perfect for what ir wanted to be, even the lack of infinite continues doesn't bother me at all, like most games of that time some trial and error was expected and once you learn and master the game you have more than enough lives to beat it. I became good enough that I can beat the game on the hardest dificulty without losing any continues.

19:42 The gear steamer looks freaking awesome by Genesis standards. He looks like a boss from a PS1 game

Bloodlines is usually the one I play when getting that 16-bit itch. But I own both. Had one of my boys sit down with me and compare them, as he is young and un biased about the 16-bit wars. Bloodlines looked, played, and sounded better to him. Although the first stage music on both games will get his head a bobbin while he's on the computer behind me lol.

"Medieval skirt" made me laugh. It reminded me of the scene in Night at the Museum 2 where Al Capone, Napoleon, and Ivan the Terrible kept referring to Kahmunrah's tunic a dress. To paraphrase: "This is not a [skirt]. This is a tunic. It was the height of fashion 3,000 years ago, I assure you."

Honestly I didn't really like Bloodlines too much but I still think I prefer it to Super. Are you going to be covering both Dracula X and Rondo of Blood or just one of them?

I really love Bloodlines. It's graphics, music, play speed and game mechanics are much more memorable to me than Super Castlevania IV.

Gaming journos: *not having a clue of what the heck they're talking about* Pikachu: *Surprised*. What a great, in-depth review. The attention regarding the Bloodlines score made me sub. Congrats! 🤤

I've had this game in my Genesis collection for some time now but I never knew of some of the special functions the characters had. I'll have to try them out, maybe then I'll get passed stage 3 lol. It's really nice to see someone who doesn't say that this game is inferior to its SNES counterpart. I remember seeing a video from James & Mike Mondays over at Cinemassacre of them playing this game and I couldn't even finish half the video before turning it off because both of them were so insanely biased towards Castlevania 4. Not saying Castlevania 4 isn't good, but they were repeatedly harping on every aspect of Bloodlines saying that 4 did it better or sounded better. It was enough to drive me mad, lol. Is there any chance of you reviewing the PS2 Castlevania games like Lament of Innocence and Curse of Darkness?

Good review.

To an extent I understand the NES comparisons. Main issue is the color use looks like it's highly compartmentalized with each element of the stage artwork using using a small set of exclusive colors. This method ends up being reminiscent of the NES palette limitations where each sprite/tile can only use a pre-defined group of 4 colors each. There are some areas that flat out do look very NES-like such as 2:13 in the video. The best looking Genesis games tend to use colors in more clever ways by sharing and re-appropriating the same highlight/mid/shadow shades in different contexts, with a good grasp of color theory which yields a very concise and artistic tone to the overall visual expression. Bloodlines is not one of those games and instead its use of colors is more a case of jack of all trades, master of none.

imagine if bloodlines was on the snes IMPOSSIBLE

Those reviews are absurd... it's pretty obvious they came out at a time where most people didn't have the luxury of finding an unbiased, honest review online, and feel like someone might've been puttin money in their pockets to favor the snes?... Probably not, because people seemed to only be all in on one system or the other back in those days, but these are supposed to be professional reviews, so the conspiracy theorist in me makes me wonder haha. Not sure why they lambasted this game, it's a very good game, the only issue I had with this game was the sound effects. But the music, graphics, replayability of having 2 characters, the challenge.. I agree with you, I'm not sure what game they were playing, because this is a great Genesis title, and also a great, 'old school' style Castlevania game. Great review, and fantastic channel! Love your content!

From this, I think I understand that bum-rushing into the game like i'm on a timer is unhealthy. I still don't get where you're coming from with the audio, I still don't find it to be strong, but I can see where appreciation meets enthusiasm. I think one note I would provide is the utility of the password system, but I don't know if this carries continues as well or if it's a permanent change to the number of continues provided - my experience with the game is limited but frustrating. Still, I suppose it's time to give the game another shot. Maybe with a different soundtrack, but another shot for sure. Thanks for the review :) You going onto Dracula X next, perchance?

I'm probably the odd one out when I say this, but this is actually my favorite Castlevania game for these reasons. Yes I love it more than Rondo, I just love how unconventional Bloodlines is.

I actually think the continue system is fun, and suits Bloodlines perfectly. It allows the player to gain more practice in a level, and lets them see the end prematurely , giving them a boost if they are struggling. A player can also brute force their way past a level which they feel annoyed or frustrated by. It adds a level of meta resource management. The final level is also shorter and a bit easier than the prior ones (barring the final boss), so if the player manages to reach that level with 2 lives and no continues its perfectly doable.

My go-to Castlevania. The original reviews were ridiculous.

Thank you! Finally someone points out things I have been saying for years. The graphics in Super Castlevania IV has a lot to be desired. Both Bloodlines and Rondo of Blood have much more colorful and defined backgrounds and sprites. Though I like the controls of Simon in Super Castlevania IV, I still think the game is way overrated. Great review by the way.

15:32 That's not a twirl! That's a sweet rave party!

If a sequel to Bloodlines with iga-vania elements came out as the next Castlevania would you give it a chance?

This game is just my second favorite Classicvania of all time behind Rondo and leagues superior to SCIV. Yeah they've always hinted Eric as the easy mode of the game and John the Hard mode cause of the points you said there. The OST yeah is just AMAZING ♥️ except the final battle yeah that's a bit ugh. Iron Blue Intention was so good that it got a remix in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. BTW thanks for showing the extra life in level 4 i've never thought there would be an extra life there and i've played this game relaxed cause it has no time limit :D The continues thing yeah was stupid but at least the game is not that hard compared to Dracula X (oh god) but yeah is annoying and unfair for new players and yeah i got 3 Game overs on my first playthrough and the fact that the passwords keep your continues is a double edge sword, in one hand is useful but on the other hand it can screw you if you got to let's say level 5 with 0 continues oh boy. The Gear boss was always my personal favorite because of his animations he's so stupidly funny. Yeah the critics were playing another Game really cause this game rocks really hard. Great review as always Kris. Keep up the good work and happy holidays dude

i agree, bro. bloodlines is my favorite castlevania game

Bloodlines is overwhelmingly prefered over Castlevania IV by people who have no nostalgic tie's to either game. Bloodlines does have the advantage of being an earlly 94' release while Castlevania IV was a late 91' release. They were both the same 8-mb cartridges though.

Thank you for making this game justice

I played this game for the 1st time on Genesis Online via Switch. And I'm thinking "where have you been all my life!?"

I havent played bloodlines but i always though it was more visually appealing than IV. But those limited continues though, the only reason i got into Castlevania was that there were unlimited continues, making ir a hard, yet Fair game.

i agree with almost everything especially the limited continues, i like to use the konami code to play this and while there is a password system it's a pain i still think the boss rush is padding and i hate elizabeth, i like her first form, it's a fun throwback, and sort of challenging but then you fight her and it's just a drag, hitting her up to six times just to damage her...i beat her first try on expert difficulty, but she takes longer to kill than Dracula and offers less challenge making her easily my least favourite boss of the game

Good review. Getting a triple shot in the first few castlevania games is not easy. The work to get and keep it is to stay alive. If the player dies in say the grim reaper level of the original game, getting the triple shot again isn't easy when starting at a checkpoint

Super Castlevania IV is a great game, but Bloodlines is Better. I love this game!

Great analysis. Bloodlines IMO is both fantastic but also a bit underwhelming. It got many things right and has its very own vibe among Castlevania games but it could have been even better if it wasn't for the limited cart size for the time (only 8 meg) and the obviously rushed development. One thing you didn't mention is the resolution, 320x224 pixels, just like most Mega Drive games and meaning that compared to other Castlevania's back then, Bloodlines has wider screen estate but is also the sole which has a good aspect ratio once displayed on 4:3 screen (since NES, SNES and most PC Engine games run in that odd 8:7-shaped resolution of 256x224 pixels). The visual effects in Bloodlines look amazing and are particularly creative. They add lot of depth to an already good-looking game graphically-speaking (although the graphics themselves range from fantastic to quite dull in places, a 16 or even a 12 meg cart would have made a significant difference, allowing for more details). And the soundtrack is glorious. Michiru Yamane loved to work with the Mega Drive sound hardware and it shows! The sound effects on the other hand are a mixed bag and another area that could have greatly benefited from a bigger cart for all kinds of cool samples. I guess that you're going to cover Rondo of Blood and Dracula X next? I would like to see that. Both are good games in their own right with Rondo being a tad overrated whereas Dracula X is a tad underrated. And it would be awesome if you can cover the X68000 Castlevania game too which is probably the best Classicvania to date.

Alright, last video I said this is the one I was waiting for, but I honestly can’t wait for your take on the 64 titles. My unsolicited opinion is that they are severely underrated. They’re not great by today’s standard, but compared to its contemporaries, the game was advanced. It’s no Super Mario 64, but not many games of that era were.

Yeah Bloodlines is awesome. I had the european version which is really different and years later I learned I had even rarer the first prototype (which I guess got released at some point) and it feels way more balanced than the american version I played later, there´s fewer enemies and the death fight is very different, also changes in graphics and music (the pillar boss shoots chains instead of orbs of light). I feel that version is superior to both the american and japanese ones but it´s very rare to find nowdays, not even a rom avalaible =( (there´s videos here though) Cool video and again, totally agree that is better than Super.

0:40 - The SNES will want to have quality close to CD. The composition of a theme is as or more important than the quality with which it sounds ... You just have to know how to listen! Calling From Heaven ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-n0fS4fsUILA.html The Prayer of a Tragic Queen ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LXj3TB_tP2w.html 0:55 - That is compensated with the special movements of the characters!

There's also no time limit in Bloodlines, just like in Rondo Of Blood. :)

Both great games, but I enjoy playing Bloodlines more.

Between CV 4 and bloodlines I liked bloodlines best. It's my favorite next to symphony of the night

Totally agree at about 5 minutes in. I feel like the snes tried to hard and ended up looking washed out while sega went with the less is more approach that ened up aging way better. It is still a shame of the lack of whipping directions though.

I never played this one since i didnt have a sega but i had friends that did and i always felt the audio for the genesis was absolutely awful. Everything sounds crunchy or ear grating IMO. Sonic games were probably the only exception that i actually experienced personally, im sure there are others but almost every game of the 25 or so that i played were like this. This does look like a really fun Castlevania experience though

Can you look at Yoshi's Safari🐊

I wouldn't go so far to call this game 16-Bit supremacy. That title goes to Rondo of Blood and Rondo of Blood alone, which is the best game in the classic Castlevania series (Metroidvania is something different altogether imo). Try that game. You'll love it.

The greatness of CV4 are mostly because of nostalgia