Kid Dracula/Akumajō Special: Boku Dracula-kun is a very fun little game where you take control of a young Kid Dracula (as the name implies) and take on Galamoth the demon. Kid Dracula uses his Dracula's (his father) cape as a weapon on his adventure. Kid Dracula is the self proclaimed Demon King, or was until Galamoth challenged him for the title. After defeating Galamoth, his title is restored and all the monsters in Transylvania want to be his friend. Despite all the monsters and demons, the game is obviously pretty cute.
It's intended to be a parody of the Castlevania series, though depending on who you ask, is part of the series. Kid Dracula being a young Alucard prior to growing up and becoming a more serious character. I prefer to take it on it's own though. It's hard not to enjoy the cute monsters and the fun platforming action. The game is available on most platforms now, but was originally a Famicom/NES game. Later the Gameboy version was released which is supposed to be both a remake and a follow up at the same time. I'm not sure how that works, but I am much better at the Gameboy version for some reason.
This weekend sure did go by faster than I'd liked. Oh well, but that doesn't mean we're not going to have a great week Zone Base readers! Over the weekend my routine trip to At Home resulted in some Halloween fun! They had plan-o-grams taped up! The spooky stuff will be arriving soon. I spied a little stock on the feader shelves! They did have some decorative pumpkin candles and I totally grabbed one!
A stop by Cracker Barrel for some exclusive Squishmallows for the Mrs resulted in another bit of early Halloween fun. They had quite a bit available and we left with a cool vintage black cat sign. They also had a pack of dinosaur egg bots that I plan to get later. There's quite a bit I'm looking for now, so I'm being a little frugal.
Walmart has Sandstorm and Buzzsaw! They also had Nightprowler, but I'd already gotten that pre order in. The other pre orders were canceled and they were bought on sight. I'm not a fan of all these pre orders as is, but when they keep moving the shipping dates back, I like them even less. Walmart also had Fright Features Lucky! She was bought on site as well. None of the other Ghostbusters toys were there, but I'll take what I can get. There's a lot I'm looking for, so what I found was exciting.
The Mrs and I fell asleep in the living room after some dinner. This resulted in me waking up super early Sunday. Sunday was Ultraman Day and the time allowed me to put in some extra viewing of episodes. Tokushoutsu was doing an all day marathon and getting in some episodes of Ultra Q was a real treat! We had to stop by Five Below before getting groceries as our order had issues resulting in cancelation. It's convenient to order groceries, but occasionally annoying.
Five Below lately has been having volumes of the Attack on Titan manga and the newest was available. I also picked up a cool Power Rangers building block set. The Rangers with their motorcycles are available and I grabbed Green Ranger! I'll likely get the Red one later. Got some stuff for podcasting and just stuff we needed.
We intended to do a bunch of house work, but some of that will have to wait until later. Tacos were eaten and Code Orange videos were watched. Plans to order the Nintendo sundaes from Cold Stone Creamery were made, but canceled as delivery orders were expected to take way too long. I almost forgot to mention the cool office stuff I got at Walmart Saturday. A new Trapper Keeper and some notebooks were bought including a Marvel Mech Strike Monster Hunters one! I wasn't expecting to find that but was so happy to have that opportunity!
I've been making TikTok and Reels on Mondays the past few weeks. The Reels are much more popular, but it's flattering that they all get viewers. I don't think I'll be doing any today as I'm pretty wiped out. I stayed up too late watching Ultraman and playing Castlevania Legends on my Family Pocket. It's not the highest regarded Castlevania game, but I can have fun with it still. Today also is the one year anniversary of getting sick last year. I'm doing much better now, but can't help but to look back on how everything changed that day. I've got some errands to run, which is much better than what I was doing last year today.
I've got a fun week planned for you all. I hope everyone has been enjoying the Spooky Summer posts. I made a change to them this year and it's been fun to make. Though, Halloween is just around the corner and I've been culling some really fun stuff for pumpkin spiced mayhem! Thank you for continuing to support Zone Base. It really does mean a lot that you all continue to do so. Please don't forget to share with your friends!
Castlevania is one of my favorite video game series. I love the mixture of fantasy and horror in addition to the platforming and action. Between the straight forward game play of the originals and the exploration of later ones, each game is usually a good time. One game though that doesn't get a lot of credit is Castlevania: Dracula X. Before you correct me, I'm not talking about the PC Engine classic Rondo of Blood. I'm talking about the Super Nintendo game.
While essentially being the same story, it's basically an alternative version of the game. Slightly different levels, difficulty, and other game play mechanics make for a new experience instead of simply being a port of the prior game. It both a substitute for Rondo of Blood to set you up for Symphony of the Night or a sequel to Super Castlevania (an alternate version of the original game).
Basically the SNES games make for a fun little side pocket continuity that either does or does not connect with the overall series. For what it's worth, the Japanese version of Dracula X is called Dracula XX in Japan to differentiate it. Other differences between versions is the amount of gore (and there is a lot of it) is toned down for the American and European versions. It was a different time back then before games had a ratings system. Companies often tailor their products to meet regional norms. Nintendo in Japan was more open to things such as blood and religion, while in America... not so much at the time.
Rondo of Blood is often seen as a benchmark in Castlevania games, while the SNES Dracula X is generally panned as an inferior product. Something I've never understood. Personally I've always liked the SNES game. It's a good game despite being different from the PC Engine version. Just different. There's never been a clear reason as to why the versions are different, but to me it kind of fits. Rondo of Blood is the epitome of a PC Engine game. While Dracula X is 100% full of that Super Nintendo flavor.
Recently when I bought Castlevania Advance Collection I was super pleased to discover it had the SNES game on it. That was a surprise considering the love the PC Engine gets. Getting reacquainted with it pretty much inspired me to write this post and show you all this cool game guide from Japan. Even if you can't read Japanese, it's still neat to flip through. That's actually something I plan to do periodically here when I talk about old video games is include some of the cool guides and magazines made for them. I've always loved them and willing to bet you'd appreciate them as well. The embedded reader can be adjusted to make it easier for you to flip through the pages or you can read it here.
It's another Monday morning on Planet Zone. Fortunately we're still in the spooky season and can enjoy Dracula while we get ready for another week. I've got some fun posts in mind for you all this week.
Hope everyone has a good day! I've got to get dressed for early voting and a few errands. If only I could vote for Dracula.
*edit*- I had some car problems and wasn't able to vote or run my errands. Next week when I go vote, I hope I can still vote for Dracula.
Friday Night means Frights and who's more frightening than Dracula? Don't answer that. Everyone in video land knows Castlevania is a scary place to be. So what better a location for Captain N to have a showdown with an evil clone of his real world bully? Well I guess anywhere, but dang son, monsters!
The two duke it out while traversing the evil castle in a spooky montage set to Michael Jackson's Thriller! Ok, not actually sung by Michael Jackson, but the off-brand singers usually found on party soundtracks! The kind you get at the party store for your Halloween party! Only this is summer and just Friday night... ah fuck it.
Another Friday is upon us and y'all know what that means, another spooky edition of Friday Frights here on the Base! This week, Captain N and the gang in an episode themed after the then newly released Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse! For those not fully familiar with Captain N, it was a Saturday morning cartoon with a teenager from Earth living in the world of Nintendo video games in adventures in a different game each week.
This was way before Castlevania got the anime look we're all used to and was more homage to classic monsters. Captain N was a DiC production and took a few liberties with the characters as you can probably tell. Not to mention... Sypha is a man here as characters were often mislabeled in marketing materials due to localization errors at the time. Regardless, it's a fun silly adventure in Dracula's Castle and that's the kind of Halloween all year spooky shit we can all love.
Long before the Castlevania series on Netflix, we had to do with an episode of Captain N to bring the events of Castlevania 3 to animated form. Yea, they pretty much reinvented everything and got the characters wrong. But I do think Alucard is pretty great here and not only am a fan of Captain N, but DiC cartoons. Not to mention, it's Halloween crunch time. We've got to get our spooky shit all the way in before the next few months of singing that Snowman song.
One thing I've always loved about the earlier Castlevania games is the emphasis on classic horror. I've made no secret my love for Universal Monsters and incorporating other monsters like Medusa into the mix made for a smorgasbord of monstery goodness. I've always loved a good platform game that utilized things like swords and such. Taking this warrior on an adventure throwing axes and snapping whips through Dracula's crazy monster castle... it was perfect.
The commercial for the Japanese version of Castlevania serves up that classic horror wonderfully. Dracula's castle highlighted by lightning before the main man himself arrives and flashes his fangs. Halloween in it's purest form.
Oh sure, I've already bought these two games a few times already... but what's one more time? Hitting the Playstation store just in time for Halloween is this cool bundle of two of the best Castlevania games ever. Just right for a spooky night!
I've been looking forward to the upcoming game Bloodstained (a spiritual successor to Castlevania) for quite some time, and while the game isn't due for a little bit longer, it's companion piece is getting a release towards the end of the month and looks like what I'll be doing most of my Memorial Day weekend. Curse of the Moon is a more retro 8 bit style game that looks to be heavily inspired by Castlevania 3. I may just be looking forward more to it than the actual Bloodstained.
Castlevania Bloodlines/Vampire Killer/The New Generation is one of my favorite Castlevania games to this day. It's often overlooked for reasons I cannot fathom. It's an absolutely wonderful classic style Castlevania game that deserves more fanfare than it gets.
