Castlevania: Rondo of Blood 1993

Is it still worth playing?

Richter Belmont sets out to rescue his lover Annette, abducted by Dracula, in this 1993 platformer for the PC Engine Super CD-ROM² system, at first released only in Japan. The castle has nine stages and four alternate routes, and the stages are untimed. Richter fights with a whip plus one of six sub weapons: an axe, a dagger, a bible, a pocket watch, a cross or holy water. Four captive maidens can be freed along the way, and one of them, Maria Renard, becomes a second playable hero who is more agile, double jumps and attacks with doves or with animals such as a white tiger kitten, a dragon whelp or a baby phoenix. Alternate routes and a second hero still give each run through the castle a different shape today.