YMMV / Castlevania: Rondo of Blood

• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • The Dracula fight here is generally considered one of the easiest in the series, his attacks being slow and easy to dodge, and his second form being one giant hitbox that a few crosses will chew through with near-zero effort.
  • While playing as Maria makes the game a bit easier in general, both of Dracula's forms are rendered a complete joke with her; she can simply duck under the fireballs in the first form and slide under the jumps of the second, making it trivial to avoid all damage.
• Awesome Music: Many, and many that are also remixes of other Castlevania themes, but a note should go to "Illusionary Dance/Dance of Illusions", which was first used here and has becomes Dracula's Leitmotif ever since.
• Difficulty Spike: The game has a really easy first level. The rest of the game is considerably more difficult, especially Stage 2
• Game-Breaker: Maria either counts as this or as an Easy mode. She's faster than Richter, she has a double jump, her jumps are much easier to control, she can throw two doves at the same time, which can hit the enemy up to twice, she can slide, she is slightly smaller than Richter, which makes a notable difference when you want to dodge certain attacks, and her sub-weapons, although different, can be just as deadly as (If not deadlier than) Richter's when used well. Her ending can definitely count as Easy-Mode Mockery though, as it's far less serious and far more cutesy than Richter's ending.
• Growing the Beard: From a story telling standpoint, this game has a far greater emphasis on narrative than many prior games, having fully voiced cutscenes and attempting to break away from the Excuse Plot the classic series is known for. This set the stage for the story of the sequel.
• Memetic Badass: Maria being brokenly stronger than Richter has led to this in Japan. Her casually saying "I'm okay" is spelled "I'm a weapon of mass destruction" to serve as the name of the meme. Theories like Shaft targeting her first for being a far greater threat are par for the course.
• Moe: Maria; her pluckiness and cuteness are what make her endearing, as is her status as a Badass Adorable Kid Hero.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Despite most claims that Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow was the first to use anime style drawings, it was in fact Rondo that used them first, if only for the cutscenes
  • The Bible subweapon is usable for the first time in this game. However some hackers found a sprite for it in the original NES game.
• Once Original, Now Common: At the same time, however, Rondo of Blood also gets caught in a rough spot with some fans. Its No Export for You status until later re-releases meant it didn't quite create the nostalgic zeal in the West that the 8-bit entries or the Igavania titles had, and for those entering the franchise fresh, it got a Hype Backlash from certain audiences. Some contest that it wasn't as innovative as past entries like III and relied heavily on reusing elements of the first game, especially once you hit Dracula's castle which goes full on Legacy Boss Battle as a Boss Bonanza at one point. Others will argue that the presentation upgrade and polished level design are the two things that make the game stand out, which keeps it from being all that interesting on its own; with every 2D game reusing a lot of the same assets established here, it made Rondo less inherently amazing as a result.
• Sacred Cow: it eventually reached this status alongside its sequel, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, which is the fan favorite as far as the later "Igavanias" go. Players tend to regard Rondo as the best of the classic linear Castlevania games, and criticizing it or comparing it unfavorably to other games in the series, especially its predecessor Super Castlevania IV, will not get you many agreeable responses. You may also get this treatment for suggesting Symphony and the games that followed its template are better.
• That One Boss:
  • Death is once again a pain in the ass. He has three phases and takes longer to defeat than in some of the other Classicvanias. The first phase is the sickle spam only he loves to fly out of reach, while in the second he shoots a wave of five skulls at you. Fail to dodge one round, and he'll keep on going until you do (or die). The third phase has him attack you on the ground, but he's somewhat easier.
  • Shaft appears twice and is hard both times. The first time, he's fought after four other bosses (thankfully you get a checkpoint here) and constantly flees from you when you attack him. His attacks also do a lot of damage and are hard to avoid consistently as they trail you across the screen. The second fight pits you against his ghost, which curses you upon contact, making you slow. Worse still, he summons enemies to attack you, and there are bats spawning from above that are really hard to see on the blue background.
• That One Level:
  • Stage 2 is the entrance, only it's unusually hard because it's well defended. Worse still, the zombies in the ever familiar hallway can hit you twice instead of once due to your lack of invincibility frames in this game. You also get chased by a Behemoth which does a ton of damage, and if you're trying to take the alternate path, have fun with the insane amount of mermen, bats, and peeping eyes.
  • Stage 4' (alternate) is pretty hard due to the frogs that are really hard to hit, a river rafting section where one hit can send you into a bottomless pit, and ever spawning skeletons if you decide to go the other way.
  • Stage 5' (alternate) is plagued with Ledge Bats for most of the level, and its two branching paths lead to one of two varieties of hair-pulling difficulty: either a brief Platform Hell segment (which is lousy with Medusa heads), or two heavily-armored subbosses attacking from either direction.
  • The rest of the level is not as bad but you are almost guaranteed to take some hits in the opening part of Stage 7, where you have to traverse a collapsing bridge while avoiding giant bats, which are either hovering in your path or flying in from behind you, and some are carrying longswords which make them even harder to dodge.
• Woolseyism:
  • Believe it or not, the audio for the cutscenes sound different between the PSP release and the original PC Engine version. This is most notable during the Annette's Fate cutscene where Shaft in the PC Engine version teleports into the chamber, while in the PSP release he walks in unnoticed. The music in each of rescue cutscenes are also different depending on the platform; the PC Engine music uses a clavicord for the scenes where Tera and Iris are rescued, carried over into Maria rescuing Annette, while the PSP music offers a mix of both flute and piano. This likely occurred from lacking the original sources for the audio tracks with these scenes, and having to re-record it all from the ground up since the PC Engine game baked its cutscene audio and voice tracks into one.
  • There are also several differences between the various rereleases Rondo has had in recent years. The Virtual Console version features a newer version of the original German intro, while the Requiem port imports the English dub from the PSP remake as an alternate.