Trivia / Castlevania: Rondo of Blood

• Dummied Out: A giant lizard or dragon that apparently shot laser beams is partially loaded at the end of the first area.
• Late Export for You: The original PC Engine version game wouldn't leave Japan until the release of Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles for the PlayStation Portable in 2007, which also contains an Updated Re-release version. A ROM rip of the original version was also made available for the Wii's Virtual Console internationally in 2010, though it was left untranslated.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.":
  • Since Shaft was cut from the only port of this game to appear outside Japan^note Before The Dracula X Chronicles. Pity, since he was an important character in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
  • Some fans of Symphony are known to ask why Maria keeps showing up as a young girl in games like Portrait of Ruin, Harmony of Despair and Judgment. Symphony was the only game to portray her as anything close to an adult.
• No Port For You: Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night remain Playstation-ecosystem exclusives, whereas most of the other classic Castlevania games (including the Dracula X SNES port) have seen multi-platform releases as part of the Castlevania Anniversary Collection and Castlevania Advanced Collection. The PSP remake, Dracula X Chronicles, remains exclusive to the now-defunct PSP system and is now only playable either via old hardware or emulation.
• Remade for the Export: Castlevania: Rondo of Blood made its first (functional, playable) trip outside of Japan as Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles, which also included a port of the original PC Engine game. This PC Engine port was subsequently re-released for the Playstation 4 as part of the Castlevania: Requiem collection. We don't talk about the SNES Dracula X.
• What Could Have Been:
  • A Shogakukan interview with lead programmer “Nyajiou” reveals that a total of four playable characters were planned, but after thinking it over, it was decided to narrow it down to two. Additionally, the bosses' desperate final blows could take away the player's life in the demo disc, but in the final, they cannot and only take away any health that would count toward the stage clear (with the exception of Shaft in Stage 6).
  • Another interview in the Konami Kukeiha Club OST liner notes explains that Mikio Saitou's arrangement of "Cross Your Heart" from Haunted Castle didn't make the cut. It reappeared in The Dracula X Chronicles as one of the three special tracks unlocked after finding all 49 Sound Items. Also, according to programmer Shingo Takatsuka, the initial test version of Rondo of Blood was estimated to be five times harder than the final game.
  • A Sega 32X version was reportedly◊ in development◊ under the name Dracula X^note which may or may not be the same as an untitled Rondo of Blood follow-up said to have been in development for the 32X. All that's known was that it was planned for release around the same time as the SNES conversion of the same name, and it was apparently going to make concessions to the audio and cutscenes in order to fit it on cartridge.
• Word of God: IGA and A.S.Minakata state in pg. 126 of The Dracula X Chronicles' official Japanese guidebook that they think the Mysterious Watcher in Stage 3' is Dracula, although the PSP remake adds a wide hat to this figure. IGA also states that "X" in "Dracula X" was originally supposed to stand for the Roman numeral, as Rondo of Blood is considered the tenth game released in the Castlevania series^note apparently counting Simon Belmont retellings such as the MSX2 and X68000 iterations but not the Kid Dracula spinoffs, but it began to be thought of as its own sub-series at the time, as the Tokyo office had creative freedom from the Kobe office.

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