The Castlevania series has been around since the 80’s and since then Konami has given us many cool entries within the series. One of the few memorable titles within the series that Konami had released was Castlevania: Bloodlines which appeared on Sega Genesis in 1994. The Bloodlines game came a few years after the critically acclaimed Super Castlevania IV title from ’91 which appeared on Super Nintendo. Castlevania: Bloodlines had six stages each with a sub-boss followed an official boss battle. The setting of the story took place in 1917 during World War I and saw a vampire Elizabeth Bartley as the main antagonist. Elizabeth Bartley was the niece of Count Dracula who she intended on reviving and is revealed to be one responsible for the start of WWI. Bartley wanted human sacrifices which was a key part of her plan to revive Dracula and responsible to the death of the Crown Prince of Austria towards the start of WWI in 1914. Castlevania: Bloodlines saw both John Morris and Eric Lecarde as the main protagonists with six stages that saw them fighting of hords of unholy creatures. The graphics for Castlevania: Bloodlines did not look quite as good as Castlevania: Dracula X which appeared on ’95 but was arguably somewhat better to Super Castlevania IV from 1991.

The boss battles in Stages 3 & 6 looked impressive and looked somewhat similar to something you would see in Super Castlevania IV in relation Mode 7. Certain parts of Castlevania: Bloodlines was split into different paths depending on what character you choose and how the game is played. The replay value of Castlevania: Bloodlines was high and kept players busy for many hours because it was challenging and had four different endings. The soundtrack for Castlevania: Bloodlines was nowhere near as good as Dracula X for the SNES in 1995. However, the storyline was rather interesting because it did not heavily revolve around the Belmont family and focused more on new characters while having a compelling story. Castlevania: Bloodlines was released 30 years ago and to this day it remains as one of the most challenging 16-bit platformers of the 90’s. Even though, Castlevania: Bloodlines included passwords that allowed them to continue where they left off after dying in certain parts of the game it was still more difficult than it had any business being.