Indeed, only two other classic Castlevania games share Bloodlines’ missing-in-action status: Belmont’s Revenge and Legends, a pair of monochrome Game Boy sequels. Yet Bloodlines remains locked down in the Konami vaults.
Why has Konami abandoned this one Castlevania sequel when it’s never been shy about reissuing others? Bloodlines shipped in all regions back in the day, and unlike contemporary Genesis releases based on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Tiny Toon Adventures, there are no licensing considerations to deal with. Anyone who wants to play it today either needs to hunt down the Genesis cartridge or resort to piracy. Even the unloved Nintendo 64 Castlevania got a remake of sorts back in the day with Legacy of Darkness, which essentially took the original, compromised N64 release and added back all the material its developers had been forced to cut for reasons of time and budget.īloodlines, however, has never resurfaced in any form. Haunted Castle, the terrible arcade rendition of Castlevania for NES, has inexplicably been republished a few times. Akumajou Dracula for the obscure Japanese X68000 computer was remade on PlayStation as Castlevania Chronicles. Dracula X, the mediocre Super NES conversion of Rondo of Blood, has made its way to Virtual Console several times over. Nearly every other Castlevania game has seen a reissue of some sort over the past 20 years, even the oddball obscurities. Bloodlines, however, does not number among these prolific reissues.
You can find Castlevania games on every iteration of Virtual Console, on Nintendo’s recent retro NES and Super NES mini-consoles, and even in Hamster’s Arcade Archives series for PlayStation 4. The company doesn’t have any compunctions about cashing in on Castlevania’s history, though. The only thing happening with the brand in general these days is decidedly violent Netflix cartoon, which will launch a second micro-season later this year. Granted, publisher Konami doesn’t currently appear to have much interest in doing much of anything involving Castlevania. Oh, and there’s one other thing: Bloodlines remains, quite arguably, the most unfairly forgotten Castlevania game ever made. ( Symphony of the Night was ported from PlayStation to Saturn in Japan, but Bloodlines was designed exclusively for Genesis.) The soundtrack saw Michiru Yamane make her debut with the series before going on to become its regular composer. Being a Genesis/Mega Drive game, it was the only Castlevania to have been designed for a Sega platform. Within the expansive Castlevania series, 1994’s Castlevania: Bloodlines stands apart.
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