Castlevania Bloodlines



The 11th game in the long-running Castlevania series, Castlevania: Bloodlines (Vampire Killer in Japan and Castlevania: The New Generation in Europe) was released for the Sega Genesis in 1994. This game is notable for the fact that it ties the Castlevania story with that of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

The game's storyline continues in 2006's Castlevania: Portrait Of Ruin.

Bloodlines provides examples of:

 * All There in the Manual: The plot.
 * American Kirby Is Hardcore: In the Japanese and European versions, Eric has a Bishonen look, while in the American version, Eric's face was changed to look more barbarian-like.
 * Arc Number: The number 573 (ko-na-mi) is used to activate an Easter Egg via the option menu.
 * Auto Scrolling Level: Stage 2 and Stage 3 feature these.
 * Badass Spaniard: Eric Lecarde (AKA the guy with the spear)
 * Black Blood: The censored versions of the game replaced all of the blood with light blue water and recolored the reddish zombies to be bright green.
 * Blade on a Stick: Appropriately vague, since Lecarde's weapon could become a spear, an axe-head spear, or a trident.
 * Bloodier and Gorier: Out of all the Classicvanias, this one had the most blood in it by far. Though, coming from a Sega Genesis game, this is hardly surprising. Yet somehow it got an "all audiences" rating.
 * Boss Rush: Stage 6
 * Bowdlerize: In the European version, all the blood was removed.
 * Eric's death animation was also altered so that his spear didn't impale him.
 * Degraded Boss: Some of Stage 6's monsters were bosses in the earlier levels.
 * Denial of Diagonal Attack: Averted when playing as Eric, who can twirl his spear in all eight directions. Somewhat averted when playing as John, who can attack upper left, upper right, and downwards while jumping.
 * The Dragon: Drolta Tzuentes, who is actually the second-to-last boss after John/Eric defeated Dracula's first form, despite what the American manual says.
 * Dub Name Change: Johnny to John, though it's not too different compared to other examples.
 * Easy Mode Mockery: As per Konami game at the time, you have to beat the Expert mode to get the full ending.
 * Eternal Engine: Stage 4, the German weapons factory (the staple Castlevania Clock Tower in all but name).
 * Everything Is Badass In Texas: John Morris (AKA the guy with the whip).
 * Falling Chandelier of Doom: In the fifth stage, Versailles Palace has these in one section, though amusingly they instantly kill any Axe Knights that happen to get caught under it.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: How in the hell did this get a GA rating under Sega's rating system?
 * Happy Dance: If you die during the  battle, it will celebrate by spinning around and raising its hands in joy.
 * Incendiary Exponent: Upgrade your weapons enough times and they're on fire for maximum damage. Shame you lose it on getting hit once.
 * Interface Screw: The control-reversing pollen from the giant roses in Stage 5-1, as well as Stages 6-2 (where the screen splits into 3) and 6-3 (the inverted stage, and the vertical controls are reversed).
 * Internal Homage: Stage 1-3 matches stage 02 from Castlevania 1986, but includes slight changes.
 * Bloodlines also includes remixed music from the three NES Castlevania games.
 * Limit Break: A lesser version of the Item Crash (from Rondo of Blood) appears in this game.
 * Magic Skirt: Eric's tunic, which stays in place even while completely upside-down and shooting upward.
 * Named Weapons: Eric wields the Alcarde Alucard Spear. And of course, John has the Vampire Killer.
 * Nintendo Hard: It's bad enough that the game's difficulty gives Rondo of Blood a run for its money, but the limited continues are what really seal the deal. The Easy Mode Mockery doesn't help either.
 * One Up: These are often hidden in some rather hard-to-reach places.
 * Password Save: At the end of each stage, you get a password with number of lives and continues remaining.
 * Revenge: the main motive for Eric Lecarde to hunt down Elizabeth Bartley.
 * Rise to the Challenge: Stage 2-2 has water steadily climbing. As an Auto Scrolling Level, you're free to climb up beyond the camera. In the next stage, you find the enemy that causes the water to rise, and need to kill it before you drown.
 * Spell My Name with an "S": Although the reference is pretty obvious, the Big Bad is called Elizabeth Bartley, not Bathory.
 * Super Drowning Skills: A little relaxed by this series' standards; falling into water doesn't kill you unless you fall off the screen; it simply causes you to take heavy damage. If you have low enough health however, it will kill you.
 * Timed Mission: Stage 2's Water Mage mid-boss, who floods the screen with water until he's dead. Take too long and you get to see Eric and John's Super Drowning Skills on display in the heat of battle.
 * Visual Effects of Awesome: The wizards at Konami made Sega Genesis do some things it couldn't do, mainly scaling and rotation.
 * Whip It Good: Morris steps in to keep this a Castlevania game.
 * World War One: In the game's backstory, the Big Bad of the game, Elizabeth Bartley.