All I want to do is play Castlevania: Rondo of Blood. That’s all I want to play right now. But, leave it to Konami to not ever bundle it in any of the Castlevania bundles they’ve released so far. And leave it to Konami to exclusively lock it to a small bundle that is exclusive to a previous gen console such as the PS4 with NO plans of ever reaching PC.
So what are my options now? Emulate of course, so I opted to pirate a copy of Dracula X Chronicles for the PSP after I read that you can play Rondo of Blood. But leave it to Konami to not make it that simple, because you have to complete a certain task in a certain stage at a certain part just to simply UNLOCK the fucking version!
My other option is to emulate the PC-Engine and go through yet another obstacle course just to get one fucking game to run.
This is what brings my blood to a boil, is when there had been perfect opportunities and chances for game devs to do the obvious. If there is a high demand for a game that you know people would want to fucking play, you fucking bundle it and fucking release it.
You do not have a damn argument to stand by against piracy, game devs, when you have to make it such a pain in the ass for people to spend time and effort just to play a game YOU didn’t want to simply release!
How do you fuck up this badly, Konami? Technically speaking, Rondo of Blood is a 16-bit game, so there was no excuses to have not included it in the initial Castlevania Anniversary Collection. But of course, just nostalgia bait everyone with all of the other games they could’ve emulated several times as easier than it is just to get the ONE game you didn’t want to bundle.
So fuck you.
If they don’t make it easily accessible, you are within your rights to pirate. Fuck them.
Piracy is a service issue.
Edit: replied to wrong comment
How DARE you reply to the wrong comment?
/s
I agree with your second statement, but not your first
Which is completely fair honestly. I don’t expect everyone to feel the same or look at the issue the same way, even in the piracy community.
I still feel that if there is no easy way to play it legally, Konami or whichever company is relevant can go fuck themselves and I’ll pirate the game instead.
Imagine somebody dangling a cookie in front of your face, but refuses to give it to you unless you complete a set of certain unrelated and difficult tasks, despite you offering to just pay to take the cookie. Yet the cookie is still being dangled in your face.
This is that problem.
So I put on a mask to hide my identity and take the cookie if I want it, but without believing that I am entitled to it.
Bingo. But imagine they keep dangling that cookie in front of your face, taunting and teasing you even in the privacy of your own home, but will not let you purchase it on its own. In fact, in order to obtain said cookie, you must complete a bunch of unrelated tasks/purchase a bundle/subscription along with it. And then you only get the one cookie. This is how the video media world works.
The music industry figured it out already by letting you take as many cookies as you want, of all kinds, without limitations, for a flat monthly fee.
In fairness, that comes with just not paying artists any money.
That… is a very fair point.
However, that could be resolved entirely by cutting out C-suite/shareholder profits and redirecting that money to the artists. But we all know that’s never going to happen.
I’d love it if we had a music co-op sort of situation. But as you say, that doesn’t make someone somewhere filthy rich.
sounds perfect. it’s like your experience here was real life Castlevania. what could be better?
Konami is no longer a video games company any more. They lost that title when they kicked Kojima out and decided to fully embrace pachinko games.
As a gamedev I feel strongly about financially supporting the games and creators I like so I try to always pay for the game if the price is fair. But Konami can fuck right off, they basically hold SotN and all the best Igavanias hostages behind their shitty bundles that are too expensive and sometimes exclusive to some platforms. Some of them were still Nintendo DS exclusive for ages until they got released in a bundle recently. I’ll consider giving them money again when they start actually making games again.
Same treatment applies to retro Nintendo games. You’re telling me I bought basically all your consoles since the GameCube at release day and you’re still gonna fuck me over and make me pay your stupid online subscription so I can play Super Metroid on the switch (even though I still own a working SNES and the game’s cartridge) ? Honestly that was the last straw that made me preorder the steam deck when I heard how easy it was to emulate on it
Konami has been like that for more than a decade. Being a castlevania fan is pain
It seems there is a way to unlock the classic games using PPSSPP’s cheat feature: https://old.reddit.com/r/Roms/comments/ozz4mu/looking_for_castlevania_the_dracula_x_chronicles/h838yfm/
Thanks for posting this.
I long gave up though on the PSP version beforehand, though am keeping it around because there are some games that I never got the chance to play on the PSP. So I pirated them and kept everything PSP for future use.
The remake on the PSP, feels so damn stiff! Like you make an action, you’re committed to it and you have almost no way to change course or immediately pounce out of a situation. That was what was pissing me off so much and I failed so many times trying to get to Stage 4 and figure out where I needed to go in it to unlock the game. The guides are vague and no videos that I watched really showed where you had to go.
So I returned to trying to pirate the Turbo Grafix, the Turbo CD (acquiring all BIOs) and downloaded at least 3 files of Rondo of Blood. After much tinkering, trying and error, I finally have a working copy. And in that game, the flow of the game felt much smoother than the remake, reinforcing my feelings earlier about the remake on the PSP.
Again - fuck Konami.
That or you can most likely find a savegame online where that mode has been unlocked.
I had heard, but cannot verify, that Sony paid to get the 2-pack of Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night exclusivity and while that agreement may have run its course, Konami hasn’t bothered to port it to PC since. I already own the PSN version, but I’d re-buy it for PC if they’d do a good port.
They released the original Anniversary Collection (Mixed 8-Bit and 16-Bit games) in 2019, Advance Collection (The GBA games + Dracula X on SNES) in 2021 and the Dominus Collection (The DS games) last year. So, there’s probably some hope that maybe the next collection would probably, maybe have Symphony of the Night, Rondo of Blood, the Game Boy games, the N64 games and maybe a few PS2 ones? I don’t know where they could go from there but that’s all that’s left as to what to re-release.
Either way, I don’t have all the time in the world for them to get around to it.
Yes, it should have been in the collection instead of the snes remake.
It’s too late for you… But anyone else wanting to play it, just start with the pc engine version. It’s easy to find a CHD with the translation patch already applied. PC Engine will easily emulate on any device.
They threw Dracula X into the collection with the GBA games. That made no sense, lol.
