Bram Stoker's Dracula

The Good
Gameplay - simple, just find the exit while destroying the enemies along the way. You need to find Van Helsing (whose location will be indicated by an arrow), who will give you access to new weapons, and then you need to find the exit (again indicated by an arrow).

Audio - some cool music, and good sound effects.

The Bad
A few coding errors - most of the enemies you kill come back after you leave the area where they came from, and in one occasion the sounds effects don't suit the event (a raising spike in Misty Catacombs II).

Boss battles - too easy, just one or two moves to watch out for.

Also, the arrow can be confusing in some areas.

The ending was a bit average, with one long text screen, and a short animation of the castle disintegrating. Also, the scoring system's a bit strange - scores are apparently possible to the 10 millions place, and there's no high score table.

The Bottom Line
In short, this game's not bad. Despite some flaws, it is playable.

The Good
Clearly inspired by "Castlevania", the gameplay is solidly 2-D side scrolling running, jumping, and slashing. You the player are Jonathan Harker, with a variety of weapons at disposal. Including swords and guns. The visuals are adequate for the Genesis, (but look much sharper on the SNES), and the music gets the job done. The color palette is not surprisingly dark which suites the content well. Because this game is based on a hit movie, the level of difficulty is not too extreme.

The boss fights can be fun and a bit challenging and some of thee field enemies are interesting.

The Bad
The developers did not take full advantage of the settings in the movie and the book. The game opens with Harker escaping from Castle Dracula. The landscape is interesting but simple. The developers took such huge liberties adding locations that were not in the film, one can't help but wonder why the art direction isn't a bit more lively. It was a pity the developers did not take better advantage of the really cool settings in the film and book.

This game, because it is based on a film, follows the established trend of not making the gameplay too difficult. The reason for this is so the full spectrum of videogame players can find the game accessible - from the passive gamers to the hardcore game. This is in the negative section because a result of this accessible gameplay is some redundancy: the game never gets too hard or too easy.

The Bottom Line
This game is fun, but not too much fun. Fans of "Castlevania" will enjoy it for a single play through, but because the game is so old and does not possess any standout features, passive gamers won't even care about it.

I do not think, however, the developers set out to make a "Castlevania" clone. There is some uniqueness to this game that some players may find charming. Harker is not a vampire-hunter and so does not control like one; his movements are a bit stiff but suite his character. There were some fun moments in the game, but all in all, it will probably fall, (if it hasn't already), into the ambiguity of the sands of time.