Hot on the heels of the upcoming release of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for the Xbox 360 Live Arcade (this month?), Konami whipped up a big surprise for us. They are going to be releasing Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles for the Sony PSP system. This collection will include both games in the Dracula X series, Symphony of the Night and Rondo of Blood. In fact Dracula X Chronicles will have two different versions of Rondo of Blood; The Japanese original and a new enhanced 3D graphics version (in a 2D realm) of the game similar to the New Super Mario Bros game that came out for the Nintendo DS last year.

Many people in the United States have never played Rondo of Blood, due to the fact that it was only released in Japan for the PC Engine CD. The game was never localized for the US probably due to the mediocrity of the Turbo Grafx-16 and Nintendo's evil tactics that tried to deter third party publishers from releasing games on other systems. It's going to be exciting to finally be able to play Rondo of Blood in English, 3D or not.

The demo that Konami had on the floor was only the 3D version of Rondo of Blood. Sooo, it might be a bit premature to get all excited about the 2D ports, especially after seeing the screen blurs and stretching issues of Konami's other PSP collections (I'm talking about you Gradius!) Heck, most of us will take these titles anyway we can as long as they're somewhat playable. That's still no reason to slack, Konami, so please do a decent job.

Now back to the 3D version. The new graphics almost made Rondo of Blood seem like an entirely new game, until you started playing it. The same ol' Castlevania controls feel like they should and bring you back to the glory days of yore. The graphics take some getting used to, but they do look great so far and can't wait to see more of the game levels (like some of the church scenes.)

With Koji Igarashi and artist Ayami Kojima working on this PSP port I'd be hard pressed to believe that The Dracula X Chronicles will be nothing less than excellent. There are a couple of lingering questions like which version of Symphony of the Night? Will it be Sega Saturn, Playstation, or a new build entirely (my money is on Playstation)? Igarashi even went on to imply there may be some updates for SotN even on the PSP version so this is sounding more and more like a tri-fecta of Castlevania goodness for your PSP. Anyhoo, Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles is sure to be a must have for your PSP collection and I, for one, am definitely looking forward to its release later this year.

-NakedBoB