I remember Bram Stoker’s Dracula being EVERYWHERE back in the 90’s. You couldn’t throw a stone in a video rental store without hitting four VHS copies along the way. Some cartridges, too – game adaptations of the Coppola flick were made for every machine known to man at the time. Anyone, regardless of console preference, could experience the joy that is preventing 8-bit Keanu Reeves from getting stabbed in the face by a knife wielding vampire. Happy days were, indeed, here again.
Much like Wayne’s World and Cliffhanger, this is a late NES release from a Western developer that recycles assets and level designs from its teeny weeny Game Boy counterpart. In a similar vein to those two games, Dracula isn’t super great. A damn sight better than those two, sure, but still kinda teetering towards the crap side of the NES game spectrum. But before we drive a stake through this thing and call it a day, let’s give it a fair shake…
Dracula is an adventure-y, platform-y type thing. People have compared it to Castlevania over the years, and I think those comparisons are warranted. For example, the sub-weapons are nearly identical to the way they function in Konami’s iconic series, and there’s the whole “vampire slaying through Dracula’s castle” angle that feels quite familiar. Granted the original novel might’ve beat Castlevania to that concept by a good 89 years, but this game sure didn’t. Besides, there are enough differences between the two games that don’t justify the common claim that Dracula is ripping off Castlevania wholesale! There’s a greater emphasis on sniffing out secrets in Dracula, for one…and hey, can Simon Belmont ass-stomp the ground beneath his feet to open passageways? I think not.
Though Dracula’s level designs are nowhere near as tight as CV’s, you can feel that it was made with genuine idolization for it’s obvious source of inspiration, and that’s gotta count for something. Keanu can jump a lot higher than the Belmont clan, and he controls nicely to boot. The graphics are good, even if the level’s colour palettes can get a little tedious. Lord Dracula’s domain is very…green and brown. The interior decorating industry began to boom in the 19th century, so there’s really no excuse for the overabundance of earthy tones. That’s 100% true, by the way. NESJunk always strives to teach you something!
Though I could fill several dozen blog posts with how often my aesthetic sensibilities are offended on a near daily basis, I’ll get back to talking about Dracula now. At first, I was having a fair bit of fun with it – the right amount of challenge kept me engaged alongside the mildly entertaining gameplay.
But something odd happened on the fourth level.
Something that rarely happens to me when playing even the most wretched of Nintendo games…
I got bored.
Something about Dracula totally lost me when I reached that point for the first time. The thought of going back to this was suddenly wholly unappealing, so I left it on pause for nearly two hours while I just…wandered off and did other things. Made and ate dinner, chatted with the wife, puttered around on the internet, stared at a wall, thought about playing better things. Y’know, I just snagged a cart of Super Mario RPG for the SNES the other day. I could’ve been digging into that instead. But the complete North American NES library waits for no one, and lo, I returned to conquer Dracula’s castle after a lengthy break.
After I managed to muster up what little attention span I had left, I cleared the fourth level…only to be greeted with this.
What?! But I was playing on Normal difficulty! The DEFAULT difficulty! Isn’t that enough for you, accursed creature of the night?!
For some reason, Dracula locks players out of the last three levels if they play on the “easier” difficulties. This is boggling to me because, as far as I could tell, there were no differences between Normal and Hard modes. Like, at all. Enemies hit the same, item and level layouts felt identical…so what was the point of having a choice in difficulty? Perhaps, much like the titular vampire, they were hoping to coax unsuspecting players into the full experience with a spell; a sense of intrigue towards the desirable and unknown. Or perhaps they were just boneheaded. Yes, perhaps so.
It was then that realisation dawned on me. I’d have to start Dracula over from the beginning, this time on hard mode. Again. And back to boredom I went, daydreaming about Mario and all of his silly friends while I muddled my way through this thing. Ugggghhhh…
Overall, Bram Stoker’s Dracula isn’t a terrible game, but it’s one that doesn’t do anything especially interesting, either. It has no stand out bosses or graphical set-pieces that’ll stick with you, the music’s a real mixed bag, and the last level is a huge pain in the ass that only made me want to wander off and do a whole lot of nothin’. It’s not bad enough to get angry at, nor is it good enough to sing its praises. You could do so much worse as far as horror adjacent games on the NES go, but I wouldn’t recommend going out of your way to play it, either. Maybe read the book instead. Or play Super Mario RPG, like I’m going to. Happy friggin’ Halloween.
Final Rating:
NESJunk 
lol to that SotN caption!
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