So, anyone other then me, getting Dracula X Chronicles for PSP?

[Bonknuts]

I just picked up Dracula X Chronicles and I'm lovin' it. That's cool that they added the unlockable music tracks and that you can change the BGM music of each individual stage to one of the unlockable music tracks.

[ParanoiaDragon]

Someone told you wrong. But go ahead and sell your PSP. Otherwise you might get tempted to try this shitty game.

LOL I'm selling my PSP for the GP2X, the new one, which is FAR SUPERIOR to PSP when emulation's concerned.

I was actually tempted to buy this at one point in time, but after I found out that you had to beat Dracula X to get SOTN, I said f*ck it.

You don't have to beat Drac X to play SotN.  You pick up the game in level 3' the Cemetary.  There's a SotN icon that you find.  Here's how:
In Stage 3', where the path branches, take the upper route. Make sure you obtain the "axe" subweapon sometime during the stage or use Maria. Eventually, you will meet a skeletal snake that is attached to a wall. Nearby is a vine-like cage; use the axe to cut it or Maria to double jump & hit it with peaceful dovelike action. It now serves as a platform for Richter or Maria to jump to the upper ledges. Continue along the upper ledges until you see a breakable tombstone. Inside is the item that unlocks Symphony of the Night. Return to the main menu to play it.

[Pcenginefx]

Ace Combat 6 is out this week?

YES!!  Came out a few days ago...I want to see you "fly with the angels mister"!

(nobody I've told this to has gotten the joke.....jeez)

On the flip side, I got my Chronicles from EB yesterday with the Simon figure...yay.

Does he look 8-bit?

From the side yes.  From the front he looks horrible...

[nat]

Ace Combat 6 is out this week?

YES!!  Came out a few days ago...I want to see you "fly with the angels mister"!

(nobody I've told this to has gotten the joke.....jeez)

On the flip side, I got my Chronicles from EB yesterday with the Simon figure...yay.

Does he look 8-bit?

From the side yes.  From the front he looks horrible...

 

I can imagine. You should post a picture.

[Black Tiger]

I finally got the Drac X Chronicles last night and beat the real final boss by rescuing all the ladies first. Does anyone know how to unlock the original Rondo of Blood?

[ParanoiaDragon]

It's in Stage 4, you go the way, where you make the bomb explode, um, I'll just quote gamefaqs
"On your way through twards the end of the stage you will find 6 of those skulls that spit fire stacked on top of each other. Just past them is a platform that moves like an inverted pengelium going left and right. Just opposite of it is a spiked ball. Get on the platform and jump over the spiked ball landing on the ground against the wall. Break the lower part of the wall to find a bomb. Hit the bomb to ingite it and the wall will come falling down.
Walk forward a bit and you will find 2 spiked platforms that try to crush you. Get on the right platform and as it's going up jump off of it and land on the upper level. Stay on top avoiding the axes and the yellow eye. At the very end of that platform is a candle hit it and inside will be some classic gaming goodness."

Ofcoarse, Maria makes that part easier with her double jump.

Also, you can unlock the small goofy Dracula X warning screen, some say it's from beating Boss Rush mode once, others say it's from beating it 3 times.

[Black Tiger]

It's in Stage 4, you go the way, where you make the bomb explode, um, I'll just quote gamefaqs
"On your way through twards the end of the stage you will find 6 of those skulls that spit fire stacked on top of each other. Just past them is a platform that moves like an inverted pengelium going left and right. Just opposite of it is a spiked ball. Get on the platform and jump over the spiked ball landing on the ground against the wall. Break the lower part of the wall to find a bomb. Hit the bomb to ingite it and the wall will come falling down.
Walk forward a bit and you will find 2 spiked platforms that try to crush you. Get on the right platform and as it's going up jump off of it and land on the upper level. Stay on top avoiding the axes and the yellow eye. At the very end of that platform is a candle hit it and inside will be some classic gaming goodness."

Ofcoarse, Maria makes that part easier with her double jump.

Also, you can unlock the small goofy Dracula X warning screen, some say it's from beating Boss Rush mode once, others say it's from beating it 3 times.

Inbetween my last post and now reading yours, I played through normal Boss Rush three times after finding a youtube video that made it sound like that unlocked the PCE game. All I got was the Stage X mini game. Then I went back to earn some extra % and found the PCE game on my own.

Man I hate the messed up gameplay of the remake.

[ParanoiaDragon]

Messed up gameplay??  It generally feels the same to me, other then now the backflip seems easier to do.

[Black Tiger]

Messed up gameplay??  It generally feels the same to me, other then now the backflip seems easier to do.

I'm talking about the 3D version. Its messed up as bad as Drac XX SNES, only it branches off in unique paths of bullcrap.

It's one thing for many enemies to fly into you like never before, but now they rack up multiple hits in split seconds and can kill you even if you were at full health before the initial collision. The extra tall characters can't even jump to hit medium height candles if there's a floor above now, because they'll get hit by every enemy up there.

The enemy behaviors now work against the level design plus so many pits have bg parts that look like platforms but aren't and the actual edges of collision on everything aren't the edges of the 3D graphics... so I took many hits from enemies that never visually touched me but fall into pits after failing to treat a few extra invisible pixels as part of a ledge.

[geise]

Well I compared the Dracula X Rondo of Blood in this release to my original Duo version and the emulation is a bit off.  It actually plays faster than on my Duo.  You can really notice it in the first level.  Also some of the sound emulation, especially when you use the special attack with the Axes is way off.  It hurts my ears when I hear it.  I also don't care for the new music in the "redone" version, and the textures are bland and colorless.  The voice over in the into was taken out as well and replaced with the one in the remake.  Why did they do that? On my psp Dracula-X looks like poo since I have a Japanese v1.0 psp.  My lcd screen is a ghosting blurry mess.  Well all I can say is that I don't really see this effecting ebay prices of the Duo version.  I'll stick with playing  this on my old ass TV and my Duo.

[ParanoiaDragon]

Hmm, I guess I haven't had that problem.  The remake seems just fine to me, but, that's just my own opinion.  It's probably been awhile since I've played entirely thru the original, so, maybe that's why I'm not noticing.  Plus, you've probably played thru the original alot more then me, so you have a better memory of how things were.

As for the emulation, I didn't do a side by side comparison, but it still seems really good.  Didn't notice anything wrong with any of the sounds.  I agree that I didn't like that they used the new intro voice.  I liked the old one for the original game.  Some have said the cinemas in the original, the voice & music is a bit off.  Not sure if that's an emulation problem or not.  Maybe we'll see when it gets ported to the VC how that is emulated.

I like the music in the remake, but, not as much as the original.  And I don't like that Den isn't used for Stage 7.  So, I changed it so it would play the PCE's Den during 7, which is a nice feature.  I still haven't gone in to beat Shaft, & Dracula's 3rd form.  My personal opinion is that the graphics looks great, though, I would've prefered 2D, with some poly's added in for depth.  That would've looked alot better IMHO.

[MissaFX]

I have found a "cheat/fix" that makes the game a lot easier.  Normally I wouldn't call this a cheat, but with Dracula X, it literally takes the difficulty down a notch in nearly all of the difficult places of the game.  It will only work on a custom firmware though.  If you are sick and tired of the jumping physics changing depending on how many enemies or explosions are present on the screen clock the cpu to 333 and not only will the jumping physics stay constant, but you get 0 lag when you blow up several exploding enemies at once.  I am guessing the programmers expected to get the game published at 333, but the game came out just before Sony gave the OK to do that.  Most games are not nearly as affected by running at 333 as this one is.  In some levels, like with many spike traps or pits into water, this clock change grants a night and day difference in performance.  It's criminal that this game was released running at 222.

Oh yeah, and after playing so much Chip Chan Kick lately, playing Maria on DX really reminds me now of CCK.  I pretend I am throwing tribbles instead of birds and for some reason it adds a whole new element of fun to the game.

[Kitsunexus]

This game kicks MAJOR ass. I shouldn't have doubted Konami, they usually do a great job.

[MissaFX]

Can't you just run the Playstation version on the PSP?  I thought the PSP playstation emulator was 100% perfect, or so I've heard, I've never used it.

Yes you should be able to.  Only a handful of PS1 games do not run on the PSP and many of them have been intentionally programmed to crash like Bio Hazard 2 was so that they could later sell it on the Sony store right after they released a "fix" to the emulator which allowed it to play.  The only games that don't work on it usually have very odd memory managment like Um Jammer Lammy or Final Fantasy 8.

You do have to convert the PS1 game to a PSP format though, the upside of this being that you can compress the game's textures to save memory stick space when you do this.