Publisher: Sony Imagesoft
Developer: Psygnosis
Size: 1 CD
Memory Usage: None
No. of players: 1
Got it for: $2.50
Go watch the movie....it will do far more justice than I ever could trying to condense the story into a few sentences. Don't want to watch the movie...alright, you bastard, here goes: After visiting an extremely weird Count by the name of Dracula, Jonathan Harker is trapped in his castle as the Count goes after his wife-to-be Mina. Breaking free, Harker enlists the help of the legendary Van Helsing to help rescue Mina from what they believe to an actual vampire...

What's it all about?
It's a sidescrolling beat'em up that takes a interesting approach to its graphics. To give you a quick idea of the gameplay: Imagine Kung Fu with spiders, bats and other stuff like that and you'll get the picture. Based, loosely, on the movie you play as Jonathan Harker and follow in his footsteps as you make your way to, out of and back to Dracula's castle. Unlike his movie version, here Harker is some sort of martial arts expert and can perform a plethora of ass-whipping attacks on anything that moves. Levels consist of you walking through them, attacking the various wildlife and other enemies that approach, making a few really tough jumps, fighting a boss then exiting. Later on in the game there is a small break in this formula that has you to playing as Van Helsing while chasing down Dracula's coach wagon. This is done in two parts: A behind-the-rider view and a Shinobi 3-like high speed horse ride. The game concludes its seven level romp when you arrive back at Dracula's castle to put an end to his evil for all time.
Graphics - They're actually pretty good. Your character is completely digitized, so he moves really fluidly and it just looks nice. The backgrounds are made up of digitized full motion video of 3D rendered scenery....so as you move, the game simply plays that video file for the background. For the time, this was an amazingly innovative idea and even with the Genesis/Sega CD's limited color output, it's still very impressive. There is also some good use of hardware scaling that presents some nifty effects. In the library, books will fly off the shelf in the background and come towards the screen, while in dungeons swinging pendulums will rock back and forth. Sadly, the other sprites are real eyesores....they aren't digitized and don't even remotely fit in the game's color scheme, so they just stick out...and badly.
Sound - Mediocre. Though the soundtrack is actually pretty good, it sounds like it was recorded a really low bit rate so it'll begin to give you a headache after a while. The sound effects are pretty minimal, with a few grunts, animal noises and various other effects.
Control - Not bad at all. Though jumping just looks weird, it and everything else you need to do, comes off really smoothly. You can perform variations on your basic punches and kicks by holding a direction on the pad while hitting those buttons, and even perform a multi-hit "super" move by hitting both buttons together. About the only issue with the control, and I don't know that I can blame it for this so much as I can the graphics, but jumping over certain pitfalls is really tough as you just can't tell exactly where they really start or end.
AI - Cheap. This is one of those "every enemy comes after you, no matter what" sorta games. You can't really avoid any of them by jumping, so you take the hit, or you hit them...no real way around it. Bosses, though, are actually kind of fair. Though they all have some sort of move that latches onto you as they suck your life out, their patterns are pretty easily learned and your attacks seem to do a good job of letting them have it when the time comes.
Replay value - Really, really low. The game itself is just boring...and the constant enemy cheapness just wears thin really quick. Each level seems to just go on, and on and on until you're ready to take a sledge hammer to the Sega CD. The Van Helsing chase scenes are a really nice break, but end way too quickly and are brought down by the fact that the level immediately following(the final level, returning to Castle Dracula) is nothing but the second level with a few new enemies and two new rooms. You'll go through the game once just to see the graphics...but after that....
Tips for better gaming experiences:
The game, like almost every Psygnosis game, is mind-numbingly hard...there's one code you'll need to get through the game: 99 Lives. It's done in two parts, one before the game, one during the game.

When you finally get to the "Beware" screen, spell out Dracula backwards on the Genesis pad by pressing A, Left, Up, C, A, Right, Down. If you did it right, white borders will appear on the screen. From there, you can either start the game(and do the 99 Lives trick once you've begun) or you can jump to any level. It's kind of odd how they make you do this: You hold down a combination of the A, B and C buttons and press Start. A is 4, B is 2, and C is 1. A quick example: If you want to skip to start at level 6, hold down A and B and hit Start(4 + 2 = 6).

Ok, now to the actual code - Anytime during the game, hold A and press Start to pause the game. Continue to hold A, and hit Start again. This will not only give you 99 lives, but restore your health as well(not that it matters when you have 99 fucking lives!). Speaking of inane things: When you die, you have to hit the Start button to get up...if you're covered in enemies just wait until they run off before you do it(again, not that it matter when you have 99 lives)...
My rating: 42(out of 100) - Though major kudos go out to the game for its technical achievement and wildly innovative approach to the graphics, the gameplay and repetitive levels in this one just really kill it.

Cat's review: Bel had this game a long time ago, I bit him when I saw it. He gave it away to someone...I purred. He got it again in the Frankenstein/Dracula 2-Pack....and I bit him again. Will he never learn!? As bad as this one is, I just know he's going to make me play and put in a few words on Frankenstein too. Gotta go sharpen my claws.
The wildlife isn't very friendly...the natives aren't either. Thankfully the mild mannered Harker is a martial arts expert!
Hitting the books...
A knight in armor!? No match for my lethal kicks! Yeehaw!!
A quick run through the caves with Van Helsing.
Monster Differences:
Dracula on the Genesis is completely different than this version. Though it's not surprising as there's no way a cart could handle the full motion video backgrounds, it's nice to see that Sony Imagesoft put forth the effort to make two completely different games. The Genesis version of Dracula is more of an action game where, again as Harker, you run around(though this time with a Strider-like sword) taking out hordes of enemies in a very arcade-ish style.