Proto:Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles
This page details one or more prototype versions of Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles.
A prototype/demo of Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles, dated January 30, 2007, was dumped sometime around 2016-17.
 | To do: Is there Trevor Belmont's model data left within the prototype? Document it if it's true. |
Contents
Game Comparison
A quick explanation about difference of contents between this prototype and the final.
- Some sound samples and instruments are missing or may have yet to be implemented.
- The demo only has Stage 1 as the only accessible stage, which uses music from Stage 2 for some reason. After grabbing the orbs from a boss or running out of extra lives, the game cuts to the Available Date screen and resets.
- Story elements, FMVs, and autoplay demos are yet to be implemented.
- In the prototype version, Richter borrows voice clips from Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (not credited, Liam O'Brien as the VA. There're several clips that aren't present in Portrait of Ruin. e.g.: Richter yelling "Divine Storm"). The final game uses newly recorded lines (David Vincent as the VA) for Richter's voice clips.
Graphic Differences
Title Screen
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The title screen appears to be cropped in a different size from final, and has different coloring. The font of the "Press Start Button" text is also a bit different.
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Richter's Knife Item Crash is executed in a different way in the prototype: here, Richter throws four huge swarms of knives with short recovery windows between each swarms. In the final, Richter throws dozens of knives continuously, which is more akin to the Rondo of Blood origin of this move.
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The Axe sub weapon is also executed differently: in the prototype, the Axe performs a strange spinning motion which is changed back in the final to be more akin to its Rondo of Blood self.
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The shading of the last scene of Stage 1 is slightly different.
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The Stage 1 boss, Wyvern, launches a flaming dragon head in the prototype. In the final, the dragon head is changed to be made of greenish energy. The boss life bar color is also different.
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The Axe Item Crash in this prototype has a close-up camera angle, much like Hydro Storm and Grand Cross in the final version. This may cause a quirk that the spinning Axes can take away large chunks of bosses' life bars without having invincibility times, so this was changed in the final to make Axe Item Crash not to perform close-up camera and disables the involving of the bosses' 3D models during the start of Item Crash with a close-up camera start up.
- Curiously, the orb dropping scene after beating a boss didn't feature a close-up camera angle in the prototype, for some reason.
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The Grand Cross Item Crash is edited back to be more akin to its Rondo of Blood self for the final.
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The Hydro Storm was called Divine Storm in the prototype, and didn't have a special effect during the rain drop.
Demo end screen.
Other Differences
- Richter needs significantly more time to recover from a whipping/sub weapon throwing motion than in the final.
- The Serpent doesn't unleash its final attack before it perishes.
- No file from the Symphony of the Night port exists in the game's file at all. "Dark Desires," the boss battle theme from Rondo of Blood, is used in boss battles as placeholder, hence that there are at least some bits of the Rondo of Blood port already implemented.
- The internal header of this prototype/demo claims itself to be "ドラキュラ PSP" ("Dracula PSP"), with a unique serial number (ULJS-55555).
Unused Music
A remix of "Divine Bloodlines" named "ARR_CD_008" is included at PSP_GAME/USRDIR/res/PSP/bgm folder, which is drastically different from the original Rondo of Blood tune. Perhaps the developers had foreseen it as a botched track that's meant to be changed, the prototype skipped this track and uses the final game's Stage 2 theme, "Vampire Killer" for a potential placeholder, and this track is eventually removed from final game's sound data, replaced by a totally redone rendition of the track which is more faithful to the original tune's tempo and atmosphere.
Regardlessly, this track is labeled as "Divine Bloodlines Airwave ver." in the Akumajo Dracula X Chronicles Original Soundtrack, located at Disc 1, Track 28.
Model Viewer?
| To do: Needs further investigation deep into the presumably model viewer file. |
For some reason, several debug-related files are included at PSP_GAME/USRDIR/res/PSP/debug folder. The file "mview.res" in debug/modelview folder is (presumably) served as a model viewer.
