Rondo of Blood

Rondo of Blood Menu: Stages - Manual - Walkthrough - Passwords
Secrets - Weirdness - Opening - Ending - Translation

Rondo of Blood Weirdness

Weird bit in both of the Dracula X games. Get a key and use the item crash. Richter will jump up and yell like he normally does, but will then fall to the ground with a question mark over his head, not knowing what the hell to do.

Many PC Engine Super CD games had little screens that popped up whenever you tried to play it in an older system (i.e. a Version 3.0 game with a 2.0 card) Well, Dracula X actually had a whole new level, named Stage X. It features very stupid looking South-Park characters and it let you play for a little while, jumping and whipping stuff. When you reach the end, a screen pops up that tells you that you need the System 3.0 card. Maria is saying "Sorry!" in the picture. Cute.

Additionally, there is a little message from Richter and Maria if you try to play the CD in an audio CD player (on the first track, anyway - the rest of the tracks are data and music.) You see, almost all PC Engine games contained a message stating that you shouldn't put this CD in a regular CD-player, because the data tracks could blow out your speakers (on really old CD players, data tracks sound like loud static.) These were normally read in a rather mundane and polite manner, so some games had fun with them. In this little bit, Maria warns Richter about this particular danger. When Richter questions how she knows this, he discovers that she was just reading off a piece of paper or something to that extent. As a quick note, Oniichan means "big brother" in Japanese, and is a pretty common term. It doesn't quite come out right in English. Here's the translation:

Maria: Waaaa!
Richter: WWAAAAARRRGGGHHH!
Maria: Hahaha! Did I scare you?
Richter: What, Maria...is that really you?
Maria: Oniichan, were you trying to listen to the music?
Richter: Yeah!
Maria: This CD is an H.E. System CD-ROM, so track #2 contains computer data that cannot be listened to.
Richter: Is that so? How do you know this?
Maria: 'Cuz I'm so smart?
Richter: What's this?..."This CD is an H.E. System CD-ROM, so track #2...." Maria...what the heck is this? Were you just reading this?
*crazy sound effects*
Richter: Ugh! WWWHHHAAAT?
Maria: Oniichan, Oniichan, up next is track #2!
Richter: Get out of here! Don't you know your speakers will be damaged?

The burning town you fight in at the beginning of the game is Aljiba from Castlevania 2, although it does look a lot more like Jova (the first town.)

Look closely at the beginning of Stage 4'. Way in the background, you'll see in a tiny figure with a billowing cape.

Richter has the standard Game Over screen. However, Maria's Game Over screen replaces with skulls with flowers and has the lettering in a cutesy bubble font.

Reader Chrissy Rose has contributed this bit of information regarding Maria's animal helpers. Maria's four friends, the bird, turtle, dragon, and cat, are in actuality cute representations of four gods in Chinese mythology, each representing a different direction of the compass: north, south, east, and west. The bird is Suzaku, a legendary phoenix. The dragon is Seiryuu, a blue dragon that I'm pretty sure represents the West, in mythology. The turtle is Genbu, and the cat is Byakko, a tiger god. Why a young French girl can summon the spirits of four Chinese gods is beyond me, but these four gods also act as a central plot point in the manga/anime series Fushigi Yuugi.