Bram Stoker's Dracula

I've heard nothing but bad things about it, but it was the first Sega CD game I ever played and dammit, I like it! I've spent countless hours getting my ass kicked by this and I still stand by it, glitches, tiresome game over FMV and all. Bare in mind, I really don't own too many of the highly acclaimed SCD titles, the ones that require a decent price tag or what have you. But as far as the budget SCD games go, Bram Stoker's is pretty damn good. So what if you're punching bats, and kicking rats. Why not?? Who's with me on this?!

The other week I happened to be scouring a dusty old estate sale when I came across a batch of Sega games, to my delight I found the copy you see below to the right. Factory sealed, with "Holiday Hits '93" sticker on the front. There's some tearing in the seal, but I'm keeping it as it. I'm actually happy to have found a sealed copy of one of my favorite SCD games!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...207_001357.jpg

It's really not bad. I dig the FMV backgrounds. The enemies do get annoying, though. There's some cheap hits. But I've certainly played worse. It's better than the regular Genesis game.

Oh wow, I just noticed the 2 out of 10 rating the game was given over in the reviews. Without even reading a word of that, I call bullshit. I'm well aware of the game's shortcomings, it is no 2 out of 10.

Yeah, I'd give it at least a 5, maybe a 6.

I wish more Sega CD games were like this actually. If they could have worked on some more fast paced action games, which Cadillacs & Dinosaurs shows was possible, I think it would have been a great expression for FMV games. I do wish they had worked on the enemy design a lot more though, these are about as original as punching and kicking flying soda bottles in NES Karate Kid.

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Originally Posted by sheath

I wish more Sega CD games were like this actually. If they could have worked on some more fast paced action games, which Cadillacs & Dinosaurs shows was possible, I think it would have been a great expression for FMV games. I do wish they had worked on the enemy design a lot more though, these are about as original as punching and kicking flying soda bottles in NES Karate Kid.

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It's really not so bad once you get a little further in, the critters give way after the first couple of stages.

This game was horrible. I mean it lookd great but it played like ass. It showed so much potential but the gameplay was shovels are level. I wouldn't know how later levels look,like because I could never get very far. The gameplay is that of a cheap not well designed platformer. As a teenager I wanted to love this game for its looks but it was almost unplayable.

Oh and 2 out of 10 is not that extreme. I'd go more with a 4 tops. This is definetly below average for a video game.

Game is crap. Out of the good CD games out there, this is your favorite? U got problems!

This game is the main reason of my sega cd hate!! the sega cd could have been one of the best "2d?" consoles of all time but NO! lets release only crappy fmv games lets waste the sega cd potential!!

This game is terrible, but I'm glad someone appreciates it.

I picked up BSD back when they were dumping the games, so I only paid $1 for it. At that price, it wasn't TOO bad. I didn't demand my money back. ;) :lol:

I got this game with my CD1 system i got off a guy here on the forums. He tossed it in with the sale as a loose disc, so i had something to test the system with when it arrived here in sweden.. Sure, it sufficed for testing purposes, but damn... Horrible game in my opinion.. Artifacts all over and unresponsive gameplay.. I havent played it since.

I quite liked this game tbh in a crappy b-movie sort of way the music is very spooky and the graphics and sound very atmospheric. Sure its not a classic but I quite liked it . Shame the planned Last Action Hero on the Mega CD (which again used FMV backrounds with real time sprites) was canned - It looked amazing in the short preview I saw of it

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

I quite liked this game tbh in a crappy b-movie sort of way the music is very spooky and the graphics and sound very atmospheric. Sure its not a classic but I quite liked it . Shame the planned Last Action Hero on the Mega CD (which again used FMV backrounds with real time sprites) was canned - It looked amazing in the short preview I saw of it

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From a technical standpoint at least, it's a pretty good looking game (if you like the workstation rendered cgi stuff of the period) and an interesting gameplay concept that managed to work decently well without being (very) choppy in general. It would have been interesting to see more stuff like that style rather than the more typical FMV fare. (especially since cinematic platformers in general tended to fare decently well on the market)

The cutscenes look and sound awful though . . . looking at them again they also seem to be running at a pretty low resolution (they're line doubled, so 1/2 the vertical resolution). It uses multiple subpalettes, but it's just nasty looking in general. (Cinepak is definitely better, or even the early Sega Film stuff . . . not sure how to compare it to Pysgnosis's other FMV stuff -Novastorm looks pretty bad for the live action scenes, but arguably much better in general even with the massive posterization)

I remember playing this game as a kid when I got my Sega CD. I didn't care for it much. I don't even think I made it past the first level.

Looking back on it now, it's a below average game. Only good thing to be said IMO is the graphics are nice. I feel like it could have been a good game with just a few tweaks.

4/10

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Originally Posted by segaddict

I feel like it could have been a good game with just a few tweaks.

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Which tweaks are we talking about?

I got this game in a lot of genesis/cd/32x games. Its not a terrible game. It LOOKS terrible but it plays alright.

This is a game that i was not impressed with but after watching it on youtube i may give it another chance and try and get further than 10 seconds into it without switching it off.

I got my parents to buy this game for me for full retail price back in the day. I thoroughly enjoy the game! I can't wait to see what crazy camera angle the intro is going to be on the next room! I was marveled at how they could to video as the background for the game! Yeah the controls kinda sucked, but that was just part of the difficulty. I do recall a few months into playing the game, I finally got really far and the game froze! I was SOOO pissed, didn't play the game again until about 3 years ago and finally beat it. But I did cheat to get 99 lives so I could finally see the end.

I do think it's one of the COOLEST codes for a game!! So EVIL!!! DRACULA BACKWARDS on the BEWARE SCREEN!

(A) (L)EFT (U)P (C) (A) (R)IGHT (D)OWN

ALUCARD
DRACULA

I am a huge fan of horror films, so I tend to give horror games a try especially those based off movies. I thought this game had a lot of potential, but it's gameplay is very frustrating. Graphics and audio was pretty good IMO.

Did not know about that code! Will have to try that sometime and see if I can get further along in the game.