Akumajo Special: Boku Dracula-kun!

Platform:  Famicom

Release Date: October 19, 1990

Alucard is best known for his foray into Castlevania in Symphony of the Night.  He also had appearances in Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse, Aria of Sorrow, Dawn of Sorrow, and Castlevania Legends.  Yet these were not Alucard’s first fights against evil.  When he was a kid, he’d go out in his overalls and fight the forces of Garamoth.

Wait what WHO?!?

In the same vein that Gradius is parodied through the Parodius series, Castlevania has a small parody known as Akumajo Special: Boku Dracula Kun!, or as some of us in the States have shortened it to, Kid Dracula.

Akumajo Special was released on the Famicom in Japan sometime in 1990, a little while after Castlevania III was released over there.  Players took control of a weird looking Kid Dracula with Goku-style hair rampaging around different environments – your basic 2D platforming game.  His main weapon was a standard fireball, which could be powered up to a big fireball by holding down the B button.  As you progress through the game, the little tyke would remember other powers, such as an ice ball, a bomb, and a five-shot homing ball.  He could also turn into a bat and reverse gravity.  To access these powers, you press the select button until you get the power you want, hold down the B button, and let it fly.  Using powered up shots on enemies would make them drop coins.

In between levels, you have a chance to gain extra lives and coins via a series of mini-games.  Players would get a minigame based on where they land on a random branching path. There were four to choose from – a lottery style game where you hoped to roll out the best colored ball, a roulette style game where you had to choose what you want and hope for the best, a stab-the-skeleton-in-the-barrel game where you…well, stab the skeleton in the barrel with swords and hope his head doesn’t come flying off, and a can-can girls game, where you have to guess the color of the girls’ underwear.  Yes, this is VERY Japanese.  Correct answers/guesses/lucky hits give you extra lives, and trust me, you’ll need them.

Enemies are rather odd looking.  Continuing in the parody style, most of the enemies are drawn oddly and somewhat deformed, making for some silly looking zombies and Frankenstein monsters (since when did the Creature want to look “pretty”?).  Prepare to see the very strange and bizarre – from flying chicken bosses to robotic dinosaurs.  For the most part, though, the enemies fit in with the theme of the level.  The big city has a bunch of UFOs and things climbing the side of the buildings, while the ice level has Eskimos and bomb-toting seals.

Interesting side note – the final boss of the game is Garamoth, a winged…dinosaur something or other…that has lightning and fire attacks.  Konami has a sense of humor AND a great long-term memory, as Garamoth made his way into Symphony of the Night as another boss.  Renamed Galamoth (well, it’s the same name, really) and looking like a giant…horse…dinosaur…thing, Alucard’s childhood enemy haunts him once again in the world of Castlevania.

Akumajo Special suffers in one particular area, however – control.  Kid Dracula has the molasses-coated steel boots that Christopher had in The Castlevania Adventure, and while he’s not THAT slow, it feels like he’s being dragged down by a ton of weight.  Factor into it a very high but not very long jump, and you have a formula for disaster if you’re in one of those crazy jumping areas.  I also have a problem with the instant kill spikes in the game.  Now, normally this wouldn’t be an issue, except that the hit detection is awkward around floor and ceiling tiles, and you might find yourself pulling a John when it looks like you’ve cleared the spiky floors and/or ceilings, only to die instantly because one pixel of his foot touched the side of the tile.

The game is pretty fun, control issues and spikes aside.  It’s a decently import friendly game, except for the quiz “boss” where you have to guess the answer, and Japanese is necessary in order to read the stupid thing.  What’s really nice is that it’s fairly easy to find in online auctions, and it won’t cost you too much.  Casual players aren’t missing much by trying to find this small gem, but collectors and small-time masochists might want to check this one out.  Surprisingly, a remake of the game appeared on the Game Boy (actually called Kid Dracula) over here in the U.S., but that’s for another review.