Bram Stoker's Dracula (Amiga)

Developer:

Psygnosis

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Release Date:

1994

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Systems:

Amiga + eight other systems

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Today on Super Adventures, Keanu Reeves week continues with Bram Stoker's Dracula on the Amiga! I said I was only going to play three Keanu Reeves games, and this would be the second of them, but things get a little complicated with this one.

Bram Stoker's Dracula was a multiplatform title released to tie in with the 1992 Gary Oldman movie, but not all platforms got the same game. In fact it seems like there's actually five different games here, split across nine different systems. It came out on Amiga, SNES, Mega Drive/Genesis, Game Gear, Master System, NES, Game Boy, Sega CD and DOS PCs, so poor C64 owners were left out this time.

Nine systems in one article is a bit much, so I'm going to focus on the Amiga game mostly and try not to get too carried away with writing about the other versions, but I have to at least take a look at them. Yeah okay, I didn't show off all the different Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure games yesterday, I only played the home computer versions, but in my defence I was busy finishing the entire game three times over.

I'll also try not to spoil too much about the movie, but I get the feeling that's not going to be an issue here.

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Always nice to see the Psygnosis owl at the start of a game. It's no guarantee of quality, man there's some terrible Psygnosis games, but it's great logo. Roger Dean did some impressive box art for the company, but the owl's always going to be the most distinctive work they got out of him.

Though hang on, why is it all ovals instead of circles this time?

There's been a surprising amount of variation in the Psygnosis owl over the years, more than I ever noticed at the time, but I'm pretty sure I haven't seen a squished oval version on the Amiga before. The Amiga doesn't stretch its video output so it can have nice proper circles in its art. It's like Dracula uses SNES art by mistake or something.

To be honest I'm only bringing this up because I wanted to make this GIF. More than I want to play Bram Stoker's Dracula anyway.

No intro or images from the movie for this game (they couldn't even be bothered to give me a proper redrawn giant-sized S). Instead it goes straight into my mission briefing, and it seems like I'm going to be going vampire hunting!

I haven't actually seen the movie, but I expect I'm playing as Jonathan Harker, played in the film by Keanu Reeves. At least, I hope I am, or else this would be a pretty crappy choice of game for Keanu Reeves week.

Alright here I am in a tavern, ready to fight off rodents and slay Dracula's wife.

It's stage 1, I've got four lives, three coffins, a jar of blood, and a UI covered in snakes. Wait, there's a coffins counter? That's a new one.

I think Harker might actually have a digitised sprite in this, Mortal Kombat-style, though I can't be sure. It certainly looks digitised or rotoscoped when he moves.

A little further on I came across my first opponent: Thing from The Addams Family! I crouched down to hit it, but Harker's got no interest in punching anything lower than bar stool height. It's an Amiga game so I've only got the one attack button on the controller and my options seem limited.

Okay, new plan: I'm going to make a run for it.

Oh I see how it works now. I have to pull forward and press 'attack' to do a low kick. Otherwise he just throws a punch. Well, eventually anyway; there's a bit of a delay. It's funny how holding the attack button down leaves him standing there with his fist held out, though it gets less funny when he's being swarmed by hands and bats and his health is draining away. A second or two of post-hit invulnerability would've been nice.

Other things that are funny:

• The way the enemy in the plastic cape curled up into a ball and vanished.
• That poor bat that flew into my fist in the middle of a fight.
• Harker's awesome jump.

That's not his only kind of jump though; Harker's got all kinds of moves:

He can do a crouch-leap straight into the air, he can try (and fail) to grab wine bottles, he can slam his face into walls, and he can look really sad when he's walking down Castlevania stairs.

Seriously though, you can send him walking into a wall and watch the blood spray out of his face. It doesn't cost any health though, thankfully. I think those stairs actually hurt him more, emotionally. It's a real effort to find the right place to stand before he'll start using them and it's tiring.

Oh no, I appeared in the middle of an ambush! I've got a rodent nibbling at my feet, a Thing racing my way, and a bat swooping down. I'd press all the right buttons to fight them off, but I haven't quite got 'stand still to hit high things, move forward to hit low things' into my muscle memory yet, so I'm just going to run away.

Hah, they can't get me up here! The jump button finally has a purpose.

Wait, why's the bat flying into the wall? Why's everything racing towards the wall? It's like they have no idea what to do when the player is standing above them so they just run off. Works for me, I haven't got enough health left to get into a fight right now.

Ah crap, I ran into a second enemy with a hammer and it went even worse than the first time (one hit K/O).

Harker respawned back at the start of the tavern and it turned out that all those bats, rats and Things I'd killed were back too. That first madman with a hammer stayed dead though, which helps.

Alright, I've taken care of that second hammer bro in the cellar and I've found a mysterious giant goblet behind him. Do I dare grab it?

Hey it turned out to be a health refill! But hang on, his health in this is measured in blood, so is that what was in the cup? Eww. Maybe he set up an IV drip really quick and I just didn't notice.

Now I need to figure out what to do next, as this is a dead end. Maybe that door behind me goes somewhere.

It's brought me to another part of this giant wine cellar, where they store their red key and crucifix. I picked the cross up and got a sound clip of a choir singing "Hallelujah" from Handel's Messiah. So that's added a bit of class and respectability to the game.

There's no music in this by the way. Most of the time all I get to hear is the occasional squeak and the thunderous roar of Harker's punches and kicks.

Hey there's a coffin down here too!

Oh hell yeah! Harker doesn't screw around with stakes when he fights vampires, he just kicks their coffin so hard that there's nothing left but a spray of blood and splinters.

Though I've hit another dead and this time there's no doors around. Hang on, I remember seeing another door near to where I entered the level. I just assumed it was the door Harker came in through, but I have a feeling that this red key I've found is going to open it up.

First though I need to head back through the door to the first area of the cellar.

Whoa, what the hell was that? I tried to attack a Thing, pressed the buttons wrong, and fired off an energy wave instead. Is this what the cross does? Seems like this is going to be very useful... the next time I find something taller than my ankles.

For now I should stop screwing around with holy energy blasts and start kicking this hand already.

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MEANWHILE, ON THE PC

DOS version

The interface on the PC version of Bram Stoker's Dracula looks very familiar, I'd recognise those snakes anywhere, but this is a very different genre of game. It's somewhere between a first person dungeon crawler RPG and an FPS, as I walk around with the keyboard and shoot monsters by right clicking on them with the crosshair. Then I get confused because these rows of trees and folks with spikes up their asses are actually impassable walls. It's kind of hard to tell where I can go.

There's still coffins to break, but this time there's a few more of them lying around. In fact there's 51 of the things left on this level, and here they work as enemy generators, spitting out zombies and skeletons. You can almost see one over there on the right, it's that stone box with red on top lying behind that monster that just appeared (I don't know why they don't look like actual coffins).

DOS version

Here's a slightly better look at one, next to another monster that just appeared.

To break the coffins I need to find holy wafers, which are just lying on the ground. Trouble is they're not so easy to find. I've picked up a lot of cheese and bread, even a bit of wine, but wafers are in short supply. Which is a bit awkward seeing as it means I'm fighting infinite enemies with finite bullets (and a very tiny hand).

DOS version

Most enemies go down in one hit, they're rubbish, but it's still an issue, especially as I keep wasting bullets by accidentally shooting the things I'm trying to pick up. I like the little jingle that plays when they die though, it's hilariously out of place.

The main problem I'm having with the game though, is that it's a damn maze of locked doors with no map. I need to find the gold key, silver key, ruby key, emerald key, crystal key, sun key, night key etc., then get it to the right door to continue. It's a bloody memory test. And it's no fun solving pressure pad puzzles with infinite enemies bothering you the whole time.

Fortunately it has saves though, so I'm going to save and quit.

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BACK IN THE AMIGA GAME

Oh no, a rodent got me! I tried to kick it off, but I pressed the buttons wrong again and fired an energy wave instead. I'm not a fan of these controls to be honest. They should've just let me crouch-kick these rats, it would've been so much more intuitive.

I used the red key to open that other door and found that it led upstairs, which is a lot like downstairs, except with more doors. All I can do is check them all and hope I can find these last two coffins before I lose the last bit of my blood.

SOON, AFTER LOSING THE LAST BIT OF MY BLOOD

Awesome, that's the second coffin down and I got another health refill as well. It's nice of the game to leave these health pickups just after the bit I get Harker killed on.

Okay, most of these doors upstairs just lead to empty rooms, but one of them's got to contain the final coffin.

Aha, found it!

Oh no, I smashed the coffin and Bride of Dracula #1 came out to attack me!

So I punched her a few times and won.

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MEANWHILE, ON THE 16-BIT CONSOLES

SNES version

The SNES game starts off in a similar tavern, but things soon turned out to be very different. For one thing I'm fighting dogs and drunks and I can actually hit them with my weapon by just pressing the attack button. Also there's music! And it's keeping score for some reason.

SNES version

I jumped on top of the barrels, following the guide arrow, and found a helpful man who's daydreaming about a sword. It's not entirely clear whether he's telling me to get the sword or that he wants the sword, and either way the arrow didn't change to point me towards it.

Oh it's appeared down on the floor below. Turns out that it's a weapon upgrade that gives Harker's attack considerably more reach. This is handy because I only have the three hit points and if an enemy gets close to me while I'm in the process of smacking them a few times I'm going to lose one. In fact I'll probably lose more than that because Harker doesn't have much invulnerability time after getting hit.

Mega Drive/Genesis version

Here's the Mega Drive version for comparison.

This seemed pretty much identical to the SNES game at first, but it's more like a remix, with different enemies, different spikes shooting out of different parts of the floor without warning, and very different music.

It also seems to give you very slightly more invulnerability time as I was able to survive long enough to kill the first boss by just crouching here and tapping the attack button. The dude doesn't actually do anything, he just stands there and wiggles his whip around.

Mega Drive/Genesis version

The Mega Drive and SNES versions both like their doors just like the Amiga game, but this time I don't have to worry about going inside any of them. Well, unless the arrow tells me to. Either way there's no need to kick any coffins.

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MEANWHILE, BACK IN THE AMIGA GAME

Now I'm onto chapter 2, which is also coincidentally stage 2.

Next up is Dracula's castle, so the game's going full Castlevania now. Wait, what's all this talk about burning coffins? Mate, we kick coffins here. No stakes, no sunlight, no holy water, no holy wafers, all we need is our righteous boots.

I'm kicking all these zombies as well. I should really just use the crucifix for an easy kill but I'm worried it'll run out.

This level has spiders, which crawl down from the top of the screen... and then just run away if I'm facing them. They're like the ghosts in Super Mario World, except more bashful.

Well this is familiar. A key, a coffin and a chalice. Only this time I'm in a crypt inside a castle.

Yeah, level 2 is the same deal as the tavern, except with even more doors. In fact it'd be nice if I had a map as all these rooms are starting to look the same to me.

You'd think a marble pillar with an arm sticking out would be a bit of a landmark, but they're all over the place. Red heart pickups are considerably rarer though. Oh no, is this an extra life? I don't want an extra life, that just means I'll be stuck playing this game longer!

Could be worse though. I could be stuck in the wall like that dude over there. The poor guy can't even move.

Right, only one last coffin to go before I can see what wonders stage 3 has in store for me.

Honestly, I didn't expect to catch Dracula watching EastEnders on his widescreen TV. Looks like he's making a plan of what tourist attractions he wants to check out while he's over in London. Hey maybe stage 3 will take place there!

Sadly I won't get to find out, as Vlad's noticed me and he's coming over to do a bit of impaling. I'm not sure I'm even able to hurt the guy, meanwhile he cut through my jar of health in a second.

All I can do now is try to make a run for it and hopefully find a health chalice somewhere in the... uh, did he just evaporate? Yeah, he just turned to mist and let me win. Well, okay then.

Oh no, this means I have to play chapter 3!

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MEANWHILE, ON THE 8-BIT SYSTEMS

Game Gear version

Bram Stoker's Dracula on the Game Gear version stars Disco Harker, equipped with white flares and a tiny little knife that he swings behind him first when I attack for some reason.

The game starts off outside on the road to Dracula's castle and this version of Transylvania is covered in question mark cubes containing treasure. Like coins, and throwing axes.

Master System version

I haven't quite got the throwing arc on the throwing axes figured out yet, but they get the job done when they connect, killing enemies in just one hit. That's a nice change from having to hack away at them in the other versions.

This is the Master System port and it's pretty much exactly the same as the Game Gear game as far as I can tell, aside from the resolution. The two machines had very similar hardware and late Master System games are often just Game Gear games with more to see around the edges. I think this time though the Game Gear game feels like the Master System game with less to see, and it works better with the camera pulled back a bit like this.

NES version

The NES version's very similar to the Master System game, except there's fewer colours on screen and Harker's less disco. He's still an very animated little guy though, especially compared to Simon Belmont and Mario. There is one big difference between this and the others though, and that's that I can't get past this first boss! I mean I'm sure I'd manage it eventually if I persevered, but I've been having no luck so far.

It was effortless on the Master System, I just stood there and spammed rocks at it, and the Game Boy version sticks an outline around it so you can actually see the thing! Though the NES has better visibility the rest of the time thanks to its bigger screen.

Game Boy version

See the Game Boy version's the same resolution as the Game Gear game and it feels a bit claustrophobic. It's also the exact same game, as far as I can tell.

Unlike the Amiga and 16-bit console versions, this set of Bram Stoker's Draculas does actually feel like a legit game for the most part. It's not my favourite 8-bit game, but this obstacle course of spikes, fireballs and moving platforms is a more entertaining challenge than kicking rats and getting lost in a maze of doors.

Though I may be slightly biased because I found a secret room and got a secret extra life. The other games never gave me secret treasure!

Game Gear version

The 8-bit version uses lanterns as checkpoints, which is good because I'm at the end of a long long series of obstacles that I don't want to have to repeat.

Wait, why is he automatically walking to the left? No, stop, let me go back to the lantern. I need to hit the lantern! Let me save my checkpoint you son of a bitch game!

Game Gear version

And then I got straight into a boss fight against a Bride of Dracula and got my ass handed to me by her ass. It didn't help that I only had the one throwing axe left and it didn't give me a refill! Or any continues! You know, I don't think I like this game much anymore.

Game Boy version

At least they bothered to draw a game over picture though.

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BACK IN THE AMIGA GAME ONCE MORE

Wow, turns out that bravely running away from Dracula is actually canon.

I don't like the sound of that cobwebbed passage though, isn't there a cleaner escape route we can flee down?

Wow, turns out that stage three is more of the same. Doors, keys, coffins, spiders... man, I'm so sick of this now. But with three lives I'm going to be stuck playing this for ages.

Oh wait, I think I've hit a bug. I tried using a door and he's gotten stuck there. Well that sucks, I wanted my game over screen!

Hang on I can load it up again and walk into a rat or something.

Huh, how could this have happened? I must have completely lost concentration and carelessly walked right into the enemies several times over! Thankfully there's no continues so I really am done with this game now.

Oh wait, I still have one more Bram Stoker's Dracula to play. Alright let's get this over with.

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MEANWHILE, ON THE SEGA MEGA CD

Hey the digitised Jonathan Harker is back and this time it feels like he's got more frames. It seems like this could be where the Amiga game got its digitised hero sprite from. The snakes are back on the HUD too.

There's no coffins to smash or doors to open on the Sega CD game though, you just walk to the right and get harassed by birds, bats and the occasional bloke throwing hatchets. It reminds me of PC Engine game China Warrior, as they both have similar gameplay and are both about showing off new technology. In this case it's showing off its pre-rendered 3D backgrounds. They've basically recorded the camera panning across the level as a video, which plays as you walk forward to give the impression of real time 3D. No running, only walking.

The trouble with the game is that the character's so unresponsive that it seems inevitable that you're going to get hit by something and lose health.

Especially these bloody bear traps. If there's a trick to get over the things then I haven't figured it out yet. I've even tried walking over them slightly, stopping just before I step on the trigger, and then leaping over them from there. Didn't work. The thing is, there's maybe four traps on this first level and they each take a quarter of your health away, so that's a life lost right there.

You restart exactly where you dropped until you're out of lives, then you start eating into your limited supply of continues. Though you have to reach stage 2 before it asks if you want to continue because this is one of the very few games that understands that using a continue on stage 1 is worse than pointless. It also lets you skip the FMV clips, making it more advanced and user friendly than countless games that came after it.

Okay maybe 'advanced' is the wrong word.

The game features these slightly degraded clips right from the movie but they don't come with dialogue. Instead the story's told by a narrator, who shows up between stages on a comfy chair next to a cosy fireplace to explain what's going on.

Here's something else that's weird about the movie clips: they're not widescreen like the gameplay is. I've left the graphics unstretched to keep the pixels sharp, so these clips would look wider on an actual TV, but all the other graphics would be stretched wider as well.

So this scene of Harker kicking a bunch of books looks really cinematic on a TV! Just as cinematic as it was when he was kicking spiders earlier.

Basically what happens in this game is a bunch of small annoying enemies fly at you from both sides and different heights and you have to chose the correct attack to hit them. There's a low kick, a high kick, a punch, a crouching punch...

And a roundhouse kick! I love this move, but I really struggle to pull it off most of the time as you have to hit two buttons, and when I do manage it I get the timing wrong. Which is a shame, seeing as it's the only move that seems to hurt the stage 2 gargoyle boss.

Sega CD version

Hey it's game over again! It looks different in each game but it's getting very familiar to me now. I'm not as angry as Keanu about it though. I'm mostly just glad for the excuse to stop playing.

It's just occurred to me that this is a terrible GIF to end on, as it'll be really distracting while you're trying to read my 'conclusion' text, so I'll leave you with something more relaxed instead.

It's that narrator I told you about reading his book next to his fireplace. Perhaps even Bram Stoker himself, narrating to us through the magic of technology like in Dracula: The Undead on the Lynx. He should really take that pipe out of his mouth when he's storytelling I reckon.


CONCLUSION

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Keanu Reeves week sucks so far!

The nicest thing I can say about the Amiga version of Bram Stoker's Dracula is that it makes the Castlevania games better just by existing. Not that this is a platformer really, not so far anyway. It's all about checking doors and remembering how to punch and kick in crisis. You've got to pull forward and hold attack to start kicking, and stand still and tap attack to throw a punch, and I found it surprisingly difficult to mentally switch gears between the two. It doesn't help that Harker's a bit sluggish with his punches.

You really don't need to play this game, it doesn't bring anything special into the world. It doesn't even have digitised pictures from the movie, or catchy music, or anything really. The game's definitely a tier above some of the trash you'd find on the Amiga in the 80s, in visuals and gameplay, but I wouldn't want to play it again.

Want a second opinion? Here are some magazine scores from the time:

"Dracula is out for the count in this less-than-gripping affair."
39% - Amiga Format

"Appalling in just about every department"
41% - The One

"This has got to be the most ridiculously appalling game in the history of the world."
18% - Amiga Action

"Level after level of unchanging, tedious, unimaginative walking-around-hitting-things-gameplay."
14% - Amiga Power

Some nice quotes for the box there. It's so rare that a developer gets to put the word 'appalling' on the cover twice. But what about the other versions?

The Sega CD version is somehow the simplest of them. You go right and punch waves of birds, then try to jump over some stones and fall in the water. It's got some interesting graphics for the time, with the streaming pre-rendered background and digitised hero sprite, but it's a pain in the ass to play due to sluggish controls.

The Mega Drive and SNES versions aren't quite an identical pair, but they're pretty similar and they're not great. You won't have any trouble hitting things, which is a step up from the Amiga and Sega CD games, they don't look too bad for the time, and the music's pretty good, but really you can do better than play these. If you do want to play one of them it seems the Mega Drive has the edge, though the SNES has the better sword.

The Master System, Game Gear, Game Boy and NES versions are all basically the same thing it seems, and it actually feels like a legit video game. Mostly because you're making your way around a series of obstacles instead of just kicking mice and punching spiders. The game has its issues, I wouldn't call it good exactly, but I was enjoying it for a while. Until that second boss. (I liked the Master System port the most because it has a bigger screen and it's in colour).

But the DOS version has to be my favourite of the five, because... I don't know. I guess I just like first person games. It's definitely not because I enjoyed being lost in a maze fighting infinite enemies and running into locked doors while desperately searching for a new stash of coffin-destroying holy wafers. Just kick the bloody things Harker! I guess it scores points for having saves.

Anyway, no 'not crap' stars for anything today as I wouldn't want to play any of these again. It's a poor showing all-round.

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Thanks for reading my words, even though they were all about Bram Stoker's Dracula. I don't want to pressure you into leaving your own comments now, but there is a convenient comments box down there and it looks weird when no one's said anything.

You could also take a guess at what the third and final Keanu Reeves game is going to be. And the Super Adventures Discord server always welcomes new visitors.