Bram Stoker's Dracula (NES)
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- For other games in the series, see Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Bram Stoker's Dracula is an action-platformer developed by Probe Software and published by Sony Imagesoft. The game is loosely based on the movie of the same name. The player takes the role of Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves). There are seven Scenes in the game, each containing two levels, so fourteen levels in all. The player must choose the Hard difficulty at the main menu in order to play the later levels of the game. The scenes are as follows:
- Scene 1: A Journey Through Transylvania
- Scene 2: Trapped in Castle Dracula
- Scene 3: Escape from Castle Dracula
- Scene 4: Hillingham Estate Mansion
- Scene 5: Carfax Abbey Crypt
- Scene 6: Back in Transylvania
- Scene 7: Return to Castle Dracula
As mentioned above, each Scene is divided into two levels; Daytime and Nightime [sic]. The game plays as a linear action game. During the Daytime levels, the stage starts during the daytime where there are no enemies. However, after a certain amount of time passes, it gets dark and many undead creatures come to life that Jonathan must avoid or attack. Harker is only equipped with a knife, but can also obtain weapons such as rocks, axes, and torches. The player must pass (and can access secret areas) by doing a butt-stomp on certain patches of ground. This is done by jumping with the A button and pressing Down on the D-pad. Many of the enemies Harker must face include skeletons, zombies, and bats. However, there are other deadly traps such as lava pits, turrets, wolves, and shotgun men, and even the time limit, in which Harker must pass the level before it expires. In each Nightime stage, there are two bosses. First is a "sub-boss", which are usually Dracula's brides. Harker cannot attack them, but can only avoid them until they disappear. At the end of each Nightime stage is a form of Dracula to fight. These include his shadow form, long hair in armor, and monster form. If the player has run out of weapons during the boss fights, rocks will float from the bottom of the screen for the player to collect.
The game received mixed reviews from critics. They praised the creepy visuals, but the overall design was dull and not worth a second playthrough, as well as the game being too easy or too difficult, depending on the reviewer. This particular game was also ported to the Game Boy, Game Gear, and Master System. These versions control differently, as they were programmed by Dominic Wood, rather than the NES version's programmer Skunk (most likely Daryl Bowers).
Contents
Screenshots
Music
Bram Stoker's Dracula was one of the few NES soundtracks by C64 music legend Jeroen Tel. He also worked on the NES games Alien 3, Beauty and the Beast, Overlord, and Robocop 3. The music has been both negatively and positively received by critics. The Angry Video Game Nerd said in his Dracula review that, "The music is just a scrambled mess of 8-bit chaos." However, others have praised the music, even going as far as saying they could see the music being used in the movie in orchestral form. Others have praised the music for being experimental, as most of the music is rhythmic ambience. It really does fit the creepy atmosphere of the game. The game has a surprisingly large soundtrack for the NES. There are five different stage themes. The first two play during the light and dark segments of the Daytime scenes respectfully.
Tel wrote the music in the traditional way, by writing hexadecimal values as notes into his own sound driver. Tel also scored the Game Boy, Game Gear, and Master System versions as well. The NES version has the highest fidelity of the four ports, having the most advanced audio hardware out of the four systems. The music is recorded both in NTSC and PAL, as the game was released in both regions. Most of the PAL version's songs play at the same speed as the NTSC version, but some play much slower. Other than that, the music is a half-step flat in the PAL version, compared to the NTSC version. According to Tel, the PAL recording is how he intended the music to sound. Not surprising seeing that the game was developed in the United Kingdom, a region that uses the PAL format. The source code lists the date of November 21, 1992. This means Tel either started working on or completed his work on the game around this time.
Something someone with good ears might notice is that most of the songs do not use the noise or triangle channel. According to Tel, this was intentional as to reserve both channels for sound effects that wouldn't be interrupted. As a result, a bulk of the songs use only the two square channels. Tel programmed the duty cycles of the 2A03 square channels to constantly change as to get a sound that resembled the Commodore 64's SID chip.
There are a few unused songs. Tracks 14 and 15 were both used in the Sega Master System/Game Gear versions as the copyright and game over displays respectively. However, in the NES version, these screens are silent. The Sega versions have the ending theme used in this version stored in their ROM, though they remain silent at the ending screen. The North American version does not play any title music, though it's supposed to. However, due to the NES in North America running slightly faster than the European version, it doesn't load the music in time for it to play. The European version, running slightly slower actually does play the song, and the North American version's title music will play if run on a PAL NES. There is also a song that is unused in all four aforementioned versions. It may have been used for the menu screens or possibly during the staff roll, as both parts are silent.
Recording
- NTSC (USA)
- PAL (Germany/UK)
| # | Title | Composer | Length | Listen | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 101 | Title Screen | Jeroen Tel | 0:20 | Download | |
| 102 | Stage Theme 1 | Jeroen Tel | 1:52 | Download | |
| 103 | Stage Theme 2 | Jeroen Tel | 1:39 | Download | |
| 104 | Stage Theme 3 | Jeroen Tel | 1:12 | Download | |
| 105 | Stage Theme 4 | Jeroen Tel | 1:47 | Download | |
| 106 | Stage Theme 5 | Jeroen Tel | 1:31 | Download | |
| 107 | Invincibility | Jeroen Tel | 0:19 | Download | |
| 108 | Van Helsing | Jeroen Tel | 0:07 | Download | |
| 109 | Sub-Boss | Jeroen Tel | 1:24 | Download | |
| 110 | Boss | Jeroen Tel | 1:39 | Download | |
| 111 | Death | Jeroen Tel | 0:02 | Download | |
| 112 | Stage Clear | Jeroen Tel | 0:04 | Download | |
| 113 | Ending | Jeroen Tel | 0:14 | Download | |
| 114 | Copyright Screen (Unused) | Jeroen Tel | 1:20 | Download | |
| 115 | Game Over (Unused) | Jeroen Tel | 0:07 | Download | |
| 116 | Unused Song | Jeroen Tel | 0:54 | Download |
| # | Title | Composer | Length | Listen | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 201 | Title Screen | Jeroen Tel | 0:20 | Download | |
| 202 | Stage Theme 1 | Jeroen Tel | 2:13 | Download | |
| 203 | Stage Theme 2 | Jeroen Tel | 1:42 | Download | |
| 204 | Stage Theme 3 | Jeroen Tel | 1:16 | Download | |
| 205 | Stage Theme 4 | Jeroen Tel | 1:49 | Download | |
| 206 | Stage Theme 5 | Jeroen Tel | 1:47 | Download | |
| 207 | Invincibility | Jeroen Tel | 0:19 | Download | |
| 208 | Van Helsing | Jeroen Tel | 0:07 | Download | |
| 209 | Sub-Boss | Jeroen Tel | 1:27 | Download | |
| 210 | Boss | Jeroen Tel | 1:42 | Download | |
| 211 | Death | Jeroen Tel | 0:02 | Download | |
| 112 | Stage Clear | Jeroen Tel | 0:04 | Download | |
| 213 | Ending | Jeroen Tel | 0:14 | Download | |
| 214 | Copyright Screen (Unused) | Jeroen Tel | 1:19 | Download | |
| 215 | Game Over (Unused) | Jeroen Tel | 0:07 | Download | |
| 216 | Unused Song | Jeroen Tel | 1:19 | Download |
Credits
- Ripper: MrNorbert1994
- Recorder: Doommaster1994
- Game Credits:
- Music and Sound Effects: Jeroen Tel
(Source)
The credits can be accessed by either getting a game over or beating the game.
Game Rip
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Format |
Download |
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Jeroen Tel was very nice to provide the source code files to this game. You can download them here.
Audio Devices
The game uses the 2A03 of the NES. The game uses Jeroen Tel's sound driver.
Releases
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Links
- gamefaqs.gamespot.com/nes/587155-bram-stokers-dracula - GameFAQs.
- mobygames.com/game/nes/bram-stokers-dracula__ - MobyGames.
