In the early parts of the game, the puzzles don’t push you too hard, as most objects will have a pretty apparent use after you’ve found them. Your mouse cursor changes appropriately when it hovers over an object of interest, telling you if a special item needs to be used or if something can’t be interacted with at the time. There are a few large hub areas in the game, those being the snowy trail leading towards Dracula’s castle, and underground tunnel between them, and the castle itself, and in all of them you will spend much of your time wandering about looking for things that stick out as abnormal for you to interact with. It makes the game feel somewhat cheesy, but it must be somewhat intentional considering the many goofy character designs given to unusual characters.Īs a point and click adventure game, most of your time will be spent collecting items for your inventory and finding where they can be used to advance the game. Perhaps a bit too enamored with their work on the visuals, the developers also have the characters talk in an incredibly animated fashion, gesticulating all around as the camera swaps angles constantly to show new perspectives on the exaggerated movements. The characters are smooth like action figures, but compared to the pointy designs of console game characters at the time, they do look somewhat impressive, especially when the game shows broken blood vessels or hair with some texture to it on the faces of characters when the camera cuts in close. It seems like a lot more effort went into character models than story elements, as, for the time, the human character have impressive 3D sculpting. These flashy visuals can’t help the minimal substance though, but it does at least make the ride a touch more exciting than it otherwise would have been.
The game almost feels like it wishes it could be a movie instead of a video game, with long animated action scenes you have no influence on. It gives the game a sense of foreboding as you travel the mostly lifeless road to rescuing Mina, but it’s not quite atmospheric since the game never really settles into a tone that matches it.
The adventure you do take in this title can at times feel like a bit of a lonely journey, Jonathan wandering around empty areas as the same sound effects play between them like creaking wood and odd shuffling. This game does have a climax where something is achieved, but deferring any dramatic confrontation with the main villain until a future game makes this experience feel somewhat incomplete, and considering its length, it could have certainly done with beefing up the experience with the resolution that is bound to be found instead in the follow up titles.
Dracula: Resurrection seems deliberately designed as a part of a series rather than as a game that is meant to stand on its own, as even when you do complete the story, it mostly seems like the plot is setting up for a future conflict with Dracula. Despite the title billing this as Dracula’s resurrection, it’s never explained how he came back to life, he just appears during the plot and oddly enough, he isn’t truly dealt with in the story either. The path to Dracula’s castle is treacherous, with many things standing in your way as you play Jonathan’s part in what little story there is to this point and click adventure game.
Several years after Dracula’s defeat, Mina Harker, who was once the vampire’s thrall, finds herself compelled to go to his castle in Transylvania, her husband Jonathan heading out to try and save her before the mysteriously resurrected vampire can enslave her mind once more. With so many games happily changing the character to fit their game world, it comes as a shock that Dracula: Resurrection not only begins with a faithful reproduction of the final scene of the book as its opening cutscene, but it also tries to serve as a direct sequel to the events of the original Dracula story. While many video games feature the legendary vampire Count Dracula, very few depictions of him position him as the same exact character we first met back in Bram Stoker’s novel.