Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
AKA Akumajou Special: Boku Dracula-Kun
Review – This is a very rare and expensive game and I bought it late to finish my Castlevania collection. Even more expensive to get the UKV version, but I am pleasantly surprised that this is a very good game.
The graphics are excellent for a Gameboy game and the story and atmosphere are very charming. There are 8 short levels but they do get very hard so fortunately you get have passwords if you can’t do it in one sitting. It took me almost 4 hours to complete with using guides for the bosses, otherwise it would have been a lot more.
You get extra moves at the end of every level. These are great and require to experiment to get passed certain areas and boss fights. They aren’t always obvious when to use them though. Usually in a game when you gain a new move, the next level or boss will require that you use it. Not in this game. Sometimes you won’t need to use your new move for a couple of levels afterwards, when you forgot it existed.
This game seems so simple on the surface but it does get excruciatingly hard. It gives you infinite continues so you can restart any level, but you will only have 3 lives. This is a very small amount so you can win more lives in bonus games between each level.
This is a lot about chance though which seems unfair in such a skill-based game. I struggled a lot through the game but when I worked out how to win the minigames, I accumulated a massive number of lives to get me through the last few levels without having to continue.
There is one betting minigame for gaining coins so you can buy access to the more expensive minigames for gaining lives. I eventually worked out that you can get a jackpot quite often by pressing the start button when the roulette type cursor land on the 6 on the top left. I put a bet on this and won 5 life-up minigames worth of coins.
By this time, I figured out that only the jumping/spike hat minigame was worth doing as the other games were down to chance. I was able to consistently win 3-10 lives per attempt with this minigame and made the end of the game much easier for myself.
I’m really glad I did though, because the last level is brutal. Even before that, each level is really hard, mainly due to the boss at the end that can kill you so quickly and it takes a lot of tries before you can get a good strategy. But the last level is extremely difficult, and then the last boss itself took me almost 20 attempts, even after reading a guide on exactly how to beat it. If I didn’t gain all those lives in the levels prior, I dread to think how long I would have been grinding the final level with 3 lives per continue.
For such a short game, there is a lot to it. It’s deceptively difficult but charming and fun.
I have just finished a playthrough of Castlevania 64 and it’s crazy how such a simple game can be far better than a later game 2 generations later.
Rating – 9/10
Difficulty – 8/10
Original PAL game played on Gameboy player on Gamecube, modded with 240p output.
Picture split between CRT TV for my own viewing and OSCC scan converter with 2x line doubler, upscaled to HDMI for recording
No cheats / Save states used
Normal difficulty
Game cover pic in thumbnail from my own collection
DONATE
paypal.me/Tinkstonten
buymeacoffee.com/retro2vr
Crypto
BTC - 3Q9mg5pjT4YZgAvHQha6izYDrX3nbJqMPZ
ETH - 0xB41482cB92E32C965E368f293701E5Ce18d5719f
MATIC - 0x9051a87257812febda27691fc84bdd54500eb26f
DOGE - DL3afUvT2UxhkoXsUZNXZS4nwxJny3s4Zm
More like this:
Gameboy - youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXnIZkuKAW4MwUNbbzy1mT9Uwgiz0Rxys
Gameboy Advance - youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXnIZkuKAW4P37FSqPi9CzCw05zzLW2We
#gameboygames #gameboy #kiddracula
AKA Akumajou Special: Boku Dracula-Kun
Review – This is a very rare and expensive game and I bought it late to finish my Castlevania collection. Even more expensive to get the UKV version, but I am pleasantly surprised that this is a very good game.
The graphics are excellent for a Gameboy game and the story and atmosphere are very charming. There are 8 short levels but they do get very hard so fortunately you get have passwords if you can’t do it in one sitting. It took me almost 4 hours to complete with using guides for the bosses, otherwise it would have been a lot more.
You get extra moves at the end of every level. These are great and require to experiment to get passed certain areas and boss fights. They aren’t always obvious when to use them though. Usually in a game when you gain a new move, the next level or boss will require that you use it. Not in this game. Sometimes you won’t need to use your new move for a couple of levels afterwards, when you forgot it existed.
This game seems so simple on the surface but it does get excruciatingly hard. It gives you infinite continues so you can restart any level, but you will only have 3 lives. This is a very small amount so you can win more lives in bonus games between each level.
This is a lot about chance though which seems unfair in such a skill-based game. I struggled a lot through the game but when I worked out how to win the minigames, I accumulated a massive number of lives to get me through the last few levels without having to continue.
There is one betting minigame for gaining coins so you can buy access to the more expensive minigames for gaining lives. I eventually worked out that you can get a jackpot quite often by pressing the start button when the roulette type cursor land on the 6 on the top left. I put a bet on this and won 5 life-up minigames worth of coins.
By this time, I figured out that only the jumping/spike hat minigame was worth doing as the other games were down to chance. I was able to consistently win 3-10 lives per attempt with this minigame and made the end of the game much easier for myself.
I’m really glad I did though, because the last level is brutal. Even before that, each level is really hard, mainly due to the boss at the end that can kill you so quickly and it takes a lot of tries before you can get a good strategy. But the last level is extremely difficult, and then the last boss itself took me almost 20 attempts, even after reading a guide on exactly how to beat it. If I didn’t gain all those lives in the levels prior, I dread to think how long I would have been grinding the final level with 3 lives per continue.
For such a short game, there is a lot to it. It’s deceptively difficult but charming and fun.
I have just finished a playthrough of Castlevania 64 and it’s crazy how such a simple game can be far better than a later game 2 generations later.
Rating – 9/10
Difficulty – 8/10
Original PAL game played on Gameboy player on Gamecube, modded with 240p output.
Picture split between CRT TV for my own viewing and OSCC scan converter with 2x line doubler, upscaled to HDMI for recording
No cheats / Save states used
Normal difficulty
Game cover pic in thumbnail from my own collection
DONATE
paypal.me/Tinkstonten
buymeacoffee.com/retro2vr
Crypto
BTC - 3Q9mg5pjT4YZgAvHQha6izYDrX3nbJqMPZ
ETH - 0xB41482cB92E32C965E368f293701E5Ce18d5719f
MATIC - 0x9051a87257812febda27691fc84bdd54500eb26f
DOGE - DL3afUvT2UxhkoXsUZNXZS4nwxJny3s4Zm
More like this:
Gameboy - youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXnIZkuKAW4MwUNbbzy1mT9Uwgiz0Rxys
Gameboy Advance - youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXnIZkuKAW4P37FSqPi9CzCw05zzLW2We
#gameboygames #gameboy #kiddracula
