Imagine walking into a room full of gamers and asking what their favourite PSOne game is. You'll get the obvious answers of Final Fantasy VII and Metal Gear Solid, but you will most surely get a few people giving this honour to a little game by Konami. Symphony of the Night can only be described as the best entry in the Castlevania series, encompassing what was great about it while feeling fresh and innovative in the process. So you can imagine the reaction when the developers announced that a version of Symphony was in production for Sony's handheld that, along with the original Castlevania, included a 3D remake of the formerly Japan-only Rondo of Blood. Now Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles is finally with us, but is this triple hit of Castlevania goodness worth the journey to Dracula's castle for?

The first thing to establish about Chronicles is that the not all three games are available to you when you first pop the UMD in. The primary quest that you undertake is the remake of Rondo of Blood, a game that I can be confident in saying you haven't played. To play the originals, you must find them in the main game, which is easier said than done, with the makers placing both games in devilishly hard to find places, meaning that you wont stumble across them easily. This would be an advantage when talking about a standard videogame unlockable, which the game is host to in the form of music tracks from all three titles. The difference here is that these are full games that you have to find, giving inexperienced and new players one third of the full experience to get involved in. This isn't helped by the quality of these games either, with Symphony of the Night actually surpassing Rondo of Blood in nearly every way. It's not even a case of getting up to a certain point in the adventure and then buying the extras - you have to physically find them. This is the first and one of the only problems of the game, but it's a major one.

As for the story, Dracula is back - again. It's no surprise that the remake of Rondo of Blood sees protagonist Richter Belmont attempting to rid of the world of this oppressive Count once more, and the game doesn't try too hard to create an amazingly complex narrative; you must battle your way through Dracula's minions to reach him and end the threat that he poses. Even if the plot isn't very deep, it does give a small sense of purpose to your struggle - and make no mistake, it will be a struggle, although a more developed one would have been welcome. You eventually stumble across Maria, a playable character who aids you on your quest. She is even less fleshed out than Richter, making her feel less like a character and more like just a new skin for you to use.

You progress through the game in a series of stages, rather than Symphony of the Night's Metroid style open-ended set up of search and discovery. There is a set path to go down; or rather, there are multiple set paths you can go down. Each level has two exits that lead to different stages afterwards. You can technically go through the basic set of stages by just following the obvious path of each level, but you'll never find any of the secrets unless you whip certain walls and plummet to seemingly certain death down carefully selected holes. The extra levels are hidden well, with some requiring you to take actions you'd never have thought of if that annoying demon hadn't pushed you off the edge of that cliff! The game is also host to a Boss Rush mode, which as the name suggests, allows you to fight the game's bosses in succession. This can be done against a friend through Wi-Fi, although this only makes you imagine how good a co-operative Castlevania game would have been; it doesn't really add to the game extensively, but the option being available can only be a plus.

As I said above, you will struggle with Chronicles. It's not that the controls are bad; on the contrary, they are nicely put together, even if you have to choose between either analog or digital movement and can't swap between them - it's just that the game can seem impossible at times. You will die repeatedly on the same enemy, over and over and over, because after the relatively easy opening stages, the game suddenly decides to hate you. Enemies take longer to kill, which added to the fact that they can kill you with a few hits, makes you feel pathetic. One stage that comes to mind - the third in the game - features large enemies with huge spears. Even the slightest touch with one of these hurts you, and when your foes can thrust them in all four directions, you have to constantly be on your guard. Timing your attacks is necessary at this early stage, although this goes out the window later on when multiple tough enemies strike at you simultaneously. The game can be frustrating to say the least, and only Castlevania veterans will be able to get through the adventure in one piece. If you're new to the series then you should be wary of this, as the difficulty doesn't help when you're desperately trying to find that Symphony of the Night game icon.

The obvious change to the game however is its visuals. Ditching the bright 2D polygons found in the original and going with a 2.5D grittier tone makes the game seem fresh, and the experience benefits from this facelift. When playing through the original Rondo of Blood found on the UMD, you'll be shocked at how far the visuals have come. The graphical style is really good, with enemies and environments that are more haunting than ever. The 2.5D aspect of the game is interesting, as the level can seemingly come out of the 2D plane that you are playing on, with one level even feeling like it is moving towards you. All of the subtle touches that have been added, from the bones that skeletons throw to the light that's cast by lamps on the wall, make the game come alive. The only problem with the graphics - and in turn a problem that affects the gameplay - is their speed. You seem to move at the slowest possible speed that a human being chased by a massive soldier throwing deadly spinning blades at you can go. You do move faster than in the original, but when compared to Symphony of the Night, Richter needs to learn how to run.

With the limited story on offer here, you'd expect that Konami would have left the dialogue and cut scenes as they were - but you'd be wrong, as entirely new voice acting has been recorded for the remake and also added to the original. It may still be as hammy as the original, but who can really talk about defeating Count Dracula with a whip in a serious way? The cut scenes see the developers using the same graphics as both the Metal Gear Ac!d games, which will be obvious to fans of the series. This isn't a bad thing, and before each boss you'll look forward to seeing his or her dramatic entrance, even if you know that within seconds of this scene you will be dead. Take this and add it to the always stellar Castlevania musical score, and you have a pleasing jaunt into the dark world of vampires and the walking dead.

The saving grace of Chronicles, and the reason why that score up there isn't a 7, is that the Symphony of the Night is here. Despite having to find the game in the main quest, when you do you're in for a treat. The port on offer here may not be as good as the original, but when you're dealing with one of the best 2D games of all-time, that doesn't matter. The same can't be said about the original Rondo of Blood, as the improvements that the remake made aren't present and so there's no real point to playing it. The music also suffers in this version, as the PC engine to PSP conversion process is something that Konami haven't perfected yet. If worst comes to worst and you find the main adventure too hard, you always have Symphony to fall back on, something that makes the game more than just a decent PSP title.

If you're a fan of Castlevania then you've already played Symphony of the Night and you may have played a Japanese version of Rondo of Blood. This game is for those people, as the difficulty of the main quest and the secrets you have to uncover will be too tough for the uninitiated. Even so, if you enjoy some side scrolling adventuring action and consider yourself a hardcore gamer then you should consider picking this up as well. I would go as far as saying that it's worth getting for Symphony alone, and with the remake being as respectable as it is, you will have fun with this. It may not be a revolution for the franchise, but it's a great game that does what it sets out to do very well. It may not be the best game on PSP, but Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles is still worth a try - just don't expect to get through your trip to defeat Dracula in one piece.

Reviewed by Sam Atkins for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).