#Akumajō Densetsu: Shinsei Vampire Hunters

[darkspellmaster]

I would like you to tell me a little about Akumajō Densetsu: Shinsei Vampire Hunters

I discovered it recently and found it interesting :0

So you've found the old Akumajō Densetsu: Shinsei Vampire Hunters, or as the title is translated to The Legend of Satanic Castle: The Vampire Hunters.

So to start with it's like the old Choose your own adventure books, created by Futabasha Publishers Ltd. and licensed by Konami back in the day. There's not a ton out there in English about the company, however from the japanese wiki basically they are a well known publisher who is known for publishing the mangas of Lupin the third, Crayon Shin-chan and other such series. The books are a part of their work, and they also did the official guide books for Castlevania, so they had a lot of access to the games bibles. But I don't think you want me to dive into the history of a publishing company.

Anyway, Story time. So the book is a kind of game book with actual puzzles inside that the reader has to solve. You find weapons and other items in the book to help your characters move around this story and fight monsters.

You have to constantly check to draw your weapon, meaning turn to the page where you found it, to make it stronger and take notes during the playing of the book. It's a bit, confusing.

So the story starts out with our crew:

Keep in mind an aspect of Sid is that he's kind of the player character, so his personality is base on what you as the player do. There is no set personality for him, exactly. But he, as with the other character's, are a lot like their Castlevania III counterparts. Sid Belmont -a descendant of Trevor (previously called Ralph) Belmont, who seems to be the expy for Simon, since they're both 100 years after Trevor. Sid is not Sypha's son, rather she and Trevor never hooked up in this time line and both went off to find other people. Thus Sid has none of the magic in his blood line from Sypha. He uses a whip like his father though and seems to have the traditional Belmont strength. Like Trevor he's a serious minded person who is a bit headstrong at times. He's the smallest of the crew via height, something Row teases him about in their dialog. (Usually done in a lot of Japanese books where you have a character that is heroic but shorter.) It's implied that he is the "Leader" for the four friends, and his favorite weapon is the whip. he also can do magic and master the axe if given the right choices.

Row Danasty -descendant of Grant, and also a pirate and can use knives and axes (his main weapon in this case). He's very much a jokey, cheery person who is determined and full of actions and can be a trickster. The tallest one and the oldest one of the group. He's kind of the big brother, he's also scared of zombie it seems.

Zouk Belnades -descendant of Sypha, who uses magic like her. The more serious one of the group. He's softer but also very deadly when provoked. I think it's hinted that he and Sid are about the same age. Not sure exactly. He's also the most calm when it comes to judgements and thinks before he acts, unlike the other team members. He uses a staff as his weapon to channel his magic and acts as the voice of reason to the group as Row and Sid like to jump into things.

Leia -descendant of Alucard, who is a vampire, not a dhampir like her father as at the time of the book Alucard was still a vampire himself as Lisa had not been created yet. So oddly she can use holy weapons like a rosary against the monsters they encounter. As with her father she's conflicted about this since Dracula and her share blood. She, as with Sid, is the first to rush to fight the monsters throughout the book.

Story starts out where these four teens have a dream about Dracula's castle/mansion. In this nightmare they realize he's away and are drawn to going to it to fight and stop him. The book tells the reader to stop Dracula using the skills of these four heroes. And that's pretty much the start of the story.

Leia starts things out as they enter the grave yard and uses her rosary to shield them before things start. She also opens the seal to the gate that lets them get in, and is where the four meet for the first time. Seems a group that are connected to the Satanic castle, which is deep in a black forest, are the ones behind the resurrections. The group starts out along the path and they discuss things going on around them. The characters don't have a direct path in this book so there are a number of endings to it based on how well you play and what you do.

At one point a skeleton knight rises from the tomb with blood flowing from the tomb, another is a cyclops with a hammer attacks the crew. While traveling by raft to the castle the group comes across a ghost ship and has to deal with the skeleton crew.

As you go through various events happen allowing the characters to take action against other monsters, like Medusa who comes after the group at one point, Row facing down Death himself with the others, however his fear freezes him as he faces down the Grim reaper. Along with Death comes Medusa who also attacks them on their way to the castle. At another point a group of bats steal Leia's rosary, and Zombies coming after them, Leia using her connections to her ancestor to change into bats to find information for the group. Endings can range from the group all getting away and beating the count, to some of the party dead, to all of the party dead and Dracula winning.

It's nearly impossible to talk about the story because it's old and not fully translated from Japanese. (I even tried using google translate to at least try to get the actual descriptions of the characters, and that didn't work well at all.) Those that have played it say its, okay and that the characters are pretty much kind of versions of Trevor, Sypha, Alucard and Grant and that while it's a fun read and a game, it's not amazing. Better choice, apparently is the one that follows Simon's descendant who is an actor who is staring in a film based on the first Simon Belmont (and the actor happens to be named after him) all happening in the 1950s. Oh and Dracula's back from the dead and the guy hasn't had training and has to learn on the fly how to fight them. The Devil Castle Dracula: The Battle of Old Castle, that's the name of it. Sorry I can't give you a lot on this, since it's hard to find anything, even in Japanese, on this book because it's that rare of a book. We mostly have scans of the pictures from it.

One of the few places I could find images for the story:

Part of the issue is that Konami doesn't own Sid's story, rather it's owned by the publisher who really hasn't released it again, and didn't put it out in English at all.

Anon Hope this cleared things up and didn't confuse you too much.