Game difficulty is set to Easy by default.

The raster effect used to 'stretch' the title onto the screen is also much different.

The title screen is missing the background present in the final version, and the 'BLOODLINES' lettering does not yet feature the dripping blood along the bottom.

Interestingly, the text on this screen survived into the final game almost completely unchanged. It lacks the final's font fading effect for the text, and consists of only one screen.

The opening cinematic before the title screen is completely different from the final version, and matches a pre-release screenshot shown in the November 1993 issue of EGM.

The European title is not yet present at this point.

Regional lockout is not yet implemented, but the game does recognize whether you are playing on a Japanese or US console and changes the title on the copyright screen accordingly ('VAMPIRE KILLER' for Japan, 'CASTLEVANIA BLOODLINES' for the US).

Note that the music will remain silenced until you either die or enter a new area.

Toggle sound: Press C to toggle both music and sound effects on or off.

Life refill + 99 gems: Press B to instantly max your character's life bar and gem count.

The last defined entrance seems to be invalid, as you emerge from the bottom of the screen partway through stage 2-5 and fall to your death immediately warping to the next entrance from here will return you to the beginning of stage 1-1.

Stage skip: Hold Up or Down and press A to warp to the next or previous stage entrance, respectively (same order as the table above).

Is there some button combo that enables invincibility? Interestingly, this cheat was mentioned in the Castlevania Bloodlines strategy guide on the Sega Channel January 1996 dev disc. All values above 29 will crash the game at a black screen. Upon starting the game, you will be warped to the selected stage entrance. After entering the code, a number will appear press A to increase the value by one, B to increase it by 10, or C to decrease it by one.

In this build, entering the Konami Code ( Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A) at the main menu unlocks a stage select (technically, stage entrance) instead of Expert mode.

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