Not a terrible entry into the Castlevania saga, though with some questionable decisions that make the whole game feel kind of a bit too simple.

The burning mode is just INSANELY overpowered and makes almost all the bosses and challenging areas into a quick spam 'n kill fest. The fact that it refills every time you die, compounded with infinite continues at your last checkpoint makes the whole experience stupidly easy. A real turn-the-brain-off and just plow forward vibe with little concern for the details. It misses that feeling of truly mastering a stage and knowing all the in-and-outs that make a level tick that is essential with the Castlevania games.

I do like that the game has a more vertical oriented castle design, and the multiple routes through levels add a little bit of exploration fun. Turning sub weapons into on-the-fly "soul weapons" sounds nice, but the aforementioned burning mode made it so I never even bothered using them.

Once upon a time this was the first game on the Castlevania timeline, until Konami decided to scrub from the canon. In any case, it's a pretty simple old school action-adventure platformer. Gameplay is a little slow and stiff but not in a way that's boring. Level design is mostly fine but there's some BS decisions like enemies respawning whenever their spawn point goes off screen, which is super annoying in vertical sections of stages (there's a ton of them).

Overall, it's fun but honestly very average. It's pretty short (~2 hours for a first playthrough) so it's not a huge time investment at least.

I just came out of the Castlevania Anniversary collection only for then find out that ANOTHER one is free on the Nintendo Switch Online. SO I went "Ehhhhh why not"

And this is a funky one.
Of the Game boy game it is definitely not the worst (imo nothing can be worse than Castlevania: The Adventure) but I feel it's definitely not the best

I dunno how to explain it, but this one to me feels like.... a weird castlevania low-budget fangame made for the GB: it's a weird mix of the linear progression of the past titles with the metroidvania of Symphony. and on paper this sounds cool... but the realization is really lacking.

The limitations of the gameboy means that you got a really slow heroine with not a lot of movement and offensive options. ANd while the mpa is more open, most of the time you just have all of thes ebranching paths that leads you either on one of the secret collectibles, or just into nothing. Like I remember walking into a series of corridors filled with spiders adn bats HIDDEN INTO THE CANDLES (good trolly move there) only to reach the top and being rewarded with a piece of meat... thanks I guess.

The adventure is not very long but this walking around in cricles didn't made it that enjoyable for me.

ALso I had a small bug where beating one of the minibosses (the big knight) didn't open the way to proceed, so I had to beat it again to free the spike-filled passage

THe reason why I find this one like a fanmade project (I know it's not but still) is the story, that gives the same vibe of a weird fanfiction: you follow the OC do not steal Sonia Belmont, which has a cool design and I like how she uses magic via the collectible hearts. But then you find out that she is supposed to be the first of the Belmont dinasty, that she is the one that killed dracula, that she is the one that kills Alucard even tho the two love each other and I guess have a child in the good ending.....

I dunno, I guess I grew up with the idea that Leon is the first Belmont, and that Alucard end up with Maria, and all that jazz... so I am not surprised that Konami snapped this story out of the canon timeline...

Overall a mediocre but not horrible experience. It's nice that they made a main cool female Belmont for once, but her adventure is not really the best of the franchise, sadly.