MANKIND IS DEAD.
BLOOD IS FUEL.
HELL IS FULL.

Holy shit what a blast this game is. My favorite fps game by far, bar none. The plot of the game which is relevant to the player is explained in those iconic three lines, as simple as that. You play as V1, a robot on a rampage through hell to fuel yourself with blood. There is obviously further lore to the game which brings it past those 3 sentences, but the game doesn't force you to sit through anything irrelevant, you get thrown right into the action. It is a straight run through of carnage with small cutscenes between the games 2 current acts. Now when it comes to gameplay, you've come to the right place. First off, this game is similar to Quake, or Doom in terms of gameplay. An Arena-based shooter where enemies will spawn in with each new room you come across, enemies full of blood to fill your rampage. Speaking of blood, that is one of the game's main mechanics. You heal from blood. The game encourages you to play in enemies faces to keep yourself going. There are no medpacks, healing stations, or anything. The only way to heal is through straight up combat, close up attacks, or parrying an enemy. There's 6 methods of blood harvesting in the game right now, your own fists, the revolver, shotgun, nailgun, railcannon, and rocket launcher. with most of them having at least 1 alternate mode or variant to try out with different mechanics to keep things fresh. Each one of these weapons and variants have their specific use cases, which not only makes them fun to use, the game actively encourages you to switch weapons. Thanks to a Devil May Cry inspired style meter, learning weapon combos is not only stylish, its effective and boosts your score! Every single level is well designed too, with straightforward design so that you won't get lost. Nothing stands between you and the demons of hell besides your ability to slaughter them and keep your robotic self going, with a rewarding feeling to get better and further improve your ability to do so, whether it be through mastering movement, tricks with the various kickass weapons, parrying, or just being a stylish killer.

For an early access game, this is Phenomenal. The game still has another batch of levels yet to be released, as well as more weapon variants and probably another new weapon entirely. Even missing its third act, his game is fucking awesome. Filled with secrets and easter eggs to discover, the game is replayable as all hell, and has an infinite arena mode to really test your skills on. Needless to say, I am excited to see where the game continues to develop and grow, and see climax of the story.

Oh, and the game lets you adjust your audio before you start. Why don't other games do this?

You know how sometimes games are deemed “Genre-Defining” for being the best of its kind? The prime example? Well how about defining a genre of being the first of it’s kind! A 2D Metroidvania, coming out on the PS1. And wow, what a way to start things off. The sprite work is beautiful, with a decent variety of areas to explore in the Castle.

But how about Gameplay? Alucard controls very well, besides the fighting-game style spell inputs, which are also a weird but useful). The backdashing is goofy as hell and nice for moving a bit faster, never really used it as intended for dodging. There is some lacking variety in weaponry, however there are some weapon types which are basically useless, overshadowed, or just bad. All the Two-handed swords are never strong enough to warrent giving up both weapon slots, consumables aren’t strong enough to warrant using besides a select few, and shields feel like they’re meant to be helpful but the utility of carrying a second weapon that has a different damage type (btw, theres a few different damage types which is really cool, fire, holy, ice, lighting, dark, sharp, etc.) But even with shields there is a weapon literally designed to have special attacks for each shield which makes up for them. Oh yeah, the different forms and stuff. Alucard can transform into a wolf for faster movement and longer jumps, mist for invincibility and passing through grates, and bat for flight. They all have their uses but by the end you’ll basically just be using bat unless you need to get through a grate. Speaking of the end, that is my major gripe with the game. Maybe it was just because I managed to get a really good weapon, but the end game for the good ending was really underwhelming, and felt like a breeze. However everything leading up to that point makes up for it, because this game is really damn cool. I never once got lost or was confused as to where to go, the game flowed really well from area to area. Even when an area didnt directly lead somewhere, there was noticable things to remember so that when you found what you need, you remember where to go back to.

Oh and yeah dont forget the unskippable game over screen so that when you die you have to wait a minute to get back into the game!!!

Overall, if you like Metroidvanias, or if youre looking for a good game to get into the genre, why not go back to where it all started? However, theres the other problem, this game is a bit of a pain to play on modern systems. Why? Well, for some unknown reason, there is no switch port. No Xbox port. And no PC port of any kind. Just a PS4 port and A GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING MOBILE PORT. WHY. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING.
So yeah just emulate it. Don’t try the mobile port the controls are kinda jank (besides the dedicated spell buttons those are nice)

Overall, 4.5/5. A blast to playthrough, definitely going to replaying this one, maybe try a run with different weapons this time around, and makes me want to try the other castlevania games in this style.

Konami PLEASE port this to pc or switch k thx

PS: oh yeah theres a dragonforce song named after this game its pretty cool