What on earth compelled me to give this game another chance is beyond me, but this game still sucks.
The biggest issue by far is the DSS system, the games main gimmick. While the system itself isn't that terrible, a lot of it's implementation IS, and a lot of the games other issues seem to stem from this system as well.
The idea of the system is that you combine two cards from the different sets to create different abilities, which isn't terrible, but it makes the ability equip screen a bit tedious to navigate (especially since you can only equip one ability at a time). The biggest issue comes from the fact that this means that players who don't actively seek out the cards will have access to disproportionately less abilities.
During my previous time playing this game, I ignored collecting them. After all, the game practically hands the first two cards to you, so I figured I would get at least a decent amount of abilities just playing the game naturally. That was not the case. Almost all of the cards after the first two have abysmally low drop rates from the enemies. I think I ended up with something like 6/20 cards. 6 cards, while 30% of all cards in the game will give you AT MOST access to a measly 9 of the games 100 abilities (and they're unlikely to be the good ones either).
During said first playthrough, I was also severely underleveled throughout the entire 2nd half of the game. Normal enemies would take 10-20 hits to kill, and could beat me down in 3 or 4 hits. It's as if the game EXPECTS you to grind, which is completely ridiculous in this type of game. But this new playthrough has at least allowed me to understand HOW the game is balanced.
This time, I decided to collect all of the cards, and getting these damn things requires a real grind. You could spend a good 10-20 minutes just farming one enemy to try and get a card. It's tedious and obnoxious. But it becomes immediately clear the game EXPECTS you to do it. Playing through the game while farming enemies for cards makes the game feel so much more balanced. It can still be challenging near the end, but it never feels impossible or tedious (at least, not outside of the farming). Why on earth the developers thought this was a good way to balance the game, and how they expect you to know which enemies to farm for cards is another question though. Which enemies do and don't drop cards is indicated nowhere in the game itself, and the drop rates are far to abysmally low to just go around killing random enemies and hoping you find the right one. There's basically no way to know without looking up a guide for it, which is insane given how the game is balanced around it.
And don't even get me started on the fact that the game locks two of the cards behind enemies at the end of the Battle Arena, a gauntlet of enemies that you fight, in complete silence, and cannot grind, since each room locks behind you. They aren't even all that good! Especially with how broken some of the other abilities are.
And if that wasn't enough, they just had to fuck up the card system in one more way: IT DOESN'T TELL YOU WHAT THEY FUCKING DO UNTIL YOU USE THEM. Who the hell thought this was ok? What, do you just expect me to equip the card and bash my head into a wall until it does something? Some of these cards require you to input "Down, Right/Left, Up, Attack" to activate them, how the hell are you supposed to do that without the game telling you? There's literally no reason for it to hide the abilities, and it just makes getting a new card obnoxious, cause I have to look up what half the abilities I can't get to work are.
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But if you can get past the awful balancing and the sub-par gimmick you get to experience... the most mediocre Metroidvania of all time. Seriously, everything else about this game is just... slightly worse than acceptable.
Compared to all the other Metroidvania-style Castlevania games, this one is by far the ugliest. It doesn't look BAD or anything, it just looks whatever, especially compared to something like SOTN, which is one of the greatest looking game of all time. All of the sprites and animation are just... fine. All of the areas in this game look bland and uninteresting.
Of course, this was clearly in part thanks to the choice to take a more zoomed out perspective, so the player can see more. And what did they use this additional screen space for? Why some of the most mediocre level design of all time, of course! Every room in this god damn game is just slightly annoying to navigate, and the game falls into one of my Metroidvania irks where every item in the game unlocks like 5 different paths, but only one of them will actually let you progress, and the rest are just dead ends with so-so stat upgrade items at the end of them. It feels like the developers were just like "Backtracking is a staple of Metroidvanias, we gotta have backtracking" without actually thinking about what makes "backtracking" work in a game like Super Metroid or Symphony of the Night.
As if dedicated to making everything feel bad, the controls also don't feel good. The walking speed is absolute garbage. What was even the point of having a walk this slow when you get running shoes like 5 minutes into the game? So you're gonna be running everywhere. Except running in this game requires you to double tap the d-pad. So I hope you like double tapping the d-pad every time you move.
The game also gives you a wall jump ability, which is awkwardly tied to the games dedicated "ability" button rather than the more natural feeling jump button. And this wall jump sucks. It sends you forcibly flying away from the wall at an awkward angle, with no control of your character for a whole second. It might be the most unsatisfying wall jump ever, which is impressive given that Fusion and Samus Returns exist.
The story is also literally nothing. Like somehow more nothing than Harmony of Dissonance. At least that game had some ties to Castlevania lore going for it though, this just feels completely disconnected from everything.
Anyways, it all culminates in an appropriately mediocre fight with Dracula, that ended with me looking at the screen in for a few seconds before going "Oh, it's over?"
The biggest issue by far is the DSS system, the games main gimmick. While the system itself isn't that terrible, a lot of it's implementation IS, and a lot of the games other issues seem to stem from this system as well.
The idea of the system is that you combine two cards from the different sets to create different abilities, which isn't terrible, but it makes the ability equip screen a bit tedious to navigate (especially since you can only equip one ability at a time). The biggest issue comes from the fact that this means that players who don't actively seek out the cards will have access to disproportionately less abilities.
During my previous time playing this game, I ignored collecting them. After all, the game practically hands the first two cards to you, so I figured I would get at least a decent amount of abilities just playing the game naturally. That was not the case. Almost all of the cards after the first two have abysmally low drop rates from the enemies. I think I ended up with something like 6/20 cards. 6 cards, while 30% of all cards in the game will give you AT MOST access to a measly 9 of the games 100 abilities (and they're unlikely to be the good ones either).
During said first playthrough, I was also severely underleveled throughout the entire 2nd half of the game. Normal enemies would take 10-20 hits to kill, and could beat me down in 3 or 4 hits. It's as if the game EXPECTS you to grind, which is completely ridiculous in this type of game. But this new playthrough has at least allowed me to understand HOW the game is balanced.
This time, I decided to collect all of the cards, and getting these damn things requires a real grind. You could spend a good 10-20 minutes just farming one enemy to try and get a card. It's tedious and obnoxious. But it becomes immediately clear the game EXPECTS you to do it. Playing through the game while farming enemies for cards makes the game feel so much more balanced. It can still be challenging near the end, but it never feels impossible or tedious (at least, not outside of the farming). Why on earth the developers thought this was a good way to balance the game, and how they expect you to know which enemies to farm for cards is another question though. Which enemies do and don't drop cards is indicated nowhere in the game itself, and the drop rates are far to abysmally low to just go around killing random enemies and hoping you find the right one. There's basically no way to know without looking up a guide for it, which is insane given how the game is balanced around it.
And don't even get me started on the fact that the game locks two of the cards behind enemies at the end of the Battle Arena, a gauntlet of enemies that you fight, in complete silence, and cannot grind, since each room locks behind you. They aren't even all that good! Especially with how broken some of the other abilities are.
And if that wasn't enough, they just had to fuck up the card system in one more way: IT DOESN'T TELL YOU WHAT THEY FUCKING DO UNTIL YOU USE THEM. Who the hell thought this was ok? What, do you just expect me to equip the card and bash my head into a wall until it does something? Some of these cards require you to input "Down, Right/Left, Up, Attack" to activate them, how the hell are you supposed to do that without the game telling you? There's literally no reason for it to hide the abilities, and it just makes getting a new card obnoxious, cause I have to look up what half the abilities I can't get to work are.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But if you can get past the awful balancing and the sub-par gimmick you get to experience... the most mediocre Metroidvania of all time. Seriously, everything else about this game is just... slightly worse than acceptable.
Compared to all the other Metroidvania-style Castlevania games, this one is by far the ugliest. It doesn't look BAD or anything, it just looks whatever, especially compared to something like SOTN, which is one of the greatest looking game of all time. All of the sprites and animation are just... fine. All of the areas in this game look bland and uninteresting.
Of course, this was clearly in part thanks to the choice to take a more zoomed out perspective, so the player can see more. And what did they use this additional screen space for? Why some of the most mediocre level design of all time, of course! Every room in this god damn game is just slightly annoying to navigate, and the game falls into one of my Metroidvania irks where every item in the game unlocks like 5 different paths, but only one of them will actually let you progress, and the rest are just dead ends with so-so stat upgrade items at the end of them. It feels like the developers were just like "Backtracking is a staple of Metroidvanias, we gotta have backtracking" without actually thinking about what makes "backtracking" work in a game like Super Metroid or Symphony of the Night.
As if dedicated to making everything feel bad, the controls also don't feel good. The walking speed is absolute garbage. What was even the point of having a walk this slow when you get running shoes like 5 minutes into the game? So you're gonna be running everywhere. Except running in this game requires you to double tap the d-pad. So I hope you like double tapping the d-pad every time you move.
The game also gives you a wall jump ability, which is awkwardly tied to the games dedicated "ability" button rather than the more natural feeling jump button. And this wall jump sucks. It sends you forcibly flying away from the wall at an awkward angle, with no control of your character for a whole second. It might be the most unsatisfying wall jump ever, which is impressive given that Fusion and Samus Returns exist.
The story is also literally nothing. Like somehow more nothing than Harmony of Dissonance. At least that game had some ties to Castlevania lore going for it though, this just feels completely disconnected from everything.
Anyways, it all culminates in an appropriately mediocre fight with Dracula, that ended with me looking at the screen in for a few seconds before going "Oh, it's over?"