This game is all about Aesthetics. From the name, the logo, the very anime-like concept and overall tone, kinda reminded me of Akira and Ghost in the Sell, and the final phase with the ost inspired by catholic chant "Ave Maria", reminded me a lot of that Cowboy Bebop church scene, but also gave me Shin Megami Tensei vibes. And in that part, this game give you everything you want. The concept is cool, the art direction is amazing, the sprites, the scenario, the graphics, the soundtrack etc. Everything in that audio and visual department is amazing. The only problem of this game is the game itself.
While being "notoriously" an Castlevania copycat, copying from the way of walking to the overall move of the enemies and... pretty much everything... this is pretty much an cyber-punk Castlevania... but differently from "Super Castlevania IV" (1991) in SNES, this game is full of problems.
For start the controls are not the most responsive. This adding the fact that the hitboxes in this game just suck. You try to hit things that are incredibly close to you while sometimes failing and sometimes making the hit. The running movement is not adequate to the screen and to run in this game is quite confusing, with not much space in the screen and the frame not keeping up with you a lot of times. The game also can't handle many particles, so a lot of times the entire screen just will have a framedrop for a few seconds, particularly at boss fights.
If the deliberate fighting design that became popular with the NES Castlevania trilogy is accompanied by fierceful challenge, need for precise movement and a lot of thought, this game try to replicate the structure while throwing a lot of these elements in the bucket. Overall, the game is quite easy, even I, a not skillful player at side scroller action games (you don't have idea how many times games of Castlevania and Megaman have made me suffer quite a lot), didn't found many difficulties, and pretty much went every stage within 3 tries at the most, with the exception of the last one, which, in an clear desperate move, they decided to take a game that should be deliberate and strategical and turn in a constant spam of fast enemies that you couldn't neither predict nor antecipate, something that this game used a lot (and that i find that don't go well with the overall design intention, feeling like cheap attemp of challenge). But in the 6th level is just constant spamming to a annoying level. And even with that i think i've died 6 or 7 times. The only moment of challenge in this game, although nothing extraordinarily hard, are the boss fights, but these are not quite interesting also. The first one, besides looking cool as hell, can be easily rushdown with not much problem. The second one is a bat that look like a dick, but is overall and well rounded and fine boss fight. The third, the moth-like being, is very exploitable and repetitive. The fourth one is by far the best and most interesting one, offering actual skill and timing and was a really fun playing. The last two bosses suffered from the same exact problem, being attacks that you can't pretty much antecipate, so you just have to be conservative while attacking and try to not take random hits that you couldn't saw coming. And this summarize another problem of that game, incapability at displaying information to the player. Is hard to know what to do against the bosses, and pretty much everything is understood by try and error. The fourth boss have a giant glooming bulb over his body, so i, and you can definitely blame me for being a huge Zelda fan, assumed that he only would take damage at the yellow bulb, how is often done in boss fights, but that was not the case. After 6 stages, the game is beaten, you've seen it all
The game try to put up some variation, while also not being a bad thing, also don't help much, since is so short. But you definitely see a lot of different scenarios, enemies and do some varied activities.
The lenght of the game being really short also doesn't help, but differently from a lot of 3rd and 4th generation games, the replay value in this game in minimum. The levels are pretty narrowed and linear, the game is quite easy and there not much content to see or great task to do after you finished the game.
The plot is quite simple, is not a linear narrative or developed story by any means, but it help to set the tone and give cohesion to the different stages and scenes, while fitting the cool aesthetics and themes. Is no "Final Fantasy IV" (1991) (to compare with another SNES game), but it functions well to an action side scroller from 1992, so is perfectly fine.
This is not by any means the worst game i've played or a complete waste of time and effort, but is undeniably bad in my lens. I wouldn't recommend, unless you are agressively bored and are extremely fan of early Castlevania games (and even in that case there are better pastimes).
While being "notoriously" an Castlevania copycat, copying from the way of walking to the overall move of the enemies and... pretty much everything... this is pretty much an cyber-punk Castlevania... but differently from "Super Castlevania IV" (1991) in SNES, this game is full of problems.
For start the controls are not the most responsive. This adding the fact that the hitboxes in this game just suck. You try to hit things that are incredibly close to you while sometimes failing and sometimes making the hit. The running movement is not adequate to the screen and to run in this game is quite confusing, with not much space in the screen and the frame not keeping up with you a lot of times. The game also can't handle many particles, so a lot of times the entire screen just will have a framedrop for a few seconds, particularly at boss fights.
If the deliberate fighting design that became popular with the NES Castlevania trilogy is accompanied by fierceful challenge, need for precise movement and a lot of thought, this game try to replicate the structure while throwing a lot of these elements in the bucket. Overall, the game is quite easy, even I, a not skillful player at side scroller action games (you don't have idea how many times games of Castlevania and Megaman have made me suffer quite a lot), didn't found many difficulties, and pretty much went every stage within 3 tries at the most, with the exception of the last one, which, in an clear desperate move, they decided to take a game that should be deliberate and strategical and turn in a constant spam of fast enemies that you couldn't neither predict nor antecipate, something that this game used a lot (and that i find that don't go well with the overall design intention, feeling like cheap attemp of challenge). But in the 6th level is just constant spamming to a annoying level. And even with that i think i've died 6 or 7 times. The only moment of challenge in this game, although nothing extraordinarily hard, are the boss fights, but these are not quite interesting also. The first one, besides looking cool as hell, can be easily rushdown with not much problem. The second one is a bat that look like a dick, but is overall and well rounded and fine boss fight. The third, the moth-like being, is very exploitable and repetitive. The fourth one is by far the best and most interesting one, offering actual skill and timing and was a really fun playing. The last two bosses suffered from the same exact problem, being attacks that you can't pretty much antecipate, so you just have to be conservative while attacking and try to not take random hits that you couldn't saw coming. And this summarize another problem of that game, incapability at displaying information to the player. Is hard to know what to do against the bosses, and pretty much everything is understood by try and error. The fourth boss have a giant glooming bulb over his body, so i, and you can definitely blame me for being a huge Zelda fan, assumed that he only would take damage at the yellow bulb, how is often done in boss fights, but that was not the case. After 6 stages, the game is beaten, you've seen it all
The game try to put up some variation, while also not being a bad thing, also don't help much, since is so short. But you definitely see a lot of different scenarios, enemies and do some varied activities.
The lenght of the game being really short also doesn't help, but differently from a lot of 3rd and 4th generation games, the replay value in this game in minimum. The levels are pretty narrowed and linear, the game is quite easy and there not much content to see or great task to do after you finished the game.
The plot is quite simple, is not a linear narrative or developed story by any means, but it help to set the tone and give cohesion to the different stages and scenes, while fitting the cool aesthetics and themes. Is no "Final Fantasy IV" (1991) (to compare with another SNES game), but it functions well to an action side scroller from 1992, so is perfectly fine.
This is not by any means the worst game i've played or a complete waste of time and effort, but is undeniably bad in my lens. I wouldn't recommend, unless you are agressively bored and are extremely fan of early Castlevania games (and even in that case there are better pastimes).