Very conflicted about this one. The graphics, music and the charm of the characters carry this game hard, but it's one of those cases where the game could've been better on a more powerful system even if it's pretty impressive for the GBC.

Pretty obvious statement but I'm pretty sure that the most important thing in a metroidvania type game is the exploration, but exploring any of the areas in this game is so damn painful. The enemy placement is godawful and there's a lot of instant kill traps that only serve to slow down the experience since you'll always go back to the start of whatever area you're at. Been a while since I hated backtracking in a game as much as this one.

Wanna know how it gets worse? No map system. Not a huuge problem since there are plenty of maps available online but it's still such an inconvinience for this genre, specially when put next to the portable Castlevania games on the GBA.

The combat also leaves a bit more to be desired. The attacks are nicely animated but honestly feel kinda unsatisfying to use since almost every enemy take way too many hits to kill and the hit detection is kinda wonky.

I can kinda see why this has such a cult following but all those issues made it a pretty annoying experience for the most part. Only play it if you really wanna get deep into this series, otherwise I would recommend to just skipping to Risky's Revenge.

(The dances and overall spritework are still really cute)