Jumped up to being my personal favorite classicvania really, really quickly. Just as fun as the game it's a remake of, love the graphics, the soundtrack goes absolutely crazy. Played arranged version.
legitimately unplayable without knowing about glitches and using them all the time. very grateful to M2 for leaving those in on the advance collection port. this is a game for speedrunners more than it is a game for regular people
2017
fun as hell
I love the Sorrow cast and a good IGAvania more than anything but so many things about this game piss me off.
It feels like beating a dead horse to complain about the art style shift, but the change is stark and depressing. The pseudo-anime opening is charming and ALMOST makes it up to me personally, but the character redesigns are so fucking ugly that it doesn't quite do it for me. There are also way better anime art style choices that could have been used and still been viable for animation like that.
The writing has some semi-solid ideas but its quality is only second-worst to Legends to me given it's working with pre-established characters and just completely ignored their pre-established traits, for the most part.
The soundtrack wins A LOT of points back -- really worked with the DS hardware extremely well and as a veteran HOD fan I can appreciate that.
The gameplay's great, if you can ignore the glitched, non-effective luck stats making a couple of major gameplay features (souls & the weapon forge) completely useless. The seal mechanic is unnecessary and cumbersome, as well, but nowhere near the most uncomfortable experience I've had with a DS-family game before.
Additionally, 100%-ing the game requires NG+, which is infuriating to any completionist who isn't aware of that going in.
It feels like beating a dead horse to complain about the art style shift, but the change is stark and depressing. The pseudo-anime opening is charming and ALMOST makes it up to me personally, but the character redesigns are so fucking ugly that it doesn't quite do it for me. There are also way better anime art style choices that could have been used and still been viable for animation like that.
The writing has some semi-solid ideas but its quality is only second-worst to Legends to me given it's working with pre-established characters and just completely ignored their pre-established traits, for the most part.
The soundtrack wins A LOT of points back -- really worked with the DS hardware extremely well and as a veteran HOD fan I can appreciate that.
The gameplay's great, if you can ignore the glitched, non-effective luck stats making a couple of major gameplay features (souls & the weapon forge) completely useless. The seal mechanic is unnecessary and cumbersome, as well, but nowhere near the most uncomfortable experience I've had with a DS-family game before.
Additionally, 100%-ing the game requires NG+, which is infuriating to any completionist who isn't aware of that going in.
gets SO fun if you aren't scared of a challenge. my all time favorite game!
2014
really fun, but pretty standard as far as platformers go.