This review contains spoilers
This is my first Castlevania game, and I am pretty impressed!
Playing it felt like playing a 2D Dark Souls game, with speed ramped up and difficulty ramped down. It features so many action-RPG elements that are instantly recognisable in more modern action-RPGs.
Dracula's castle, in which the game finds place, is huge and it's a delight to explore it in the game's non-linear fashion. Level and environment design are super creative and each area has its own distinct look and feel. The area-specific soundtracks are a blessing, and some of them are pretty funky! There is a surprising number of bosses in this game, and their designs are very inspired!
The catholic aesthetics is very fitting for a dark vampire story and is interpreted in a way that raises the atmosphere of the game to the next level. The "Inverted Castle" of the second half of the game is surprisingly in character to the catholic theme, with the inversion of catholic iconography symbolizing the evil of the place in which Dracula gets resurrected.
I can't not compare Castlevania: Symphony of the Night with Blood Omen, released just a year prior. They are both action RPGs featuring a bitter vampiric protagonist who can shapeshift into a bat, a wolf and a mist form. But they are very different games in what they do good. Symphony of the Night's visuals are amazing, creature and level design is top notch, action is fast and engaging. Blood Omen has an excellent atmosphere, surprisingly good voice acting, and an engaging protagonist. Symphony of the Night is definitely the more polished game with way better gameplay, but surprisingly, Blood Omen did the the shapeshifting better. In Symphony of the Night, I found no use for the wolf form, the bat form and the mist form are effectively the same, and there were maybe 3 special "mist could pass" gates in total. Which is a shame, because I expected a game that does so much right to show some love for the shapeshifting. Alas.
Also, the final Dracula boss fight was too easy, ended too fast and didn't have enough phases. That was a bit anticlimactic.
Favourite boss: that orb of human bodies that keeps spilling unfortunate humans into an endless procession that shuffles towards the both exits. In a tall room filled with mountains of skulls. Very medieval, very grotesque.
Playing it felt like playing a 2D Dark Souls game, with speed ramped up and difficulty ramped down. It features so many action-RPG elements that are instantly recognisable in more modern action-RPGs.
Dracula's castle, in which the game finds place, is huge and it's a delight to explore it in the game's non-linear fashion. Level and environment design are super creative and each area has its own distinct look and feel. The area-specific soundtracks are a blessing, and some of them are pretty funky! There is a surprising number of bosses in this game, and their designs are very inspired!
The catholic aesthetics is very fitting for a dark vampire story and is interpreted in a way that raises the atmosphere of the game to the next level. The "Inverted Castle" of the second half of the game is surprisingly in character to the catholic theme, with the inversion of catholic iconography symbolizing the evil of the place in which Dracula gets resurrected.
I can't not compare Castlevania: Symphony of the Night with Blood Omen, released just a year prior. They are both action RPGs featuring a bitter vampiric protagonist who can shapeshift into a bat, a wolf and a mist form. But they are very different games in what they do good. Symphony of the Night's visuals are amazing, creature and level design is top notch, action is fast and engaging. Blood Omen has an excellent atmosphere, surprisingly good voice acting, and an engaging protagonist. Symphony of the Night is definitely the more polished game with way better gameplay, but surprisingly, Blood Omen did the the shapeshifting better. In Symphony of the Night, I found no use for the wolf form, the bat form and the mist form are effectively the same, and there were maybe 3 special "mist could pass" gates in total. Which is a shame, because I expected a game that does so much right to show some love for the shapeshifting. Alas.
Also, the final Dracula boss fight was too easy, ended too fast and didn't have enough phases. That was a bit anticlimactic.
Favourite boss: that orb of human bodies that keeps spilling unfortunate humans into an endless procession that shuffles towards the both exits. In a tall room filled with mountains of skulls. Very medieval, very grotesque.