iv1632
This is a great pirate game: upgrading up your ship, assaulting ships or strongholds, sailing while your crew sings, switching up your weaponry, boarding... somehow no other pirate game has as much to do as this one despite it not being fleshed out that much.
The only issue really is that it's still an Assasisn's Creed game, where you're taken out for present day sections or have to land into cities to do collectathons and barebones missions. It's not that there's no fun to be had in that, but it's something that you really have enough of pretty quickly and we already had a few games full of it before this one, it's not exactly exciting.
Kenway is an interesting protagonist but he can't carry the mediocre gameplay on his own, so instead of focusing on going through the story I'll only pick this game up for piracy shenanigans and I'll have my fun with that. Nobody else seems interested in using this game's sailing and pirate mechanics so it'll probably be as good as it gets.
The only issue really is that it's still an Assasisn's Creed game, where you're taken out for present day sections or have to land into cities to do collectathons and barebones missions. It's not that there's no fun to be had in that, but it's something that you really have enough of pretty quickly and we already had a few games full of it before this one, it's not exactly exciting.
Kenway is an interesting protagonist but he can't carry the mediocre gameplay on his own, so instead of focusing on going through the story I'll only pick this game up for piracy shenanigans and I'll have my fun with that. Nobody else seems interested in using this game's sailing and pirate mechanics so it'll probably be as good as it gets.
After playing and feeling disappointed by Curse of the Moon 2 I moved onto this game to see if Inti Creates had done any better.
Generally it has the same core formula as Curse of the Moon, but instead of controlling a variety of characters you unlock throughout a few levels you start with 2 characters to use until the end, with the unlocks being new subweapons that are always available in your inventory to quickly switch through.
The level design is smaller, but offers some more compelling alternate paths upon revisiting as well as giving you more freedom to backtrack, the game focuses more on choosing the right subweapon in the moment rather than picking up individual ones trying to predict when you'll need them.
The game is easier than both CotM games for the most part as if one of your characters dies, you can go reach their corpse after respawning and resuscitate them to continue, preventing you from losing a life unless both characters die. The levels are also less punishing for the most part, feels like there's a lot more healing, and also less opportunities for knockback to kill you, but I honestly didn't mind this especially after CotM 2.
What keeps me from giving a higher rating is 2 issues I have with the game, for one while the game generally being easier didn't bother me I wished the bosses had some more challenge to them, still prefer easier bosses over health taxes like there is in CotM 2. The other issue is that unbeknownst to me at first, this is a Gal Gun spin-off, the game doesn't lean into this until after you do the second playthrough for the real ending but I found it to just be weird, I guess they're playing into their audience but I really don't think it fits a Castlevania-like and I would have rather the game kept on with the slightly more serious tone of the first run.
Overall though if they make another Curse of the Moon game, I hope it's like this one, using more focused level design and balancing as well as 16-bit style visuals, because I think the first game already perfected the NES style.
Generally it has the same core formula as Curse of the Moon, but instead of controlling a variety of characters you unlock throughout a few levels you start with 2 characters to use until the end, with the unlocks being new subweapons that are always available in your inventory to quickly switch through.
The level design is smaller, but offers some more compelling alternate paths upon revisiting as well as giving you more freedom to backtrack, the game focuses more on choosing the right subweapon in the moment rather than picking up individual ones trying to predict when you'll need them.
The game is easier than both CotM games for the most part as if one of your characters dies, you can go reach their corpse after respawning and resuscitate them to continue, preventing you from losing a life unless both characters die. The levels are also less punishing for the most part, feels like there's a lot more healing, and also less opportunities for knockback to kill you, but I honestly didn't mind this especially after CotM 2.
What keeps me from giving a higher rating is 2 issues I have with the game, for one while the game generally being easier didn't bother me I wished the bosses had some more challenge to them, still prefer easier bosses over health taxes like there is in CotM 2. The other issue is that unbeknownst to me at first, this is a Gal Gun spin-off, the game doesn't lean into this until after you do the second playthrough for the real ending but I found it to just be weird, I guess they're playing into their audience but I really don't think it fits a Castlevania-like and I would have rather the game kept on with the slightly more serious tone of the first run.
Overall though if they make another Curse of the Moon game, I hope it's like this one, using more focused level design and balancing as well as 16-bit style visuals, because I think the first game already perfected the NES style.
Hype
While I appreciate the new characters and also the small attempt to have them connect to each other more, this game was a disappointment.
I admire the first Curse of the Moon as the peak of the gameplay elements from Castlevania III, making a more balanced but still challenging adventure with decent replayability. Curse of the Moon 2 goes way too overboard.
You will notice early on that the challenge is amped way up from the get-go but this didn't bother me at the start. Eventually though I found myself going through a couple of seemingly nonsensical platforming rooms, fighting bosses without being able to properly land hits without getting hit myself no matter what I did as you need very specific positioning to hit them without proper defense for yourself (Lavalandra, Titankhamun and later) and leaving the end of Episode 1 unsatisfied. Then you start Episode 2 and find that not only do you have one less character to work with again, but also the bosses are even more unfairly designed in their attacks, and Zengetsu's new sword that's required for the true ending takes away his combo and air slash attack. The challenge in this game felt far from fair by that point and I gave up trying to actually get the true ending, I am of the opinion that good challenge should give you the chance to actually be effective instead of imposing health taxes on you just for the sake of it and this game wasn't really motivating me to continue.
Play Curse of the Moon 1 unless you only like classicvania for busting your balls, in which case play this one instead.
I admire the first Curse of the Moon as the peak of the gameplay elements from Castlevania III, making a more balanced but still challenging adventure with decent replayability. Curse of the Moon 2 goes way too overboard.
You will notice early on that the challenge is amped way up from the get-go but this didn't bother me at the start. Eventually though I found myself going through a couple of seemingly nonsensical platforming rooms, fighting bosses without being able to properly land hits without getting hit myself no matter what I did as you need very specific positioning to hit them without proper defense for yourself (Lavalandra, Titankhamun and later) and leaving the end of Episode 1 unsatisfied. Then you start Episode 2 and find that not only do you have one less character to work with again, but also the bosses are even more unfairly designed in their attacks, and Zengetsu's new sword that's required for the true ending takes away his combo and air slash attack. The challenge in this game felt far from fair by that point and I gave up trying to actually get the true ending, I am of the opinion that good challenge should give you the chance to actually be effective instead of imposing health taxes on you just for the sake of it and this game wasn't really motivating me to continue.
Play Curse of the Moon 1 unless you only like classicvania for busting your balls, in which case play this one instead.
Writing: Awful.
Story: Confused in itself.
Graphics: Ugly.
Gameplay: Best combat ever made in a Spider-Man game.
Seriously, for everything bad about this game the answer is just "but the combat is fun". Switching between regular and symbiote Spidey on the fly, chaining combos on the ground, walls and air, web zipping over enemies without stopping, it's almost Devil May Cry like to the point where I forgot that most characters had awful voice casting, that the framerate is less than ideal and that the side missions are also just combat with MMO checklists of "Kill X".
Should also mention that the web slinging controls are the best in any Spider-Man game I played, but you need to get some collectibles to level it up to its full potential which is nice but honestly tedious.
All in all though... this game is way too fun, I don't have much else to say about it, but if you can ignore the presentation you can really find lots of enjoyment on it. If it had better writing, like say from Edge of Time, and some more variety in the activities so you also do get a little break from combat and more cool slinging, I may have even situated it as my favorite Spidey game.
Story: Confused in itself.
Graphics: Ugly.
Gameplay: Best combat ever made in a Spider-Man game.
Seriously, for everything bad about this game the answer is just "but the combat is fun". Switching between regular and symbiote Spidey on the fly, chaining combos on the ground, walls and air, web zipping over enemies without stopping, it's almost Devil May Cry like to the point where I forgot that most characters had awful voice casting, that the framerate is less than ideal and that the side missions are also just combat with MMO checklists of "Kill X".
Should also mention that the web slinging controls are the best in any Spider-Man game I played, but you need to get some collectibles to level it up to its full potential which is nice but honestly tedious.
All in all though... this game is way too fun, I don't have much else to say about it, but if you can ignore the presentation you can really find lots of enjoyment on it. If it had better writing, like say from Edge of Time, and some more variety in the activities so you also do get a little break from combat and more cool slinging, I may have even situated it as my favorite Spidey game.
2005
This game's cool and awesome, Ultimate Spider-Man is a smaller scale Spider-Man 2 but with so much style.
The visuals are comic book stylized, including cutscenes that play around with different cameras shown as comic panels, using onomatopoeias for flavor as well.
The story is simple, switching from the perspective of Spider-Man and Venom every couple of missions and eventually connecting them both, apparently the game can be considered canon to the Ultimate comics which is cool to know but I haven't read them myself.
The music is great, makes me think of the word bopping which probably makes no sense but you might see what I mean if you listen to it.
The controls are a little odd at first, may be a mouse and keyboard thing, but took me some more than an hour to really get a hang of them. After getting used to the controls though this is the fastest Spider-Man game I've played, you can combine web slinging, web zips and double jumps to traverse the map and it can go so so fast, there's races to do to practice this and I'd recommend doing so to get a better hang of the controls.
My problem with Spider-Man gameplay comes from the combat, it's pretty simplistic with a punch, kick and grab button as well as covering enemies with webs, but the game encourages comboing by switching targets each hit for extra damage. Switching targets to be more efficient is great but bosses are all single targets, which means you'll just spam your attacks without that much strategy and win most of the time.
However the shortcomings of playing as Spider-Man get balanced by the fact that you also get to play as Venom, he can't web sling but can jump far and do a web zip but with his symbiote tentacles, combat with him isn't that different but the symbiote suit needs to be fed, so you'll need to consume people to make sure you don't run out of health. Asides from that Venom combat is honestly more satisfying because he's kinda more violent, the symbiote tentacles are very powerful to use, and they actually can make boss fights less annoying.
I don't care much for completing the open world but going through it is fun in itself, the simple story works well enough for playing through the missions featuring a bunch of recognizable villains and characters, at its core this game is pretty standard but it's just very fun and stylized so it's worth the 3 or 4 hours to play through the main game.
The visuals are comic book stylized, including cutscenes that play around with different cameras shown as comic panels, using onomatopoeias for flavor as well.
The story is simple, switching from the perspective of Spider-Man and Venom every couple of missions and eventually connecting them both, apparently the game can be considered canon to the Ultimate comics which is cool to know but I haven't read them myself.
The music is great, makes me think of the word bopping which probably makes no sense but you might see what I mean if you listen to it.
The controls are a little odd at first, may be a mouse and keyboard thing, but took me some more than an hour to really get a hang of them. After getting used to the controls though this is the fastest Spider-Man game I've played, you can combine web slinging, web zips and double jumps to traverse the map and it can go so so fast, there's races to do to practice this and I'd recommend doing so to get a better hang of the controls.
My problem with Spider-Man gameplay comes from the combat, it's pretty simplistic with a punch, kick and grab button as well as covering enemies with webs, but the game encourages comboing by switching targets each hit for extra damage. Switching targets to be more efficient is great but bosses are all single targets, which means you'll just spam your attacks without that much strategy and win most of the time.
However the shortcomings of playing as Spider-Man get balanced by the fact that you also get to play as Venom, he can't web sling but can jump far and do a web zip but with his symbiote tentacles, combat with him isn't that different but the symbiote suit needs to be fed, so you'll need to consume people to make sure you don't run out of health. Asides from that Venom combat is honestly more satisfying because he's kinda more violent, the symbiote tentacles are very powerful to use, and they actually can make boss fights less annoying.
I don't care much for completing the open world but going through it is fun in itself, the simple story works well enough for playing through the missions featuring a bunch of recognizable villains and characters, at its core this game is pretty standard but it's just very fun and stylized so it's worth the 3 or 4 hours to play through the main game.
This is so close to being a decent game. So so close.
It starts the story awkwardly by showing Uncle Ben's death scene following how it was in the previous movie, then doing a time skip over some time after the previous game. Spider-Man starts out chasing after the mugger that shot Uncle Ben, again awkwardly mirroring the previous movie, but it ties into interrogating a soon to be Shocker who reveals a gang war, in combination with a serial killer that murders criminals, has all of them on edge and constantly struggling to get firepower on a level over the other gangs. Soon after, The Kingpin starts an agreement with Harry Osborn to create a new military police task force to keep crime in check, however this is obviously a plan by the Kingpin to prevent other gangs from having too much influence and keep his illegal business at the top, what's more, they also constantly pursue Spider-Man from this point on, using Jameson's narrative of the menace.
Spider-Man needs to learn how to better deal with these criminals, and Kraven the hunter takes an interest in training him. This story is initially set up at this point in an interesting way, but it seems like Sony and Activision weren't gonna let Beenox avoid adapting the movie this time and the movie plot points get thrown in. Meeting Max and Harry is done so awkwardly and their characters barely develop. There's a dialogue system that lets you choose question to ask characters during some cutscenes, but they don't really change anything and just boil down to if you want all the dialogue or not.
As the story progresses the game keeps shuffling between trying to follow the movie and its own ideas, which ends up in the story threads either being rushed or leading nowhere, including the Beenox standard of fighting Black Cat to pad out some extra story. While the story in the first Amazing Spider-Man game was pretty average it at least followed its own thread and wasn't held down by limitations imposed from the movie, except for some basic concepts, I'm wishing Beenox had been allowed to follow their own ideas again as they had potential but ultimately don't amount to much as is.
Now for the gameplay... I'm very mixed on the combat, different suits will boost different stats but they don't feel like they matter, the upgrades also barely feel like they make a difference and the combo system feels strange. While it may seem more polished, the actual combat just feels less satisfying to me and it's just diet Arkham but you can mash buttons and win 9/10 times. Boss fights are mostly average and they're usually the most interesting with their QTEs, just like the previous game. People say stealth is better in this game but I found it less satisfying too.
On the other hand web swinging is improved over Amazing Spider-Man 1, now you actually need to be aware of if there's something to swing off of, the camera will give you more space so you don't get nauseous and you have to swing each arm with a separate button, it's fun to get into a rhythm using both arms and it's also useful to focus on one arm while turning, combining all this with the Web Rush mechanic that lets you aim at a point so Spider-Man can rush over it, you can go really fast and it's really fun to swing around the city like this. Unfortunately the story missions still use the Spider-Man 2000 cloud swinging mechanic like in the previous game, except worse because many of them take place outdoors as well, so it feels very limiting.
The biggest problem though is what everyone talks about, the crime events, small crimes occur all the time during freeroam gameplay, they all have a time limit and a short cutscene upon completion which makes it feel like an even bigger waste of your time. The crimes you stop will boost your reputation positively, giving you a hero status, but if you don't stop them you'll reputation will keep dropping and you'll be considered a menace, which will give Kingpin's corrupt task force an excuse to try to take you down. The task force will install electric shields and automatic turrets, as well as send out drones and patrols against you, this makes the freeroam part of the game a constant race to keep your reputation up just so they don't attack you all the time AND it also doesn't stop even in the post game after you beat all the missions.
Overall while the core mechanics usually don't feel as satisfying, I think the enhanced controls could have made this game more fun than its predecessor but the crime and reputation system completely sour them as they're constantly taking your attention, it sucks that I actually like the visuals and unlockables in this game more but actually playing it is such a stress, if you're hurting for more Spider-Man then you could do worse but I wouldn't recommend seeking it out specifically. It saddens me how much potential Beenox's Spider-Man games had that was never fully realized due to their circumstances.
UPDATE: After going through Insomniac's first Spider-Man game and remembering what I liked about this one, I think even I was harsh on it. The combat simply isn't as flashy as I would have hoped but it is decently paced and serviceable, but generally the open world ideas are usually great despite the menace system being executed so obnoxiously. In the end, I do prefer this over the first Amazing game and even Insomniac's offering, mainly due to it having good ideas that Insomniac barely improved on, or even downgraded.
It starts the story awkwardly by showing Uncle Ben's death scene following how it was in the previous movie, then doing a time skip over some time after the previous game. Spider-Man starts out chasing after the mugger that shot Uncle Ben, again awkwardly mirroring the previous movie, but it ties into interrogating a soon to be Shocker who reveals a gang war, in combination with a serial killer that murders criminals, has all of them on edge and constantly struggling to get firepower on a level over the other gangs. Soon after, The Kingpin starts an agreement with Harry Osborn to create a new military police task force to keep crime in check, however this is obviously a plan by the Kingpin to prevent other gangs from having too much influence and keep his illegal business at the top, what's more, they also constantly pursue Spider-Man from this point on, using Jameson's narrative of the menace.
Spider-Man needs to learn how to better deal with these criminals, and Kraven the hunter takes an interest in training him. This story is initially set up at this point in an interesting way, but it seems like Sony and Activision weren't gonna let Beenox avoid adapting the movie this time and the movie plot points get thrown in. Meeting Max and Harry is done so awkwardly and their characters barely develop. There's a dialogue system that lets you choose question to ask characters during some cutscenes, but they don't really change anything and just boil down to if you want all the dialogue or not.
As the story progresses the game keeps shuffling between trying to follow the movie and its own ideas, which ends up in the story threads either being rushed or leading nowhere, including the Beenox standard of fighting Black Cat to pad out some extra story. While the story in the first Amazing Spider-Man game was pretty average it at least followed its own thread and wasn't held down by limitations imposed from the movie, except for some basic concepts, I'm wishing Beenox had been allowed to follow their own ideas again as they had potential but ultimately don't amount to much as is.
Now for the gameplay... I'm very mixed on the combat, different suits will boost different stats but they don't feel like they matter, the upgrades also barely feel like they make a difference and the combo system feels strange. While it may seem more polished, the actual combat just feels less satisfying to me and it's just diet Arkham but you can mash buttons and win 9/10 times. Boss fights are mostly average and they're usually the most interesting with their QTEs, just like the previous game. People say stealth is better in this game but I found it less satisfying too.
On the other hand web swinging is improved over Amazing Spider-Man 1, now you actually need to be aware of if there's something to swing off of, the camera will give you more space so you don't get nauseous and you have to swing each arm with a separate button, it's fun to get into a rhythm using both arms and it's also useful to focus on one arm while turning, combining all this with the Web Rush mechanic that lets you aim at a point so Spider-Man can rush over it, you can go really fast and it's really fun to swing around the city like this. Unfortunately the story missions still use the Spider-Man 2000 cloud swinging mechanic like in the previous game, except worse because many of them take place outdoors as well, so it feels very limiting.
The biggest problem though is what everyone talks about, the crime events, small crimes occur all the time during freeroam gameplay, they all have a time limit and a short cutscene upon completion which makes it feel like an even bigger waste of your time. The crimes you stop will boost your reputation positively, giving you a hero status, but if you don't stop them you'll reputation will keep dropping and you'll be considered a menace, which will give Kingpin's corrupt task force an excuse to try to take you down. The task force will install electric shields and automatic turrets, as well as send out drones and patrols against you, this makes the freeroam part of the game a constant race to keep your reputation up just so they don't attack you all the time AND it also doesn't stop even in the post game after you beat all the missions.
Overall while the core mechanics usually don't feel as satisfying, I think the enhanced controls could have made this game more fun than its predecessor but the crime and reputation system completely sour them as they're constantly taking your attention, it sucks that I actually like the visuals and unlockables in this game more but actually playing it is such a stress, if you're hurting for more Spider-Man then you could do worse but I wouldn't recommend seeking it out specifically. It saddens me how much potential Beenox's Spider-Man games had that was never fully realized due to their circumstances.
UPDATE: After going through Insomniac's first Spider-Man game and remembering what I liked about this one, I think even I was harsh on it. The combat simply isn't as flashy as I would have hoped but it is decently paced and serviceable, but generally the open world ideas are usually great despite the menace system being executed so obnoxiously. In the end, I do prefer this over the first Amazing game and even Insomniac's offering, mainly due to it having good ideas that Insomniac barely improved on, or even downgraded.
Might be the best of the Shovel Knight games, not only am I a big King Knight fan now but these were the most fun levels I played through, the new dash and spin mechanics make for more dynamic platforming that makes the levels more elaborate.
The soundtrack is full of remixes that, for someone that hasn't played Shovel Knight in a while, filled me with memories, there's new background for a bunch of other characters with great writing and the merit medals are fun to collect too.
I wasn't a fan of Joustus, the card game, but it's completely optional if you don't want to 100% the game which I'm fine with, so it doesn't get in the way if you don't enjoy it and just want to play through a good platformer.
A very humorous, polished, fun and nostalgic journey, loved it a lot.
The soundtrack is full of remixes that, for someone that hasn't played Shovel Knight in a while, filled me with memories, there's new background for a bunch of other characters with great writing and the merit medals are fun to collect too.
I wasn't a fan of Joustus, the card game, but it's completely optional if you don't want to 100% the game which I'm fine with, so it doesn't get in the way if you don't enjoy it and just want to play through a good platformer.
A very humorous, polished, fun and nostalgic journey, loved it a lot.
2000
I'm already at full health!
This is a good game with some issues, it has a janky camera that follows the view of your character but only when standing still, combat controls that don't feel as responsive as they should and pretty much faked dualshock support. However, the game has interesting and some surprisingly big levels, boss fights with iconic villains that can be a little odd but fun nonetheless, writing that reminded me of watching the cartoons as a kid and it doesn't overstay its welcome. As a bonus, the levels have many secrets with unlockable extras, mostly for viewing galleries with some art and character bios but also alternate costumes!
The soundtrack is pretty funky, certainly something that you would only get on games from its time and I really like it, there's also cameos from a bunch of different Marvel heroes which are all just there to be silly, puts a smile on you. Voice acting is of mostly average quality but they really nailed it with Spider-Man and Venom, enjoyed listening to them the most along with Stan Lee as the narrator, he's not heard often but it's always a joy.
I can very much see why people enjoyed this game so much back then, especially as children, it has the right vibe for someone that likes the silly of Spider-Man and is still pretty playable once you get used to the controls, it's fun.
This is a good game with some issues, it has a janky camera that follows the view of your character but only when standing still, combat controls that don't feel as responsive as they should and pretty much faked dualshock support. However, the game has interesting and some surprisingly big levels, boss fights with iconic villains that can be a little odd but fun nonetheless, writing that reminded me of watching the cartoons as a kid and it doesn't overstay its welcome. As a bonus, the levels have many secrets with unlockable extras, mostly for viewing galleries with some art and character bios but also alternate costumes!
The soundtrack is pretty funky, certainly something that you would only get on games from its time and I really like it, there's also cameos from a bunch of different Marvel heroes which are all just there to be silly, puts a smile on you. Voice acting is of mostly average quality but they really nailed it with Spider-Man and Venom, enjoyed listening to them the most along with Stan Lee as the narrator, he's not heard often but it's always a joy.
I can very much see why people enjoyed this game so much back then, especially as children, it has the right vibe for someone that likes the silly of Spider-Man and is still pretty playable once you get used to the controls, it's fun.
Do not ever play the PS3 version, otherwise cool
2019
Among the best games I played, I went in just expecting to have a quick game to play and ended up so incredibly attached to it. It looks beautiful, gameplay is perfect and the story surprised me.
The gameplay ties in perfectly with the music, nailing the techniques for running fast while deflecting bullets and slashing enemies, all while a soundtrack that brings me back to how pumped Hotline Miami made me feel plays, is awesome. There's some simple platforming sections that rely less on just jumping and more on how to deal with the enemies and hazards around you is great, every room is an engaging violent puzzle to go through.
The story was surprisingly developed, I didn't know that much about the game and ended up loving every character and story bit. At first I was scared the story would kill the pace of the gameplay but it is luckily also extremely engaging.
This is a new favorite for me and I'd recommend it to everyone, true that the game is short but it is not any shorter than it should be, well worth it.
The gameplay ties in perfectly with the music, nailing the techniques for running fast while deflecting bullets and slashing enemies, all while a soundtrack that brings me back to how pumped Hotline Miami made me feel plays, is awesome. There's some simple platforming sections that rely less on just jumping and more on how to deal with the enemies and hazards around you is great, every room is an engaging violent puzzle to go through.
The story was surprisingly developed, I didn't know that much about the game and ended up loving every character and story bit. At first I was scared the story would kill the pace of the gameplay but it is luckily also extremely engaging.
This is a new favorite for me and I'd recommend it to everyone, true that the game is short but it is not any shorter than it should be, well worth it.
Honestly great game! This is a game that takes the most solid elements from Castlevania III and runs with them without making a daunting experience.
Visuals have great detail without going to the point of not feeling authentic to an NES, although it obviously wouldn't run this game, but it's a nice look, same can be said for the music even if it never really reaches the height of any of the iconic Castlevania soundtracks.
Level design is non linear with different paths each level and even ties into the different characters, as you progress the first few levels you can recruit new characters to play as and each one has different abilities. Zengetsu has a short sword and not very versatile movement but carries a lot of health, Miriam can jump higher and do a ground dash to reach some extra areas as well as carrying a long range whip like a Belmont would, Gebel is a vampire that can turn into a bat and fly for the same purpose, and Alfred is an alchemist that gets subweapons that aren't usually great for direct combat but are good utilities. Each character has different levels of strengh and HP as well as being necessary to access some of the different areas around levels or to find secrets, and with the different paths available you can explore a lot.
You can also choose not to recruit any characters, or kill them to upgrade Zengetsu's abilities, there's a fair bit of experimentation to be done with the game like this and it fundamentally changes how you play which is really cool to see.
Dying doesn't immediately makes you lose a life as it instead makes you lose the character that lost all HP temporarily, so you can get some progress before reaching a checkpoint and recovering your characters by losing a life, which can be a decent strategy to get through the levels. Exploring can lead you to upgrades for all characters (more mana for subweapons, more health) or even easier sections to reach the end quicker. Challenge ramps up very well and never gets unfair during the main game, although in Nightmare mode I'm not sure of how you're supposed to dodge some attacks but I'm also slow.
When it comes to modernization, the controls are just outright better than the classic Castlevanias and the life system works in your favor, there's also an easier mode with infinite lives and without damage knockback, which is in my opinion a little too much as I feel like infinite lives would have been enough, but a lot of people have seemingly enjoyed playing through that mode and it's fine for quickly getting through the game.
While the game is short there's a lot to explore and the unlockable Nightmare mode very much encourages it, and as it is just more tightly designed than the classic CV games from controls to level design, it just surpasses them. Sure, it's a game that doesn't do much new in this sense, but executing a formula extremely well and being more fun than its predecessors should be enough for it to be worth your time.
Visuals have great detail without going to the point of not feeling authentic to an NES, although it obviously wouldn't run this game, but it's a nice look, same can be said for the music even if it never really reaches the height of any of the iconic Castlevania soundtracks.
Level design is non linear with different paths each level and even ties into the different characters, as you progress the first few levels you can recruit new characters to play as and each one has different abilities. Zengetsu has a short sword and not very versatile movement but carries a lot of health, Miriam can jump higher and do a ground dash to reach some extra areas as well as carrying a long range whip like a Belmont would, Gebel is a vampire that can turn into a bat and fly for the same purpose, and Alfred is an alchemist that gets subweapons that aren't usually great for direct combat but are good utilities. Each character has different levels of strengh and HP as well as being necessary to access some of the different areas around levels or to find secrets, and with the different paths available you can explore a lot.
You can also choose not to recruit any characters, or kill them to upgrade Zengetsu's abilities, there's a fair bit of experimentation to be done with the game like this and it fundamentally changes how you play which is really cool to see.
Dying doesn't immediately makes you lose a life as it instead makes you lose the character that lost all HP temporarily, so you can get some progress before reaching a checkpoint and recovering your characters by losing a life, which can be a decent strategy to get through the levels. Exploring can lead you to upgrades for all characters (more mana for subweapons, more health) or even easier sections to reach the end quicker. Challenge ramps up very well and never gets unfair during the main game, although in Nightmare mode I'm not sure of how you're supposed to dodge some attacks but I'm also slow.
When it comes to modernization, the controls are just outright better than the classic Castlevanias and the life system works in your favor, there's also an easier mode with infinite lives and without damage knockback, which is in my opinion a little too much as I feel like infinite lives would have been enough, but a lot of people have seemingly enjoyed playing through that mode and it's fine for quickly getting through the game.
While the game is short there's a lot to explore and the unlockable Nightmare mode very much encourages it, and as it is just more tightly designed than the classic CV games from controls to level design, it just surpasses them. Sure, it's a game that doesn't do much new in this sense, but executing a formula extremely well and being more fun than its predecessors should be enough for it to be worth your time.
2015
Have no idea what happened but I'm satisfied with it.
2011
For how much it made fun of "modern FPS design" the game it was promoting was actually not very retro.
While the gameplay itself is more polished than Shattered Dimensions', the game is overall not as much of a challenge, it lacks the diverse stylized looks and diverse level design from its predecessor and has a story that's in concept pretty good but it's filled with questionable moments and characters that didn't need to be included.
Challenges as a means to get more upgrades come back but different, upgrades can be purchased throughout the game but some require golden spiders, they are obtainable in lesser quantities throughout levels but most may only be given to you when you do challenges PERFECTLY which actually crosses over to being too hard most of the time, but as the game isn't so hard only some of the upgrades feel essential so it isn't that big of a deal.
All that said I still really enjoyed my time with the game, the fluid combat using the abilities of Amazing and 2099 Spider-Man is great despite them keeping the tedious free fall sections from 2099, and while I don't care for most of the story, Peter and Miguel developing more together was really nice. I'd still recommend this game for anyone that wants to play it, don't expect it to be as amazing but it'll be a really good time regardless.
Challenges as a means to get more upgrades come back but different, upgrades can be purchased throughout the game but some require golden spiders, they are obtainable in lesser quantities throughout levels but most may only be given to you when you do challenges PERFECTLY which actually crosses over to being too hard most of the time, but as the game isn't so hard only some of the upgrades feel essential so it isn't that big of a deal.
All that said I still really enjoyed my time with the game, the fluid combat using the abilities of Amazing and 2099 Spider-Man is great despite them keeping the tedious free fall sections from 2099, and while I don't care for most of the story, Peter and Miguel developing more together was really nice. I'd still recommend this game for anyone that wants to play it, don't expect it to be as amazing but it'll be a really good time regardless.