Recent reviews by Orchestructive

Classic IGAvania at it's finest. If you love Symphony of the Night, the controls and feel of the game will feel incredibly comfortable and familiar to you. The score is by Michiru Yamane, the same composer as SotN. The hybrid 2D/3D art style looks great. A must-own for any Metroidvania fan.

This. Game. Feels. Awesome.

What you will get:
- Awesome feeling movment mechanics
- Fun combat with a unique weapon system
- A true heir to the Metroidvania moniker
- A pretty intriguing story
- Great looking sprites with incredible animation (so many animation frames!)

Some minor critiques:
- Story is delivered mostly through full-screen text dumps
- No option to "not save" at save points if you still want the health refill
- Mostly horizontal maps (so far)

I'm only a couple hours in and I can already say this is the first Metroidvania purchase in quite some time that I don't regret for "some reason." This game has me in the same way that Symphony of the Night and Aria of Sorrow had me. Hats off to the Devs!

DISCLAIMER: I have a top-end, i7/1080ti system so this will not be performance-focused. Also, I willingly play this game on controller so the Mouse "Raw Input" and overall "Controller-emulation" keyboard controlls are not part of this review, this is a review of the game itself. I am aware that this game has some performance issues on lower hardware, and agree that the input-based issues are a problem that should be addressed (I hope Raw mouse input is added at some point); however, the following review content is focused solely on the gameplay and content aspects of this game, and not it's technical issues, as they have been well documented and do not affect those with high-power systems who willingly play on controller (like myself). So this is only a review of the actual game.

REVIEW: This game is super fun.

This is probably one of the best 8-bit "Vania-likes" in existence, probably better than some of the original Castlevania games. I cannot recommend this game highly enough.

(Product recieved for free as a Kickstarter backer reward)

I really don't like Steam's binary review system. I feel like "some" people would like this game... but to me it's suffering the following:

• Imbalance between (unintended?) camp and "horror" (mostly to do with a couple V/O performances)
  
• EXTREME over-reliance on jump-scares (which takes away from the investigation/mystery aspect)
  
• Some rough writing here and there
  
• Some "simulated choice" options (i.e. you HAVE to say things even if you wouldn't want to or it wouldn't make sense for your character to)
  
• Some REALLY obscure puzzles that have had to be answered by the developers themselves
  
  All-in-all it's not a "bad" game... but it's a great "idea" with some execution misses.
  
  That being said, if you love jump-scares and some weird screwed up imagery with "INTENSE" sound effects, etc. then you might dig this. If I were to arm-chair develop this, I would have held back on some of the jump scares to make them more effective than just annyoing, and leaned more into the "missing person investigation" aspect of things vs. bringing in the supernatural elements so quickly.
  
  I think the overall presentation and mechanics are solid... none of my critiques of this game are "budget-related," but more about writing/pacing/etc.
  
  I'm gonna give this a "no" but with a big caveat, that I wouldn't recommend it to MOST people... I really think something special and unique is buried under the surface of this game, but I think maybe the development team just got a little to shy of the story itself and decided to overload it with trope-y jumpscare image-horror to cover it up a bit.
  
  I know these games are made by real people, and I empathize with the team behind this and hope they know that my "negative" review comes with a healthy does of optimisim that they have something great in them and look forward to their next go of it!

This port has weird technical issues and a community that instead of wanting to help sort through technical issues, will just tell you "the game works fine for me!" and then try to convince you that you don't know anything about computers.

Here are some common issues with this game:

- Input-related | Game will freak out (not work) input-wise if you have any "non-standard" HID controller installed on your system (think HOTAS, drawing tablets, etc.)
- Game runs at "half-speed" when window is in focus | If you run in windowed mode (or borderless mode) and click "outside" of the game window, then it runs normally, but as soon as you click the game itself, it will slow down to about half FPS
- Multi-Monitor issues | If running on multi-monitors, the game will default to a non-primary monitor when running borderless, the only workaround is to edit the .ini file
- 144hz monitor issues | If you have a high-refresh rate monitor the game will behave erractically

Until these issues can be resolved, you are taking a chance on buying this. It might work (working for "most people") or it might not. If you use your computer for anything outside of a dedicated gaming/internet rig, there might be something you have plugged in or installed that will trash this game.

In other words, it's another SquareEnix Final Fantasy port.

Yes... sort of.

This is a tricky one. I feel there is a good game "in there somewhere" and what is presented is compelling enough to drag someone to one of its multiple endings at least once... however--

There's a laundry list of issues that prevent this from being a total recommendation:

• A spartan, mostly-functional, often-frustrating UI
  
• A nearly invisble mouse cursor that will distract you from immersion more than once
  
• An inconsistent art style between characters, environments, music, etc.
  
• No real explanation or demonstration of the SPIN system (just lets you know "It's a thing")
  
• Clunky play control style that will leave you feeling disconnected from the protagonist
  
• Really thin content with lots of interesting setups that don't go anywhere and keep you on the main-story track

So yeah, do I think it's a good game? Yes... ish.

Would I recommend it? Sure... kinda... with some warnings.

I feel like there's a better game in the ideas and concepts that this game touches on, both mechanically and story-wise. It leans hard on some fairly trope-y motivations for its characters and can't seem to really figure out what its antagonist's motivations are (There are a couple very different, unrelated reasons for the antagonist to "hate" that seem disconnected and unexplored; it's as if two writers had two different backstories outlined and they just included them both). You don't really get to spend a lot of "time" with your characters, as the story comes at you fast when it's story time, and is non-existent when it's side-quest time.

Oh yeah, this game has weird, non-sequitur side-quests.

The game at its best is dour, dark, unrelenting, but then seems to drag in some incongruous light-heartedness, and instead of feeling like "respite" (which seems like the intention) it just feels like you're playing a different story for a few minutes every now and then.

Again, it's frustrating, there's the core of something brilliant here, but I feel like something along the way, (time, budget, writing ability, etc.) cut itself off at the knees.

I'm not giving it a "no" because it's by no means a "bad" game... but it's just a shadow if what it could have been.

The game itself, for what it is, is fine. It's a more poorly executed 999/VLR.

The animations are clunky, almost to the point that they shouldn't have included them and just went back to the VN style of 999. Most of the "action" happens off-screen, not for the Tarantino-effect, but becuase the animators were doing such a terrible job that they just removed all complex animations from the game by moving the camera away.

All of the story "mechanics" of 999/VLR (read: Morphogenetic fields, multiple timelines, etc.) are used here to the point of losing their "wow" factor and as a "basic" game mechanic rather than a narrative strength.

The puzzle mechanics range from "yeah that makes sense" to "panty-twistingly obnoxious developer-mind-reading nonsense." Some puzzles you will see how to solve them and go "ugh, I don't have time for that," and just look up the solution.

The new characters are basically pointless except for one, and even that one is kind of a letdown in the end.

The only good thing about this game are the "moments" in some of the scenarios, and if you look at this game as its "vignette"-style single story nuggets, they're not "bad" per say, but put them all together and you may find yourself annoyed by the time you're done.

::WARNING: SPOILERS FOR 999/VLR/ZTD AHEAD::

If you have played 999/VLR and was hoping this game would give you answers on/dive deeper into:

Free the Soul
The Moon
K/?
Clover/Alice/Aoi
Crash Keys
Radical-6
Brother
Dio & The Myrmidons

Then sorry... you won't get much clarity, and what's given will just upset you and get you mad at the game.

The game's ending itself basically wipes out the existence of one game and completely ignores the other.

If you've played the other two games in the series, then you'll probably get this, you might even like it... I didn't... not really. It wasn't the worst... but ultimately disappointing... which makes me sad. I LOVED the first two.

Do you like Street Fighter?
Do you want to play Street Fighter?
Do you want to be part of the Fighting Game Community (FGC)?
Do you treat fighting games like a sport (in both playing/watching)?
Do names like Infiltration, Tokido, Momochi, PRBalrog, FChamp, etc. mean anything to you?
Do you know what a Capcom Pro Tour is?
Do you plan on attending or watching EVO this year?

If you answered yes to any of these questions... then buy this game. If you answered yes to two or more of these questions, you probably already OWN this game.

If don't know or care about any of that stuff, and just want a game to play against the computer, there are a bunch of other fighting games available to you, this is not the one you're looking for.

That being said, this game is good. It's probably the best fundamental-gameplay Street Fighter since Third Strike and has done away with all the nonsense that Ultra Street Fighter IV brought into play.

I recommend this game highly... because I don't care about things like "story mode" or "arcade mode." If you DO care about those things, there are other fighting games available to you. I, however, care about great core gameplay. Street Fighter V has that in spades, and it will only get better.

/shoryuken

Tight Platforming
Methodical Combat
Familiarity-based Exploration
Sense of Character Progression

Everything you love about the Igarashi-era Castlevania series...

... none of which can be found here.

Instead, what you get is a God-of-War-like, Quicktime Event riddled, "Western Take" on a truly beloved franchise. Everything down to the feel of the "whip" weapon and "kill all enemies to proceed" gameplay elements from God of War (read: Devil May Cry) is here, and gone are the things that made Castlevania so magical. The story takes itself seriously (a huge no-no for a great Castlevania game: "WHAT IS A MAN!?") and feels SO serious that there's hardly any levity or fun to be had in the narrative, let alone the gameplay.

If you want to play a better version of this game, go play Darksiders, or Devil May Cry, or God of War... if you want Castlevania... well, you're just going to have to wait for Bloodstained.