It’s not Silksong, but that doesn’t make it a bad game.
The Penitent feels clunky compared to the Knight and the Hornet. Animations often can’t be cancelled, which means you have to play a bit more strategically and less reactively. Because of this, I often found it harder to get into a flow state and didn’t enjoy it as much. I think the developers deliberately opted for the classic Castlevania design here rather than the more modern HK design. Consequently, the game feels dated right from the start, even though it’s actually quite new.
The game shines in terms of its visuals and the design of the game world. The exploration aspect is fine, too. However, because of the pixel art style, I often felt that the game had missed an opportunity to look truly outstanding. Many dungeons and areas are simply too generic.
Many of the later quests are rubbish – you’re better off just Googling them. At least you don’t get locked out of them as you progress (as in the Souls games).
The endgame bosses Eviterno, Crescencia and Svnosa – who really should have had the chance to leave a lasting impression – annoyed me more than they entertained me. As I said, this was because I felt rather clunky the whole time and so couldn’t play as instinctively as I’d like to. There’s a very specific playbook that works. That might also be down to the fact that there are only two dimensions, but these bosses in particular, with their combination of rapid-fire attacks and long range, demanded a very specific approach, which I found a shame. But at least Eviterno had a cool rhythm to it, once you got past the RNG nonsense. I particularly liked the teleports, which you had to react to.
I’ve already half-forgotten a lot of the bosses. But the lift boss was very intense and fun; the big skeleton boss was fun apart from the rush attack; and parrying Orospina was fun. All of them, apart from the endgame bosses, were pushovers, though, and usually only took 10–15 minutes. The endgame bosses, on the other hand, were overpowered, including in terms of health.
The movement has also let me down on several occasions; it’s often unclear which attacks can be parried or dodged. Later on in particular, there are lots of arenas with very little ground to stand on, and you’re frequently killed by a hit-knockdown combo. At times, I simply found the game to be very RNG-heavy. There were situations where I dodged an attack, was in mid-air on my way to another platform, and was then hit there and pushed into the abyss. As you can’t dash through some enemies and have limited aerial mobility (unlike in HK), there was very little you could do about it. Even though this is what I would recognize as "traditional Metroidvania"-style, I do not have to like it that i should rather wait or play defensively.
Also, the fact that there is no true up/down-attacks when airborne are really annoying as you will spend 98% of the time just spamming the attack button.
Some NPCs were just plain creepy (looking at you, father with child). The world is defined by suffering, and NPCs are generally condemned to some form of penance or torment, which, over time, somehow dragged me down. At the same time, it also sparked a morbid interest. As I hadn’t played the first instalment, this was a new experience for me – one that didn’t surprise me, but which also didn’t motivate me to invest any more time in it or to wait for the next one.
