Blood of the Werewolf

Due to some dishonest behavior from the developers, I'm not inclined to cut them any slack, but I can still be fair. This isn't a bad game. The short version is that if the concept particularly appeals to you and you don't mind some 2.5D jankiness, it's worth a look. Platforming tends to fare badly in 2.5D, and Blood of the Werewolf suffers from some of the typical frustrations, but it does play decently overall. To its credit, BotW doesn't waste any time in ramping up the difficulty. It's never extreme by any means - this isn't masocore - but it's enough of a challenge to keep you saying "one more try" until you beat it. By far the biggest share of the challenge comes from platforming; enemies are spongy, but pose little actual threat, except when placed around pits (which, later in the game, they often are). Boss fights are fun, but go on for quite a while due to their massive health bars. However, although the game tries to offer a fair challenge by design, the execution stumbles at times. The huge knockback isn't really justified, due to the fast movement speed, loose jumping, and sometimes deceptive hit boxes. The sigils (100 or so of which will expand your life bar) aren't valuable enough to take risks for, since dying will send you back to the checkpoint to collect them all again. Some sequences require weaving between traps and projectiles, but these sometimes have sloppy timing or collision. Sine wave bats make an appearance here, but are much more obnoxious than usual. There are a handful of special skills you can find and upgrade, but aside from the healing skill, most aren't especially useful. Tonally, the game is weirdly inconsistent. Selena's severe, morose monologues between levels clash with the self-aware silliness of jumping over sawblades and grasping skeleton hands before fighting a cartoonish mummy. Even the title cards before each level deliberately evoke B-horror schlock, but the tone of the story ranges from mournful to jarringly angry. All of this unfortunately builds to an unsatisfying ending - clearly a sequel was planned, but never made. My biggest complaint, though, is that the game doesn't fully take advantage of its werewolf premise. You spend at least as much time in human form as in werewolf form, and you have no control over when you change; some sequences and bosses will even repeatedly shift you back and forth. The werewolf doesn't feel as powerful as it should. Your claw attack has to be charged for a brief time to do any significant damage, and the wolf is just as easily bounced around by enemies as the human. You'll also do a fair bit of platforming as the wolf, which feels awkward due to its massive size. I think the concept might have worked better if the game allowed switching forms at will, and further emphasized the differences between the two - the wolf's enhanced traversal and combat abilities versus the human's ranged weapon and more precise movements.

Ok/20.

It's fine.

This game is neither good or bad.....is something in between because is a GENERIC platformer. I sustain this because it doesn't have an identity of it's own, so I don't think it worthy of your time. You'll be better off trying other of the really good platforming games available and avoiding this.

I got this for free, so I'll hesitate to say I overpaid, but this game isn't particularly good. The plot seems to have low relevance to what you're actually doing in game. Why am I fighting all these spitting sahuagin? Why is your home apparently some kind of tower? Why are purple birds attacking me? Controls are fine, but graphics are kind of poor even for 2014.

нет

This is a great game but it's not for everyone. The artwork is gorgeous, the controls and level design are extremely tight and even the music and voice acting are very high quality. I also absolutely adore all of the nods to classic horror films, books and games. But this is "old school" gameplay as filtered through the very particular aughts/early teens lens of indie games like "I Wanna Be The Guy". And while nowhere near as difficult as that game, with unlimited lives/continues and very reasonable checkpoints throughout, if you don't enjoy repeating short sections again and again until you perfect them you're unlikely to finish this gem. Although I should point out that when you quit the game and come back it will start you at the exact checkpoint in the level you stopped at. So you can always stop playing if you feel yourself getting frustrated with a section and come back to conquer it later. Which is great! Comparisons to the original Castlevania games are both intentional (there is a cute reference to the Belmont family on a billboard at one point) and unavoidable. This game is easier than most classic pre-Symphony of the Night Castlevania titles, almost all of which I have also beaten on their original hardware. I'd say it's slightly harder than the easiest of those games, Super Castlevania 4. But it doesn't play like any of the classic Castlevanias either. The jumping and general movement are much more fluent and traditional, more akin to Mega Man than the "ClassicVanias". And particularly in the final stages of the game there is a much greater emphasis on platforming while avoiding projectiles than those games. Gameplay is split between sections where your protagonist is indoors away from the moonlight and therefore human, and outside in the light of the moon in their wolf form. Each form comes with different attacks and jumping abilities. Your human form has ranged attacks and the normal jump controls you expect in a platformer, with jumps that vary in height and distance based on how hard/long you press the button. While your werewolf form has (mostly) melee attacks and the ability to double-jump in addition to normal jump controls. These switch-ups help keep the gameplay feeling fresh and varied. This is not a Metroidvania, the game has a traditional level-and-boss based structure. But there are items to collect which increase your health and ammo pools as you hit thresholds of them collected in the game, as well as hidden upgrades you can find to power up your weapons in secret areas in each level. The game does allow you to replay levels to pick up items you missed. But the upgrades while helpful are not essential to beating the game. Indeed even though ammo drops are abundant and your ammo meter is fully filled upon a re-spawn from death I rarely used my powered up secondary fire outside of the final two levels and boss fights. Though the increased crossbow fire and werewolf healing ability did come in extremely handy in the final boss fight. In summation if you like the theme and old school action platformers this is an absolute must play. If you're not sure I recommend checking out some gameplay videos to see if this is for you. Just don't get hung up on the story which I found unnecessarily dark when contrasted with the overall camp of the game, and sadly ends on a cliffhanger promising a sequel that never came.