This is a good game. Very fun and addictive gameplay. Definitely worth playing through. But there's a lack of polish that keeps it from being great.
1. The collision boxes around terrain objects like trees and bushes are so big, the go way beyond the actual size of the object. This means you can't intuitively trust your eyes in regards to where you can and can't move.
2. It's sometimes possible to move sideways through terrain objects, even though you're not supposed to.
3. There is very little apparent logic to what bombs damage. Sometimes you kill just a single enemy in a cluster of six, some of them even being in the exact same space as the one that got killed. Other times you kill an enemy both above and below you, but you take no damage. And sometimes you kill an enemy and damage yourself at the same distance you've previously been safe from harm. The fact that the visual effect of the explosion don't indicate where the bomb deals damage does not help.
4. It's really difficult to know where the player character's hitbox is, so sometimes you get surprised when taking damage, and other times you get surprised you didn't take any damage.
5. Some data that should reset on level change, doesn't. If you've used a powerup at the end of a previous level, that power up will still be active when starting the next. For example, if you completed the previous level by using some Crazy Bombs, you'll find the next level starts with red bombs spawned. Other things that will move over to the next level are unexploded bombs or if the Lady is active and ready to help.
6. The game does not run properly in Win11, possibly also Win10, showing up in a borderless window that goes up above the top of the screen(cutting off some of the top, so you can't see your score, or your hearts). To fix this, go to the properties for game.exe in the game's folder, then set the game to run with a screen resolution of 640x480 in the Compatability tab.
7. The game has 30 levels, but on the fourth level select screen(where you only see level 28, 29, and 30) the remaining, empty spaces are filled with "locked level" icons when you start at that screen. If you click your way to that screen it works as it should, making those six spaces empty instead.
8. There's a level that I think is supposed to be a snow level. However, in that level you're practically unable to see most of the stuff you need to, like souls or the numbers for your challenge progressions.
9. The freeze effect often doesn't show the ice graphic. Also, if an enemy gets frozen while spawning, this can lead to many tiny versions of their head being shown as the graphic instead of their full character sprite.
10. Enemies will often spawn right in front of you just as you throw a bomb, which will make the bomb explode right on top of you, damaging and possibly killing you. This was easily the #1 way I died in the game, and it's frustrating because there's really nothing you can do about it as a player. Solutions to fix this would either be to give the enemies invincibility frames/no collision while they're spawning, or make it impossible for them to spawn within a certain radius of the player.
11. If there were a single frame of art with some text telling a simple story in between each scenery change, that would add a lot to the game. Because there's no actual story here, but everything says there reallly should be: The Priest, the Lady helping him by turning him into a vampire for a bit, the undead crawling around, and the linear change in scenery. It's like the designer had a story in mind, but never actually told it.
All in all, a good game. It's just sad to see the potential for greatness wasted like this, because I think this game could've done a hundred times better financially if most of these things were fixed. And speaking as a programmer myself, a lot of this shouldn't be too difficult to fix in the first place. I hope they make a sequel where these things are fixed. Because even as it stands, I can still recommend this game, as it's very fun to play.
