D1896

Brutal game with great narrative that makes me want to come back for more.

this hurts to say, i want so badly to see this thing through to the end, it's so, so gorgeous yet it plays like a hernia to the groin, real unpleasant. im sure people who are really good at that surgical-precise NES platforming would breeze this but yea im not them. ill wish upon a star that this gets its controls rejiggered because damn it's pretty, id gleefully flip this review around in an instant. love this creator tho, im rooting for them

受苦游戏，三四，默片分格不错，但操作极其反人类了。

poggers

The aesthetic is gorgeous. I absolutely LOVE the art style. The music is incredible and the silent-film motif was done to perfection. With that being said, the game is VERY hard and most of this is due to awkward attack controls. Your character shoots a projectile that fades immediately if you launch is straight forward. In order to gain some distance with the attack, you have to hold buttons while attacking which raise the weapon projectile up or down. This is also extremely hard to aim properly. If Castlevania was made with it's accessible controls, but this graphic aesthetic, you would have a true gothic horror unlike anything every seen.

I think this genuinely might be the hardest game I've played. It is so unforgiving and doesn't care to accommodate you as a player at much at all. It's also janky and weird to control--akin to an NES game. In a way I love how uncompromising it is, but some sections are just poorly designed. IE unreactable boss attacks, the maze, etc. However, the vast majority of the game succeeds at what it set out to. Especially when considering that it's a solo dev project by Arkhouse. The best parts are that: 1. The story and dialogue are intriguing and well realized. (Albeit with some typos) 2. The graphics are beautiful. A mixture of photoshop and sprites to create gothic atmosphere. 3. The soundtrack never becomes tiresome. It's a fitting and melancholic solo piano album. 4. Most gameplay sections have interesting thematic ideas that keep the experience fresh throughout the entire runtime. You won't see one idea repeated too much. It's a game that frustrated me and challenged me to no end. It has issues, yet still I respect it immensely. There's something special about its game design approach and how alien it is from everything else coming out now.

A fun brutal ballbuster of a Castlevania wanna be game with stunning Gothic silent film visuals with a celluloid filter that really feels like your playing a...well...a game set in a silent film era. The game is a 2nd of a trilogy of games with loose connections with one another but personally I think its fine if you play this game first despite me playing TSOTC first before this game which I would also recommend to check out if your a fan of Castlevania games ;) Would I recommend this: Only if you want a hardcore old school challenge so don't expect this game to be a walk in the park as its very hard difficulty might put off some people who want to casual play through this :P

D1896 is absolutely one of the worst games I've ever played and I played some bad ones, okay now let’s talk about the story. A young woman named Alice wakes up in a crypt after wandering around she meets a man named Igor that tells her she is expected by the queen known as Mary Dracula, but in order to get to her Alice must fight hordes of monsters. Alright then the likes, the enemies and bosses are both good and really, really bad, the good is that each one has their own unique looks that are quite interesting and creative, especially this monster that’s made out of fingers that is really creepy and gross in all the right ways. The character Alice is the only character I like as she was quite sassy and interesting, especially near the end when she's just as frustrated as I was about this game, it's just a shame that she's in such a terrible game. The graphics are okayish I liked the characters and monster designs and the black and white style to the whole game, it kind of makes it look like you're playing an old monster movie. The levels were okay a little diverse that kept the game from being not completely boring to look at. The music was good plenty of nice tracks to listen too. Alright then the dislikes and holy crap is there a lot to dislike, for starters the biggest is the gameplay it's absolutely garbage, first the platforming feels pretty finicky with a keyboard it's a little bit easier with a gamepad but if you don't have a gamepad it feels almost impossible, then there are these glowing little platforms that you can jump on but the problem with them is the fact that they feel very, very finicky with a keyboard, hell even with a controller they still feel a little finicky. Then we have the enemies and bosses they are extremely cheap especially the bosses with unpredictable attacks that requires pinpoint precision, then there's the character Alice she has only one attack and it's very slow and she doesn't even run and certain boss attacks feel like it would be better if you could run especially Mary Dracula and her eyeball attacks. So a slow character with one attack combined with certain enemies that have fast attacks and are sometimes unpredictable creates a recipe of death and I died a lot and I mean a lot, I felt like I died almost a thousand times times. I mean I played hard games I'm a fan of souls like games but those games they try and balance hard but fair here it feels absolutely ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. The story is also really bad it was extremely confusing and it felt kind of pretentious like they were talking about things like existence and purpose and all that stuff, but jumping from different topic to topic and it just got really confusing. While I did say the black and white graphics were okayish there were some parts that kind of were too dark or too gray or too white, the best example would be for the final boss. Also the game’s description says it has a lot of dialogue and that's the problem because everyone just talks and talks about nothing and I'm sure it's all deep and philosophical, but soon you’re like oh my god will you shut up, also the game ends on a cliffhanger, apparently this is also the second game in the series but I don't want to play any of their other games if this is their second game. And lastly what hurts the game the most is it actually has some potential if they cut down the dialogue, had a more focused story and improve the gameplay a lot I'm pretty sure this would have been a solid B plus, but as it is this is just absolute garbage. I mean this game is free but I played plenty of free games that are a thousand times better than this bullcrap. Okay with that said D1896 is absolutely one of the worst games I've ever played and I played some bad ones, well like I said the game does have some things to like, from the enemy and bosses, the character Alice and the black and white graphics, but all that is just bogged down with so much ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that it overshadows the good. So I don't recommend this game as there are plenty of free to play games on here that are more worthy of your time, if I do recommend this game I recommend it as a teaching tool to show you what not to do when making a video game especially a free game.

This one is painful, but I'm going to have to give it a "not recommended". I really like the artistry of the game: beautiful art and music, a very creative tone and setting - but I cannot in good faith tell anyone to try it. It is an absolutely grueling experience from start to finish. Nearly every level is "that level", every boss is "that boss", and even the story doesn't feel like it was proofread by the end. I was so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ done with this game when it finished. That all said, I would highly recommend others check out the genre-mashing sequel: "Cube Gothic". It is one heck of a ride.

Awesome visuals and unique design, but the platforming is just horrible, probably the worst I encountered.