OVERALL ARBITRARY SCORE: 7/10
"Solid! You can pass some time and walk away without regrets, just like playing a childhood retro game on a ROM"
*Gameplay*
~ Quite enjoyable, it played really smoothly and felt like it could've been part of earlier Castlevania IP, so it's a faithful experience for people who are familiar with the series. Getting the platinum shouldn't be a problem at all, easy to get even without any guide, though I used a fan-made map to find some collectibles that aren't indicated and would've easily added 5 extra hours of playtime, which can get repetitive specially during lategame;
~ The metroidvania elements are quite shallow, but that's not a bad thing if you're looking for a quick Castlevania-esque experience without too much backtracking, it is opitional and only required for the alternative endings and for certain character upgrades, even then, it is not a lengthy task at all;
- However, it can be a little mundane since there aren't many lategame changes to the map layout and enemy pool.
*Art Direction*
+ This game's strong suit is its visual art style, it's veeeeeery well made and fits right into that SNES / Gameboy ADVANCE era of 16 / 32 bit graphics. The sprites in their majority have a lot of personality so you'll easily recognize and tell them apart from each other; despite a good chunk of enemies being recolors/resprites, that's a common thing used in metroidvania games to represent "similar enemy, stronger or gimmickier version", so it works in favor of the game and player;
~ The sound track is pretty nice, groovy vampire stuff yeaaaa! Sometimes I mixed up the themes though and felt like they sounded a little alike, which got worse lategame, but that doesn't take away from the music being good;
+ Very simple lore but I dig it, not every game needs to be a Game Theory hell hole; some concepts are borrowed from the source material since the story happens in the same verse, which may cause some confusion for some people but tbh the absurdity adds to the experience.
*Extra*
+ I also ended up checking the source material and had a good laugh, it's so ridiculous; if you liked the characters, you can see more of them in the Gal Gun series, mind that it's a quite suggestive IP so beware if that kind of thing repulses you.
