Heidelberg 1693

I'm very much on the fence about whether I want to give this a positive or negative review. The game has a whole lot of character. That much is clear. It's also reasonably long for what it is. I play everything with a controller and especially a 2D game with platforming so I was hoping for better controls. You should be able to use the D-pad for movement and the right stick for gun-aiming but you're locked into analog stick movement and the same analog stick for aiming. That's inexcusable in my opinion and brings down the gameplay significantly. The double jump is also head-scratching. Jumping in the air will allow you to perform an aerial sweep + second, shorter jump but attacking in the air will also perform the same maneuver with significantly more height on the second jump. Why? That makes no sense but it's there. It's also frustrating that these commands are all tied together. Why not have an aerial attack similar to a game like Hollow Knight that's divorced from the jump command? Half the time, I want to hit an enemy slightly above me on a ledge (this happens a lot) and the aerial attack makes me swing above them because of the goofy hit boxes. Fix the double jump and the controls and you've improved the game greatly. I played with my buddy and we got through three stages and fought two bosses, if I recall correctly. Then we played something like five stages in a row with no bosses. No idea how that happened but it's like bosses are laid out sporadically in diverging paths so I feel like we missed a lot of the game on the way through. It's that or there just aren't many bosses and they aren't laid out evenly. Diverging paths are a great Castlevania throwback and all but there should have been more boss fights IMO. I'm going to give a thumbs down because I'm torn but everyone so far has given it a thumbs up. I want people to understand that this game, at least as it was on launch day, is far from perfect and could easily be improved with those controller touch ups and by fixing that crazy jump. If these things get patched, I'll change my review later for sure. As it stands, I'd wait to see if the dev is willing to go the extra mile to polish the final product.

I'm going to preface this with a disclaimer: while I am giving the game a negative review, I do not DISLIKE the game. In fact I like it quite a bit, and think it has a lot of good things going for it. However, at the end of the day, I feel the flaws significantly interfere with my making an honest recommendation for the game to others. With that said, to go into detail: This game styles itself off the old-school, pre-Symphony of the Night Castlevanias, specifically Super Castlevania 4. The creators have said so as much. Both in terms of gameplay and aesthetic, this is a game about tight platforming, difficult enemy encounters and a gothic horror locale. Or at least, it tries to be. Aesthetics wise I'll voice no complaint, save perhaps for the fact the music is pretty forgettable droning synth stuff, but visually the game is a gorgeous pixel art display of grotesque horrors set in the European Enlightenment. Mechanically though, I have problems. First is the controls - which I will preface, I know the creators have said they are working on adding controller support for directional pads, but at current this has not yet been implemented. Control sticks for 2D movement is never the most precise feeling, and Heidelberg seems fit to demand some fairly precise bit of it despite that, with Prince of Persia-esque ledge climbing thrown into the mix as well. This results in a very frustrating experience where the controls do not respond as you need, which is not good when faced with the sheer chaos of the games combat (more on that in a moment). Pressing either the attack or jump button while in mid-air will give you a bit of extra air time with an aerial attack, but because the slightest nudges on the stick result in the character slipping accordingly, can result in doing unintended attack hops when trying to jump off a ledge. By pressing up on the stick, you can grab ledges overhead to pull up on, but the animation makes no indication of this being the case unless you succeed, and because ledges are often much higher than you can actually jump physically, this makes several platforming sections deceptive and unintuitive. Moreover, combined with the slippery stick movements mentioned before, and you'll often struggle to align with a ledge correctly to pull yourself up on it, and if you nudge the stick while grabbing onto the ledge, your character will let go and fall back down, often into whatever chaotic ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is going on beneath you with the enemies. The directional pad update needs to come as soon as possible, and the jumping animations need to be modified to show when you are actually able to pull up on a ledge or not. Nextly is the combat. The game does have some fascinatingly excellent core conceit gimmicks I really like, namely what the creators call the Philosophy of Causality. Everything can affect everything in this game, so enemies take friendly fire and will absolutely destroy themselves in their bloodlust to try and get to you, and this can have unexpected consequences you have to adapt to in order to survive. In theory, I love this. In practice, it's a pain in the ass and creates a good deal of good old "fake difficulty" on account of a handful of external factors. The first of which is the slippery controls as mentioned before. Trying to do a precise platform climb to get to a special item, which in itslef is already difficult due to the poor control feel and feedback of the jumping, is made all the more frustrating when enemy chain reactions cause flying projectiles and the like to knock you away. More frustrating though is the ever-present appearance of the game's antagonist, the Moon King, who appears in many stages as a disembodied floating skull (similar to Castlevania's own Medusa Heads) and stalks you throughout. His design is to resurrect enemies that you have killed but not destroyed the bodies of (which is largely only doable with your musket or explosive subweapons), thus keeping pressure on you - but if he is attacked, he will spawn aggressive, homing skulls to attack you (so, more Medusa Heads) as well as immediately change position. This happens EVEN WHEN STRUCK BY OTHER ENEMIES. It is entirely possible to have the Moon King be struck by a stray enemy, spawn skulls to attack you, then teleport away only to be struck by more attacks because he teleports into the line of fire and thus spawns MORE skulls. When struck enough in a row he will surround himself with spinning blades to prevent you from attacking him - which CAN be helpful for you as it can harm enemies too, but more often than not he's just going to entrap you against a wall or prevent you from avoiding other enemies as he blocks your way. It is absolutely maddening to have an otherwise perfectly fine attempt at a level immediately go south and need to start over because this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ get poked by a stray musket shot that wasn't even your own and thus decided to come buzzsaw you into a corner while you try and deal with some dangerous, high-HP enemy. I like the conceit of the Moon King encouraging you to obliterate enemies or else he'll brng them back, but his countermeasures intended to keep the player from trivializing him by attacking him away from enemy corpses does not play nice with the chaos of the game's free-for-all combat. Then, lastly, really, the game just feels unfair on purpose with regards to many enemy patterns. Despite owing its inspiration to Castlevania, the game is significantly less fine tuned than it. The aforementioned Medusa Head-like skull enemies don't pursue you on a fixed pattern that can be learned, they can go off screen and them ambush you from another side. Enemies have anticipation frames for projectile attacks that happen way too quickly and are far too subtle to make out at times, primarily the dagger-throwing sorts. There's a level where cannonballs rain down from the sky and where they land is absolutely random without any sort of forewarning, and their explosions send shrapnel flying outward which while on consistent trajectory arcs, are still ridiculously hard to avoid because of the cannonballs themselves not having any pattern to their landings. Bosses tend to have extremely erratic behavior patterns that makes learning their attacks tiresome and overcoming them rather luck-based as they absolutely can and will fall into cycles of spamming the same attacks over and over without pause. Lastly, the respawning is just tiresome - you can increase your maximum health by rescuing damsels, but if you die you lose all that extra health - and you respawn back with only ONE (out of three). There are unlimited continues and no lives, but I would rather have limited lives and lose my extra health on a game over and have to start the whole stage over with full than try and bang my head against some of these checkpoints with only one point of health until I get lucky. Moreover, enemies are active as soon as you load in on a checkpoint or otherwise, and it is entirely possible to spawn in and get killed almost immediately afterwards because of this. It also makes trying to assess a situation before retrying frustrating as well, because most of the time as soon as you respawn in you have to start DEALING with SOMETHING coming after you. I get this is meant to be a hard game. It's inspired by the legacy of some of the hardest around. I love classic Castlevania, especially the game Heidelberg names as its most direct inspiration (which is my favorite Castlevania, imo the best of the traditional action Castlevanias, and the one I've played and beaten the most). However, this is not how a game should honor a legacy of difficult action arcade games. There is a lot to like here - good aesthetic, atmosphere, level design and secret exits - but until the challenge is better tuned, I can not in good faith recommend this game, and it pains me to have to say that. I hope the devs continue to polish and patch the game so one day I can.

Style is pretty cool and the story seems fascinating, but the game is super clunky. Enemies are extremely erratic with their behaviors to the point where I can either fight them on even footing or just get hit immediately on spawn. Speaking of which, you only start with one health which means the moment I do get hit at my spawn point I then have the luxury of spawning back with the off chance that I will once again die two steps from spawn. So when all this happens and the game page says "Timing your actions is critical to success in this game, as a correctly timed jump or attack can be the difference between glorious victory and shameful defeat. Furthermore, studying and understanding your enemies will be of utter importance" then these words start to feel empty and meaningless. When I bought this game I fully expected a challenge but not one that felt like it was it was going to be up to a coin toss each run. I truly wanted to like this game but with how controls tie together and bad/inconsistent enemy behavior I'll have to sit this one out. Hopefully any future projects will be an improvement over this and I wish the devs good luck.

Pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ neat. First and foremost, I don't understand why there's not more games with black powder weapons; they can be presented as potent as all hell and punishing if your aim is absolute garbage. The gameplay with that concept alone writes itself. Secondly, why isn't there more period horror? The aesthetic for this game is simply outstanding and I love, love, LOVE the mood the game presents--it's dark and bleak but it doesn't take itself too seriously and isn't afraid to have a little fun ala gallows humor in the enemy animations and types. And the soundtrack--I wasn't expecting to really enjoy that so much, more often than not a soundtrack becomes back ground noise for me the but dark synth and hints of harpsichord elevate the whole experience. That was seriously a hell of a surprise. Gameplay wise, it's basically a very good Castlevania clone--though we're talking pre Symphony of the Night here so it's not about back tracking though there's plenty to explore in each level. Animations are great, the shooting feels really fantastic and since the character can mantel platforming is quite simple. However, there in lies a small flaw to all of this and it lies in one major factor; this game doesn't play so great with a controller and for a lot of people who play platforming games, that's likely going to be a big negative. Weirdly enough though? It plays...incredibly good with the keyboard, if not flat out great. But if you've absolutely NEED to play this game with a controller? You may wish to pass--it's not very responsive (and I tried two separate controllers for this) and not allowing the D pad to move is incredibly restraining; coupled with the fact that aiming your musket becomes a serious hassle at times. However, if you're fine with KB&M, you're in for a really great, gory time!

I really wanted to like this game, but the amount of frustration I've gone through trying to beat this makes it seriously not worth it. Look, I know: There are old platformers that are quite hard. However, I'd like to imagine that those games don't have controls that seem to go against you. I've gotten quite frustrated over hard games before, but Heidelberg 1693 is one of the few to actually make me stop playing. Having insanely crowded encounters and, in some cases, an overpowered floating head with a ton of health moving unpredictably around the level while surrounded by blades, meaning it's an incredibly likely insta-death for you, just isn't a fun kind of challenge if you ask me. I do love the setting this game takes place in, as well as the overall presentation. So Heidelberg 1693 is a game with awesome presentation, but also constant difficulty coupled with slippery controls. If you have a lot of patience, I do suggest getting this game. Otherwise, I think you'll be fine.

Very fun game, quick respawns, works on the Steam deck. One minor dislike, the checkpoints are sometimes surrounded by enemies where if you respawn you'll have 1 heart and 9 enemies around you trapping you in five respawns before breaking out. Actually having finished the game screw that Moonman stupid resurrecting the enemies and flying across from offscene. Nothing way cooler than getting killed and respawning because an non-dodgeable attack

This game really makes you feel like you're in Europe

Did you ever play Ghouls 'n Goblins? Do you wish that game wasn't a quarter-crunchering masterpiece of misery? This game is Ghouls n' Goblins without the quarter-crunching misery. And therefore plausible to actually finish. For those unfamiliar with Ghouls n' Goblins, this means it's a very hard side-scrolling run-and-gun platformer with tons of unlockables, secret areas, shortcuts, and ridiculous enemies. Fortunately, a checkpoint system means that trial and error is possible and no lives system means that you can brute force your way through the game. There is an arcade scoring system for those who want to finesse their way through. I couldn't. Maybe you can.

This is an incredibly challenging platformer. Heck, at times it's even straight up BS, with how much ♥♥♥♥ it throws at you at once, meanwhile you just have 1 heart left. When you start a level and when you respawn in a check point, you have 1 heart. However, turning the tables, overcoming difficult situations and making progress felt incredible! Even with all the frustration I went through, playing this game, I still highly recommend it, if you like difficult games and/or platformers. Because this is a unique game, with lots of effort put into it and soul. [h2]The positives[/h2] [list] [*]For starters the visuals. The levels, backgrounds, designs, smooth animations and even the MC's attacks, it's all so gorgeous and ridiculous. There is so much going on at any given moment, even in the background. [*]The music is another highlight of the game for me. The first level's music really got me hooked. [*]While the game is very tough, if you are up for the challenge, it gives you all the tools and moves to overcome it. [*]Enemies kill each other, which you can use to your advantage. [*]Bullets and projectiles can be deflected/countered. [*]You get to shoot a musket, at the horrors standing in your path! [*]The ending caught me off guard, even though it made a lot of sense. In a positive way. [/list] [h2]The negatives[/h2] With that said, this game has its flaws. [list] [*]There is no tutorial. The first level only has a tutorial for the downward jump attack. No control explanation or anything. Had to figure it out on my own. [*]0 graphic options, including Vsync. [*]The difficulty spike called the Moon King's floating head. Some of us hate it, some of us like it, but it is undeniable that it makes the game harder, sometimes creating situations as mad, as the world itself. [/list] [h2]In conclusion[/h2] This is a very unique and incredibly challenging platformer, with striking visuals, great music and lots of secrets to discover. A true hidden gem. A musketeer's quest to settle French family matters, that the Germans in Heidelberg and the surrounding area, had to pay for in flesh and blood. Which was used to turn their land into a hellscape. [i]Where the tragedy repeats unending.[/i]

Difficulty level: NES Frustration level: Ghosts 'n Goblins A very fun, simple side-scrolling indie platformer. It's reminiscent of Blasphemous with its artistic, dark, pseudo-history horror atmosphere, but it's *NOT* a MetroidVania type game--there's no exploration, leveling up, gaining equipment, upgrading weapons or crafting. Instead, the gameplay is more simplistic & linear, like Guns, Gore, and Cannoli 2. The game is fun to play, well designed, and consistently entertaining. I definitely would recommend, however, I wouldn't cop it unless it's on sale.