I really, really wanted to like this game but... hoo boy, here we go. (Review contains big spoilers about the main storyline!)
I want to preface this by saying that the general idea is cute, just very undercooked, and had a lot of great ideas, just not... the time to properly realise them. I do really like the graphics and the sounds, though! And some gameplay features are also quite fun. So overall, the potential is definitely there.
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[h2]My main point[/h2]
The biggest issue probably is that this game was put out as a full release, not as an Early Access game. I am very sorry to say, but at this state, this game should not be a full release. A full release game should not have multiple game-breaking bugs, or highly experimental patches, like we have seen in the current patch. Tampering with the price of many players’ reliable source of income is not something that should be a patch, but this is something that should be tested with beta testers/in Early Access, like I have said before. In my opinion, the current patch (Aug 20th 2026) made the gameplay more miserable than enjoyable.
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[h2]The story[/h2]
[spoiler]At first, I was quite intrigued because the premise is interesting. It is not the wholesome “farmer moves to a new town” that you know from other games, but instead, you move to Moonlight Peaks after a fight with your father, who is no other than Dracula himself. So far, so good.
But then... at least from a narrative perspective, things start going downhill. First of all, everyone and their grandma refers to you as “Dracula”, which... is super offensive considering that you are on bad terms with your father.
Apart from that, the main storyline feels severely undercooked. There are plotholes here and there, starting from the fact that whenever you pass out, you fly back to your coffin as a bat, even though you only unlock the bat form at the end of the main storyline. Moreover, the whole Witching Hour Portal thing just came out of nowhere and also didn’t really make sense to me, because after Brook also goes through the portal, him and Yasmin can just chill on the mortal plane whenever they want. Which means that... Brook basically died for nothing because Yasmin easily could have visited him earlier? Same goes for Orlock and Malia, she could literally come back if she wanted to, but... chooses not to? And the whole thing about the Sun kidnapping the Moon... hello?! (Although I have to admit that I liked the vibes in the quest, the town finally had a spooky flair when the moon disappeared)
Lastly, there are some huge discrepancies between the “storyline behaviour” of the dateable characters, and the “free-time behaviour” if you can refer to it as such. For example, I romanced Orlock in my playthrough, and during the dates, daily dialogues & cutscenes with him he was sweet, but once I progressed the main storyline, he reverted back to his usual self, referring to me as “his apprentice”. There were only two story cutscenes that acknowledged that my character was married to Orlock, namely the one with Orlock and Samael, and the one after the crests disappear. Three, if you include the very last story cutscene. So the devs seem to know about this discrepancy, but didn’t provide alternative dialogue for _all_ cutscenes, just some, it seems.
And one more thing, speaking of cutscenes. The dialogue in cutscenes always seems to be steered towards a certain outcome/attitude of the player. For instance, the player is always supposed to see Noel as disgusting in his cutscenes, there are no ways to flirt back to him. The player is always supposed to see Ludo as cute, there are no ways to tell him to get lost and do his stuff himself. The player is always supposed to see Orlock as annoying/irresponsible. The player has no opportunity to be a jerk and refuse to help anyone in a cutscene. I could go on and on. So, in a nutshell, even though this game is big on personalisation, the player character is literally always pre-determined, and apart from very minor decisions in the storyline, like whether or not to go to Orlock’s afterparty at the Henderson Crest Ceremony, there are no ways to really “roleplay” the character of your character. And this game is tagged as an RPG, so... isn’t that the point?[/spoiler]
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[h2]The characters[/h2]
So, I have two main problems with the characters, with 1) being that most of the characters already feel familiar from some other game/media, and 2) being that the characters feel pretty... flat/stereotypical.
Some examples for 1): Mina feels like Draculaura from Monster High, Evan like Sebastian from Stardew Valley, Samael like Lucifer Morningstar from the TV series Lucifer, Noel feels like someone ordered BG3 Astarion off Temu, and so on. All those characters I’ve mentioned borrow from their “role model” both in terms of appearance/design, and in terms of character.
Moving on to 2): There are multiple characters in the game whose main character trait is being sweet and bubbly, like Mina and Kim, and characters whose main character trait is being... friendly, like Luna, Elvira, and Rei. Noel and Tae are alike, too. Most of the characters feel quite flat, only very few ones are more fleshed out. And even those that are more fleshed out, like Orlock, are not necessarily well-written. His backstory has potential, but the way it is executed in the game is poor at best, offensive at worst. He is constantly depicted as a caricature in the game, rather than genuinely tackling his issues, like Stardew Valley did with Shane.
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[h2]Gameplay[/h2]
I’ve already talked about my main issue with the gameplay, namely that wine, honey and other products got nerfed into the ground, making the gameplay feel like a grind rather than enjoyable. Another issue that I have are the collections. With three big collections (the museum, the Soul Blobs, and the Vampsters), it feels like... too much, honestly. The Soul Blobs are very fun, but I struggled with the spawn rates of many critters and fish. And don’t get me started on the Vampsters. It’s annoying as hell that you have to carry 100(!) of them back to their cave. Searching for them can be quite fun, but the carrying? Hell nah. I don’t know who thought it was a great idea to carry those creatures from Luna Bay all the way back to the Cave of Echoes. And you don’t even get any rewards from doing this, at least not until the very end.
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I will wrap up the current season before I forget to pick up the last Vampster, and then I will set the game down until the next patch. I will probably keep playing it, then, if only to get 100% Steam achievements, but honestly, at the current state, I cannot wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone.
