Bloodstained: Curse Of The Moon 2 Review

Well, last time we looked at Wallachia, a Castlevania inspired game that plays nothing like a Castlevania game. And today we’re back with a sequel to a game that does. Bloodstained: Curse Of The Moon was a rather fantastic sendup of Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse. One that celebrated the use of multiple characters and branching paths. Unsurprisingly, a lot of fans wanted more. But surprisingly, out of nowhere a sequel dropped on all of the digital console storefronts and Steam.

PROS: More of what you loved from COTM. 2-player co-op.

CONS: 2-player co-op. Checkpoints could be better balanced.

OLD CREW: The characters you loved are nowhere to be seen. Or are they?

As in the previous game, this is another love-letter to Castlevania III. If you’ve played the previous game, you’ll know exactly what to expect here. Zangetsu returns to slay demons as a new threat begins to emerge. So you’ll be doing exactly that. Things kick into high gear right away as the NES style is markedly improved with even more detail in the sprite work. If you thought the last game had good use of the NES’ aesthetic, you’ll really like this one in terms of the style. The animations are brilliant too. When you get to the end of the very first stage, you can see some background details in the boss introduction the NES could never do. So you can expect some flashy things that weren’t common until the Super Nintendo or even Playstation, just done with this 8-bit era look.

Anyway, within each of the game’s stages there are many branching paths. Most of which cannot be reached on your initial run of the stage. As in the original game, you’ll meet new characters in-between stages who will aid you on your quest. There are three of them. Dominique (Who comes from Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night. She was that game’s shopkeeper role.) who fights with a spear, has a higher jump, and can use healing items. Later on, you’ll meet Robert, the weakest of the group. He’s an ornery old man with a shotgun. He can also go prone, allowing you to reach some rooms the others cannot. And because he has a shotgun, he’s perfect for situations where enemies are blocking crucial jumps. Finally, there’s Hachi a Pembroke Welsh Corgi who pilots a Steampunk Gundam. Yes, really. He’s got the ability to hover for short distances and destroy some structures.

Each of the stages goes on through three areas with a couple of checkpoints. And within those areas the branching paths I mentioned come into play. One path might require Robert to crawl through a crawlspace. Or Dominique to use her Scrooge McDuck pogo jump on. Or the dog to smash through a floor. Sometimes these paths are a more difficult route to take. Sometimes they’re easier. And sometimes, either way, they’re necessary. One of the few issues I had in my playthrough was the placement of checkpoints. Most of the time it’s fine and breaks up the action mostly pretty evenly. But there are other times when it doesn’t and losing your party means redoing a very long gauntlet again. Again, this is a minor complaint. But it’s something that will inconvenience you. Near the end of your run, there’s one placement that actually makes things maybe a little too convenient as it will start you right near a bunch of items that make it difficult to actually game over in spite of how difficult the section is.

Throughout it all, though you’ll notice there were still a lot of routes you couldn’t take before even though you had all of the characters at your command. That’s because you didn’t. The little secret the game holds is that you cannot see everything on an initial run. So those of you out there who are completionist players will need to beat this game no less than three times to see it all. After you beat the game, you’ll be told you can play Episode Two, which is exactly like Episode One except now you start with Robert and Hachi already at your stead. You’ll now be able to take routes they could do that you couldn’t do before. The checkpoints and bosses are the same except now they’ve gotten a bit more difficult than before. Over time you’ll meet more characters who you can take other paths with. So Curse Of The Moon 2 does go out of its way to give you replay value.

New to the series is a co-op mode where two people can play through the game together at the same time. It does work for the most part. You can strategize, find situations where one player uses one character, while the other switches to something different, and utilize strategies in tandem. The problem is that much like in the days of the Commodore 64 and NES if two players with a wide skill gap play together it’s going to lead to a lot of deaths. As both players really need to stay near the center of the action. Go too far ahead, and the other player will impede you by being too far behind. You can help a weaker player by playing the game on the casual setting which takes away the Castlevania style knock-back you suffer when hitting a bad guy. But that only goes so far. It’s a nice inclusion but if you tend to get really angry when a friend or sibling costs you a victory, you’ll probably just want to play it alone.

I enjoyed Curse Of The Moon 2. It’s a very tough game, but mostly pretty fair. Nitpicking over the checkpoint distances aside. You don’t have to have played any of the previous games in the franchise to enjoy it, though it does help you understand a little bit more of the story, and helps as an addendum to Ritual Of The Night as the first Curse Of The Moon did.

If you’re a big fan of Castlevaniaesque games or NES hard games of yesteryear, this is a release worth checking out. If you enjoyed the first one already it might not wow you as much. But it’s more of a good thing. Dedicated fans will want to play through it multiple times to see all that it has to offer. And if you’re slow to frustration this is something different to play with a friend these days than the genres you’re normally used to.

Final Score: 9 out of 10.

Wallachia: Reign Of Dracula Review

Castlevania is one of the most popular IPs in Konami’s arsenal. Along with Contra, it’s one of the series that made the company a household name in the days of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Over the last few years, a few independent studios have made games clearly inspired by Castlevania. Like the Bloodstained which were actually made in part with Koji Igarashi. The person who helmed many of Castlevania’s entries. Many of these Castlevania inspired games took their influences from either the earlier action platformers or the later adventure style games.

But today’s game is much different. The focus on Dracula, monsters, and other environments Castlevania is known for is here. However, the story, execution, and gameplay elements have some influences that are clearly from entirely different places. And while that might make some looking for a Castlevania-like take pause, this is something you really might want to check out.

PROS: Character design. Soundtrack. Play control. Visuals. A different take on Dracula.

CONS: At the end of the day the story is a bit basic. Minor bugs. Can’t adjust audio.

BLOODSTAINED: The Castlevania-like series does have a small link here.

Wallachia: Reign Of Dracula is a seven stage campaign with some of the best 2D assets and gameplay you’ve seen in a game of its nature. You play as a woman named Elcin. She’s trained to be a top archer, marksman, and swordfighter. One day, in a scene straight out of Star Wars, she comes home to find her family’s home destroyed and her relatives’ charred remains. Upon learning that Vlad The Impaler was the one behind it as well as the subjugation of the inhabitants of Wallachia she sets out to find her missing sibling and get revenge on the bloodthirsty Dracula.

The game’s narrative takes a slightly more historic approach here going with some of the Romanian histories around Vlad The Impaler. As such the game downplays some of the more fantastical elements Castlevania and Bloodstained celebrate. You don’t see flying medusa heads, reanimated skeletons, or movie monsters. But that doesn’t mean you won’t be seeing any horror elements or strange enemies. There are a few moments where you do indeed see some pretty crazy stuff. But the characters do try to downplay some of it with their dialogue.

The voice work in the game is very good too. Two big names are here: Kira Buckland and  Robert Belgrade. You may not know the names but you know some of the work they’ve done. Nier: Automata and Castlevania Symphony Of The Night were pretty big games they respectively appeared in. I was also surprised to learn well after I’d bought the game, my buddy Mike Levy of Dude You Haven’t Played This Game and XVGM Radio had a small part in the game.

All of the voice work is performed exceptionally well, which is why it’s a bit of a disappointment the story breaks down to a simple revenge arc. There’s nothing wrong with that mind you. The gameplay doesn’t really need something that requires analysis or interpretation. But it would have been nice to see the story go a little further with the historical context it dips its toes into. Still, it keeps you entertained, you’ll like the characters presented here, and the sketched and inked cinema screens do a good job of moving things along between stages.

So what do you do in this game? You kick people’s asses in a matter that perhaps only Teela could rival. Elcin is armed with a bow and a sword. You can jam on the arrow button to rapidly shoot off arrows, or you can hold it down for charge shots. You can attack at melee distance with your sword button and once you’ve collected enough orbs you can have an NPC jump in with an assist. Some of them give you temporary invincibility, others beef up your attacks for a short time. The coolest one is probably summoning Minvu, your pet wolf who can clear a medium-sized villain or wave of enemies with a dash. You can cycle between which helper you want to come to your aid with a shoulder button press (assuming you’re on a controller). The other shoulder button lets you cycle between alternate arrows you can pick up. Some are more powerful, some are spread shots as well as others still. All of which can be charged. If that wasn’t enough the NPC helpers do different things if you collect even more orbs and you hold the UP button while selecting them.

You can also find general power-ups that make your arrows and sword stronger or let you charge shots faster. Each of the locales takes two or more forms. You’ll find every two areas or so the environments will have a mild change until you get to a boss before moving onto the next stage. This does a great job of conveying that each of these stages is a journey. Most of the stages do not play like the typical Castlevania game though. While there are still war-torn castles, areas of wilderness, and abandoned villages, you’re not going to be taking sluggish walks up flights of stairs or feeling heavy jumping between blocks. Instead, the game moves along at the pace of games like Revenge Of Shinobi and Rolling Thunder. You’ll have to carefully traverse each stage, memorizing enemy types and placements while using your arrows to dispatch them. Some of course you’ll cut down with your sword when they get too close. Sometimes you can find alternative ways through a section but in general, it’s a linear experience. One that will require some trial and error. This is where the Rolling Thunder influence comes to play a bit as there are soldiers of different color schemes that will attack you with their own specific attacks. They can often come from the background to attack you like in Namco’s classic.

All of these influences make Wallachia stand out because it isn’t just trying to be a Castlevania NES trilogy-like or a Symphony of The Night sendup like some of the other games have been. On top of that, there are some autoscrolling sections and other additions that keep mixing things up. Boss fights are especially fun as at first, they will seem insurmountable. But eventually, you’ll figure out the patterns and be able to move onto the next challenge.

As great as the gameplay, performances, and the soundtrack truly are, there are a couple of small things I had some problems with. The first problem is the audio. Yes, I just praised the soundtrack and sound files. But this is one of a few examples of a game I’ve reviewed where you can’t change the volume level. That’s going to make it something streamers will have to tinker with on PC to try to make it so their audiences can hear them and the game audio at the same time.

The second problem I ran into was on the level select screen. The game has one small bug. When I chose the level 0 bonus stage before going on to the first stage for the first time, the game crashed. After I played through a couple of levels, it notified me I’d “Unlocked” the bonus stage, and then it worked fine. Hopefully, a future patch will fix this and add a volume option. That said, I like that it had an option to map your controller buttons. So at least you can make things comfortable in that regard.

There are a lot of things to love about the game though. The gameplay is terrific as I said earlier. The soundtrack is great. Graphically it looks like it could be on the Amiga 1000 which is pretty much an instant win. And there are even a couple of neat things to do when you beat the game. There are more bonus stages you can unlock when you beat it based on the difficulty you choose at the beginning. But you can also unlock a special costume and that’s Miriam’s gown from Bloodstained!

Overall, I really enjoyed Wallachia: Reign Of Dracula. It’s a tough, but fair action game with elements from several genres and retro games. I can highly recommend checking it out whether you’re a hardcore Castlevania fan or just someone looking for something different. The slightly more historical look at Vlad The Impaler and his possible inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula character is also a nice change from the often fantastical, Hollywood horror version of the character we’re all used to. This is still very much a video game version of the character, but one that stands out.

Final Score: 9 out of 10

Valfaris Review

A couple of years ago now, a small independent action platformer got some attention. Slain had a brilliant art style that was combined with a soundtrack by Celtic Frost’s Curt Victor Bryant. If you wanted a video game that instantly made you think of Heavy Metal music, Slain could easily come to mind. It had a botched launch as there were a lot of technical problems. But the developers truly did overhaul everything to do customers who backed the game justice. And with Slain: Back From Hell they largely succeeded.

Valfaris is the new game from Steel Mantis. Much like Slain, it has a gristly, horrific art style. It too has a soundtrack by Curt Victor Bryant. But it seems to be advertised as more of a Contra inspired game rather than a Castlevania inspired one. Did the folks at Steel Mantis give us an exhilarating Run N’ Gun that old-school NES era Konami fans the experience they remember?

PROS: Builds on everything the developers learned when making Slain.

CONS: It’s a triumph! But it isn’t quite the Contra-like the trailer teases.

METAL: Everything you see and hear screams “Crank it to 11 & break off the knob!”

One thing you can absolutely tell if you’ve played Slain before playing this game is that Steel Mantis learned many good lessons from that process. Right on the title screen, you can notice some cool details. Just like Slain, it oozes Heavy Metal. Your character is dressed like a Warhammer 40k Chaos Marine. There are mountains of fossilized remains of people and creatures everywhere. And you can notice a faded 3D render of the face of the protagonist as if it were made for an early Windows 95, PlayStation, Saturn, or Nintendo 64 game. It brilliantly blends the eras of the 16-bit and early 32-bit and 64-bit processor powered consoles.

Upon beginning the game you’ll see a cut scene setting up the story. As Therion, you’re off to a mysterious space station; Valfaris upon it reappearing near a red giant. It was once your home and with its discovery, you decide to investigate. Upon landing on the citadel world it immediately becomes apparent that evil forces have taken it over. So right out of the gate, you’ll be confronted with enemies.

Now while many might think of this game as a Run N’ Gun in the vein of Contra or Metal Slug, it really isn’t. You will be getting many cool weapons throughout the game, and you will be shooting a lot of stormtroopers, monsters, space insects, and more with them. But it doesn’t have that constant, “Go! Go! Go!” pace of a Run N’ Gun. Save for a couple of enemies that actually spawn enemies and a couple of auto scroller moments you can take moments to breathe. And while the game’s stages are linear, there are a number of hidden areas you’re going to want to seek out. In reality, it feels somewhere in between Konami’s two biggest franchises of that bygone era.

 

Basically, it builds on the core gameplay introduced in Slain, and it does so beautifully. It feels very refined in the melee combat. Of course, all of the game’s enemies have an entirely different speed. So while you can indeed, expect to use parrying to your benefit you can’t expect it to be predictable. In Slain, knowing exactly when something was about to hit you was, strangely enough, easier than it is in Valfaris. Fortunately, parrying isn’t quite as necessary as it was in Slain, although there are definitely some moments where it is beneficial. So beneficial in fact, you’re going to want to get that timing down for when these moments come up.

So like Slain you have the ability to swing melee attacks, and you have a block button. The block can not only block attacks but as mentioned can also parry attacks if you hit one a split-second before it hits you. Underneath your health bar is a second bar that is tied to the blocks. Killing enemies with a melee attack can often refill it by dropping blue mana. This meter will deplete when you block attacks, and some enemies have powerful attacks that can take it to zero after one block! So there’s another reason to try to master parrying.

Of course, the big addition to the gameplay here is the shooting. The game starts out by giving you a laser pistol and a lightsaber. But as you play through the game, you’ll discover newer weapons to use. Some of these are out in the open, but other ones will require you to find secret rooms or alternate paths in levels. Which is why the game never really hits the pace of a proper Contra game. You’ll need to take your time to look for these visual cues. It definitely is a bit peppier than Slain though. And while this game doesn’t have as many one-hit deathtraps in the background as Slain did, you still have to pay a lot of attention to the background. Some enemies really blend into the scenery and can knock you into pits, pools of acid, as well as other deadly places.

Speaking of scenery, again, I have to point out the painstaking detail of the graphics here. There is a brilliant use of color shading and terrific palettes for every possible section. The environments are wide and varied in Valfaris. One moment you might be in a war-torn battle station. Another, you’ll be in a space bug-infested jungle where even the vines are sentient and lethal. Each stage has a multitude of bosses, most of which are insanely difficult while at the same time being completely fair. When you die in this game, 95% of the time you know it is your own fault. There are a handful of times where a Boss will pull a cheap trick at the last second or the rare platform that looks wider than it actually is. But on the whole, everything feels on the level. So the game fosters an environment where even though you’re going to die a ton, you’re also going to feel determined even if you find you’re getting mad at yourself for messing up.

Obviously, the soundtrack goes along with everything perfectly, as Curt Victor Bryant returns from Slain to continue the shredding. Honestly, the music in this also feels a lot more varied than in Slain, as he touches on the many subgenres of Heavy Metal. There are orchestral moments that lead to a Symphonic Metal opus. There are classic Power Metal moments, Speed Metal tracks during some intense moments, and more. There isn’t much in the way of vocals here, but it’s totally fine. In fact, vocals might even distract from the action going on at any moment,

And like Slain, you can expect to see a lot of intense, unsettling animations as enemies explode into gibs, get cut in half, smashed by parts of the scenery and more. Getting back to the gameplay, there are also Super Weapons you can use that also uses the mana the blocking function does. These do a lot of damage while consuming a lot of your meter so you may want to use it sparingly. In my playthrough, I tried to use them mostly for the more intense boss fights. Of which there are many. All of the weapons, the melee ones, guns, and super guns you find can also be upgraded at checkpoints. Throughout the game, you’ll find special items you can use to do so. Each of these can be leveled up to around four times and the cost to do so increases each time. As you play you’ll really want to think about what weapons to upgrade. Each weapon is effective on all of the enemies, but some are more beneficial on some than others. So there’s an element of Mega Man here for you to consider as well.

When you do clear the game it will give you a pretty satisfying ending. Throughout the game, it definitely leaves some nods to Slain, but you don’t have to have played Slain to understand what is going on here. After the credits roll you’ll be given an end screen showing you how many times you died, how long it took you to beat the game as well as how many items you’ve found so that you’ll be inspired to play through the game again. It does try to get you to at least attempt a 100% completion run.

While as of this writing I didn’t see it on my physical Switch version of the game, the game’s Steam page does list a New Game + mode being added to the game. So if you want an even bigger incentive to go back to it once you’ve beaten it, you potentially have one. Ultimately though, even if you only play through it once you’ll feel very accomplished. This game pulls no punches. Even the most grizzled video game veteran will be challenged to the nth degree. But again, the whole thing generally feels fair. When you start to notice patterns and understand what you need to be doing things don’t feel so frustrating. They make you feel more determined. You can win the day, you really can. Valfaris is one game you should definitely look into. It’s gorgeous, sounds amazing and is filled with challenges. Just don’t come into it expecting a Contra-like. It is more of an Action-Platformer than Run N’ Gun. But still one of the best experiences you’ll have.

Final Score: 9 out of 10

Bloodstained: Curse Of The Moon Review

Ah, Konami. These days it’s become fashionable to belittle their games with good reason. But that’s partly because they used to be one of the kings of game publishing. From Pooyan to Gyruss. From Gradius to Contra. From Crime Fighters to Metal Gear. From Quarth to Super Cobra, this giant has scores of legendary games under its umbrella. But over the last decade there has been a shift in its focus. One that has led many of its best known talent to leave the company. Most know about Hideo Kojima’s departure. But less known is Koji Igarashi, the man behind many of Konami’s better Castlevania games. In 2014 however he would leave the company as he felt his console roots weren’t a good fit for the company’s shift toward mobile phone, and tablet games.

Taking some inspiration from what Keji Inafune had done after leaving Capcom, Igarashi, also took to Kickstarter to raise money for a new project. Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night. This was a successful enough endeavor that today’s game, Bloodstained: Curse Of The Moon came out of it as a stretch goal for backers. For the rest of us, it’s an indie game inspired by the classic game series its producer worked on. It may sound like a familiar story. But is it one of the ones that ends as a success?

PROS: A nearly 1:1 representation of Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse’s look, and feel.

CONS: It’s almost too similar. Minor bugs.

CASTLEVANIA VETERANS: Will wish you could start with Miriam.

Bloodstained, truly does take many of Castlevania’s mechanics, tone, and visual flair to heart. In fact, this game plays nearly identically to Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse. That game had you playing as the protagonists ancestor, with the mechanics set up in the original NES version of Castlevania as a baseline. From there it added other characters you could choose to join you, and depending on which path you took through the game each had specific roles. This was to give you an incentive to go back through it multiple times.

This game is very similar in its approach. Except that to set itself apart, you aren’t a vampire slayer. You’re a demon hunter named Zangetsu. You’ve been cursed by a powerful demon, and so you’re on a mission to find, and kill him in order to break the curse over you. You also don’t use a whip. Zangetsu is armed with a sword. So unlike Castlevania, you won’t have the range you’re likely accustomed to. What you will have however is the same walking speed, and knock back from the NES Trilogy of old. You’ll also find yourself facing very similar attack patterns as in those old games. Sure, the bats, and Gorgon heads may have been replaced with new faces. But you can still expect those wavy patterns over pits, and other traps that will make traversing a trial.

You may not see two dragon heads stacked, spitting fire. But there will be an equivalent. There may not be a chain of skeleton bones, and a lizard skull coming out from a wall. But here will be something similar. The list goes on, and on, and on. As the story, and stages progress you’ll meet other characters whom you can choose to add to your party. Miriam is the Simon Belmont clone you’ll wish you started the game with. She has a whip that works very much the same way, as Simon’s. This gives you that sweet balance of ranged, and melee attack power, and familiar gravity when jumping or walking off of ledges.

Later on you’ll meet Gebel, this game’s take on Alucard. He’s also a vampire, and you can also turn into a bat as him. Finally, there’s Alfred who is a magician. He’s also elderly, slow, and has a fairly small health meter. He attacks with a small cane at essentially point-blank range. As in the Castlevania games, there are candles, and other hanging objects you can destroy for items. Some of these are ammo for special weapons, while others are weapons themselves. What sets this one apart a little bit is just how different each character’s weapons are. No special weapon is represented twice. There are a set exclusive to each character. For instance, Miriam can have a spinning disc attack that goes back, and forth. Alfred on the other hand can get a weapon that lets him turn enemies into ice blocks he can then jump on, or have another character jump on.

There are all sorts of possibilities. The other thing is that each stage, even the earliest ones all have branching paths in them that only specific characters can go to. You may need to switch to Gebel so you can turn into a bat, and fly through a small gap for one path. You may need to slide under something for another, and so you’ll have to switch to Miriam. This sort of mechanic gives the game a lot of replay value, as in order to see everything each stage has to offer you’ll need to try each of them with the applicable characters.

The thing is you have more options with them than you do with the ones in Castlevania III. What I mean by that is, you don’t drop one when you meet the next. If you choose to take one along for the ride, they stay with you the entire game. The game can be quite a challenge too, especially near the end of the game. So having all of the characters working together makes defeating Gremory, the leader of the Demons, more manageable. However, what makes the game worth playing over again even more are the multiple endings. Depending on which characters you take along, or leave behind you’ll get different outcomes if you clear the game.

And beyond that there are a few difficulty settings. You can play the easiest setting if you just want to go through the game at your leisure. It reduces the knock back so it isn’t as cruel as the NES Castlevania trilogy could be. It also gives you unlimited lives, so you also won’t see the continue screen. But the veteran mode is the hardcore NES game difficulty you remember. Or if you’re too young to remember, but want to experience anyway. Getting knocked back into pits, crumbling bricks, rotating trap floor tiles. It’s all here. Clearing this will unlock an even harder mode though. So the absolute biggest Castlevania transplants will want to check it out, as it makes an already tough job more challenging.

Visually the game also follows the Castlevania III mold. It has a very similar color palette, and a very similar pixel art style. This isn’t to say everything is exactly the same. There are background animations, and graphics based puzzles the old Konami games don’t have, and a slew of special effects the old 8-bit 6502 chip variants, and accompanying graphics chips simply can not do on display. The music in it, and synchronization with the cinema screen animations are spot on too. It sounds very much like a Famicom console game through, and through. Inti Creates has done a phenomenal job in the graphics, and sound department with this game.

But all of this success might be a little too successful. In being so close to the Castlevania NES fill in so many wanted, it doesn’t retain its own identity as much as it needs to. Other than Alfred, the main characters are very much your Simon, Sypha, and Alucard stand-ins. As detailed, and beautifully laid out as the stages are, they could easily be mistaken for an NES Castlevania outing. The mini bosses, and bosses are where the game really begins to turn the tide on this a bit though. These are great multi part affairs that don’t look they would necessarily be in one of Konami’s games, but fit this spiritual successor at the same time. The game also has a handful of minor bugs in it. Mostly collision based bugs. There were a few sections with crumbling blocks designed to make you lose a life if you fail at navigation. At one point I fell, but landed safely in an area where I had to jump to my doom anyway. There was nowhere else to go. Some of these seem to be helping in speed runs. But for the rest of us, they’re the rare inconvenience.

Still, beyond these observations I really enjoyed playing through the game’s many stages. Anybody who loves the old school Castlevania games probably owns this by now. But if for some reason you don’t, it’s an absolute blast. It’s a truly great action-platformer with some great obstacles to overcome, and some of the best boss fights I’ve been in. I only wish the game did a little bit more to make it feel unique. Sure the main protagonist doesn’t use a whip, but before long another character does. Sure, you’re fighting an army led by a demon, rather than Dracula. But that army still has a lot of skeletons, and zombies in it. Hopefully the upcoming Ritual Of The Night will address this while continuing to do everything else as well as this game does. Be that as it may, Curse Of The Moon is still a keeper.

Final Score: 9 out of 10

Slain: Back From Hell Review

Generally I don’t do end of year lists, because I simply don’t have the resources to play everything. But sometimes that can be a good thing as this year proved that many games have been, and will be taken out of the oven too early. Slain is one such game. At least it was initially according to most who looked at it.

PROS: Everything you love about Castlevania 1, Golden Axe, and Heavy Metal!

CONS: The insane difficulty of NES Castlevanias.

DIE: Everything will kill you in this game. Usually in horrific, and gory ways.

When Slain was released, the initial reception wasn’t very good. Performance was terrible on many computers, it had bugs, crashes, and other problems. But things didn’t stay that way for very long. Where other developers may have spent eons trickling out patches to try to get things working, made excuses, or worse, given up entirely, these guys didn’t. The people behind Slain put out major overhauls for a few months. Once the game was in the state it should have launched in, it was given a subtitle to reflect it, and relaunched.

So this revamped version I received for Christmas is really good! It has brisk action. It has a blend of fighting, and puzzles. It has really inventive character designs, and a head banging soundtrack. What it doesn’t have is a ton of exploration, a deep story, or a wide cast of playable characters.

You see, at first glance many people will think Slain is going to be a Castlevania clone, and they would be partially right. But these folks aren’t thinking of the  right Castlevania games. These days a lot of people are wistful for the entries like Symphony Of The Night, or Aria Of Sorrow. Versions of the formula that mixed in the exploration of Metroid into the series. Leading to the term Metroidvania. But Slain follows more closely to the first Castlevania most people who owned an NES played. Castlevania.

So what you’ll be doing here is going through linear stages. At the end of each stage you’ll fight a horror themed boss, and then move on. After you complete the first stage, you do get to go to a hub level, where you can choose the order you want to play the stages in. Well, partly. Because two of them are locked until the second, and third, are completed. You can also replay any stage you’ve previously beaten. But no matter what order you choose there aren’t any changes. Each of the six stages does give you a pretty wide variety of settings. The entire game is oozing in Heavy Metal. The style of the characters, and even the pixel art itself, is right out of album covers. Old school fans will immediately think of the art on albums by Iron Maiden, early Metallica, Sepultura, Dio, Thor, and Iced Earth.

You’ll be fighting in old burned out towers, desolate plains, ethereal worlds, and blood soaked towers. There are also booby traps everywhere. Trap doors that will have you falling on spikes. Blood puddles that pull you down, and drown you. Background statues that attack you, ceilings that crush you, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The enemies will take you back to times of playing Castlevania. Albeit with a dash of Golden Axe. Instead of fighting one or two enemies at once, you’ll often be swarmed with five or six. All of the enemies look gorgeous. As far as monsters can. The details in the sprites are just as impressive, and imposing as the backgrounds. Plus, every character has a ton of animated detail. If you take five seconds to analyze something as simple as a skeleton walking toward you you’ll notice it instantly. He’ll then hack you to death with a machete because you weren’t paying attention.

Which brings me to the death animations of your character. Because it goes along with everything else. You’ll see your organs fall out after a monster has you disemboweled. You’ll see the flesh fall off of your bones when you fall in an acid pool. You’ll see your head get severed by an enemy knight. or your character become paste when he gets crushed. The ways you go down in this game can give Mortal Kombat a run for its money.

So how do you survive? Well the game does take a few cues from Castlevania in that you’ll have to plod through areas, avoiding traps, killing enemies, and trying to make jumps without bats or Medusa heads knocking you into pits. The game also has both a health, and power up bar. But the similarities begin to end there. For starters, instead of picking up random secondary weapons from candles, you have a charge attack. The longer you hold the charge, the more powerful a burst of fire you can throw.

But I can already hear you asking where to find mana to replenish your secondary ammunition. You find it in battle. Slain, has a pretty respectable fighting system. True, you can hack n’ slash your way through via Golden Axe inspired brute force. But you’ll actually have an easier time once you discover that timing is everything. Slain gives you an attack button, a jump button, a secondary attack button, and a block button. Holding the block button can , well, block attacks from enemies. The thing is blocking too many attacks will actually cause you to go into a hit stun, where enemies will finish you off.

However, if you time your block perfectly, the enemy gets hit stunned, allowing you to get off a critical hit. Many enemies will die after one or two of these, and it is here you get mana. But it goes further. Some bad guys will shoot projectiles at you. Instead of blocking these attacks, you can time your primary attack. Hitting the projectile at just the right time will knock it back, like a baseball. This is crucial to master, because for some of the larger enemies, mini bosses, and bosses you can’t survive without it.

And before you go thinking you can instantly make the game go from difficult to easy by doing this, every enemy type has a different timing requirement. In the case of boss fights, you’ll also need to learn their patterns. Attack at the wrong time, you’re dead. Go on a flurry of hits blindly, and you’ll soon be on the business end of a super move that will one shot you. Even if you have full health at the time.

Still, you’ll need to master every trick at your disposal, because much like the early Konami, and Sega games that inspired it, it is difficult. But difficult in a good way. You’ll die 20 million times. But every time you’ll still want to play again. It gets you hooked on perseverance. That constant feeling of just one more try. You will give it one more try, and another, and another. Because every stage has a hidden piece of a talisman you’ll need to find. There are also elemental versions of standard swords, and axes. But the way they’re implemented is really cool. Again, the amazing sprite work, and animation is on display. These weapons aren’t just recolored, and buffed versions. The wild designs make each of these feel unique. Like the embers of fire trailing off of your flame sword. Or the water, and ice dripping off of your axe. Slain always has some new detail you’ll be discovering.

The soundtrack also takes inspiration from vintage metal, though it has elements of subgenres. There are moments where it feels symphonic, other times there’s a sense of power. Often times it will evoke crunchy, speedy licks, and solos. Curt Victor Bryant (of Celtic Frost) did a wonderful job giving players a soundtrack that matches the imagery in Slain. Again, it will remind you of early metal albums. If you grew up in the 70’s or 80’s listening to a lot of the heavier, darker albums, you’re going to love the music in this game.

Unfortunately, the story we’re given isn’t nearly as interesting as the world it takes place in. You play Bathoryn. An old, expired warrior who is resurrected, and commanded to liberate six realms from monsters. There are some dialogue boxes between Bathoryn, and some of the characters, like the being who wakes you from your slumber. Or the banter with boss characters before, and after fights. But the exposition doesn’t show you the story, it just tells you what is happening. You go tracking down a villain named Vroll. He shows up from time to time to taunt you on your quest, and sometimes just before a boss fight. Throughout the game you also run into a mysterious mystic, who grants you the aforementioned weapons, as well as introduce some of the new enemies. The final confrontation does fill in some of the blanks, and there is an interesting twist at the end. I just wish the narrative could have been as interesting as everything else.

Be that is it may, Slain: Back From Hell is an excellent game overall. It is true, that it has a very high difficulty, but then so do many good games. If you’re someone who is willing to press on, there is a lot to like. Even if you’re not a big fan of Heavy Metal, the game’s horror elements, and atmosphere will still keep you entertained for hours. It isn’t a very long game at just six stages. But the challenge will have most people playing it for a long time. Even if you do become good enough to master it, you’ll likely come back to it for replays, or speed runs.

Final Score: 8 out of 10