Castlevania

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (Nintendo DS) Review

David HoganLeave a comment

It’s time to wave goodbye to the “Metroidvania” style Castlevania games as we look at Order of Ecclesia, essentially the swan song of the original timeline/run of games, minus a few multiplayer and phone things anyway. It ends the series with a bang though, not just presentation-wise or gameplay-wise but also a “bang” in the sense of knocking into something hard as the game is really challenging, to put it politely. They knew the people playing at this point would be veterans rather than newcomers, I guess. Well, let’s take a look then, and bring an end to this particular brand of Castlevania on this site (I will get round to the classic and 3D games one day, I’m sure…)

Continue reading →

Castlevania: Nocturne – Season 2 Review

David HoganLeave a comment

The still-weird-its-a-thing Castlevania animated show returns for a second season of “Nocturne”, creating a new story with some of the Castlevania game characters from the 1700s as well as entirely new ones. This time there was less focus on character backstory and more focus on really great action, which given it was essentially the second half of a story makes a lot of sense! Let’s take a look…

Continue reading →

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (Nintendo DS) Review

David HoganLeave a comment

Continuing with my playthrough of the DS Castlevania games thanks to the Dominus Collection we have “Portrait of Ruin”. Thankfully the game pulls all the way back on the touch screen stuff and it adds some fun new gameplay elements, but it also doubles-down on the lighter tone and anime aesthetics and makes some not-so-fun gameplay decisions! A mixed bag indeed… Let’s take a look!

Continue reading →

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (Nintendo DS) Review

David HoganLeave a comment

Well, given I have a couple of other on-and-off game review series going I wasn’t planning on starting another one, but while I knew it was always in the cards the sudden release of the Castlevania: Dominus Collection has shifted my priorities a bit as I’ve been waiting to play these games with a comfortable controller and on a big screen for many years. Sadly I’ll have to say that “Dawn of Sorrow” isn’t the massive hit I was expecting, in fact I think its prequel “Aria of Sorrow” was far better, that doesn’t mean this is bad by any means, just not up to that standard. Intrigued? Read on!

Continue reading →

Castlevania: Nocturne – Season 1 Review

David HoganLeave a comment

The eagerly anticipated follow up to Netflix’s unexpectedly good Castlevania cartoon (or “adult animation” for those who are for some reason embarrassed by that term, though written by Americans and animated in Texas means it’s not an anime!) Castlevania: Nocturne sees lightly adapted bits of game lore sprinkled in amongst an original story set in revolutionary France. Now lacking the sometimes comically bad dialogue found in the original series but still occasionally trying to emulate the “banter” Nocturne does a lot of things right, especially the animation quality, but it’s not perfect. Let’s take a look!

Continue reading →

Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (PC Engine CD) / Vampire’s Kiss (SNES) Review

David HoganLeave a comment

It’s time to admit something: I was going to review Rondo of Blood alongside it’s sequel Symphony of the Night last year given they’re packaged together but despite slowly but surely making my way through it I never did in the end because I lost the screenshots I took when I cleared the Symphony of the Night folder. Well, now with the SNES port of Rondo (known as Vampire’s Kiss in the UK, Dracula X in the US) on the latest Castlevania collection I thought “Perfect, I’d hate to leave it unplayed and now I have an excuse!” … Jesus, I was not prepared for the increase in difficulty found on the SNES version. So I’ll admit given I’d already completed a version of the game I spammed save states like some sort of bitch, whatever that means. So while most of the later game screenshots come from a “cheaty run” I can promise you I have played at least the original legitimately…

With that overly long opening out of the way: Let’s take a look at it/them!

Continue reading →

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (GBA) Review

David HoganLeave a comment

After a long break its time to complete our look at the GBA Castlevania games with Aria of Sorrow, finally mine after the recently released “Castlevania Advance Collection”. A lot of people site Aria as their favourite Castlevania of all time and it’s not hard to see why, its certainly the closest any game’s come to capturing the fun and freedom of Symphony of the Night. So let’s finally take a look at it!

Continue reading →

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PS1) Review

David Hogan5 Comments

So I finally gave up on the third GBA game and/or the DS games getting a digital re-release for now, so before I look into sneaky and murky emulation there is still one “Metroidvania” style Castlevania game I officially own and that’s the out-right classic Symphony of the Night. As mentioned in my reviews of the first two GBA games (which were a while ago now, thanks to the Scrolling Sundays marathon…), I had somehow never played SOTN until just now, but you’ll not be surprised to find out that it lives up to its lofty reputation. Let’s take a look!

Continue reading →