I remember seeing a preview for this game a while back and wanting it when it finally came out. I was not disappointed. An actual story that is expanded upon after each death is enough to be interesting while not taking away from the monster killing fun. Each member of the family is a different classic ARPG class, like sword-and-board tank, ranged archer, nimble thief, mage, etc., so there is plenty of variety when choosing how you want to play. However, you also get bonuses for leveling up every family member, encouraging you to play using everyone. The random layouts of the levels is well done and finding new special abilities each run is fun and adds some diversity. Diablo-style obelisks are present to give short term bonuses, as well. The one boss I've faced so far is pretty tough...you need levels, skill and some luck to beat them, just like many other great games. The amount of challenge seems good so far, but I don't know how it ramps up over the course of the whole game yet. All in all, I've been VERY happy with the purchase and am looking forward to delving deeper and deeper into the game. The persistent unlocks are great motivation to keep on trying again and again to get a little stronger each time you play. Highly recommended to ARPG fans and fans of roguelikes.
...on the main character...on the first boss... All joking aside, this game is great. As soon as I fired it up for the first time, I could see and feel all of the elements from SotN, the Sorrow series, and all the other Castlevania games with this gameplay. It's a huge mashup of all of them and it just works. As a note, I currently own, or have owned, nearly every Castlevania game ever published in the US in its original format/console. This game fits wonderfully in that collection. Gameplay is pretty tight, down to how you can still swing and move backwards ala SotN. My only complaint is that sometimes when I try to jump and attack right after the jump, my attack doesn't go off and i just jump harmlessly into an enemy I was meaning to hit. It's something I can work around via timing, but it's just not quite as tight as previous games. Item/weapon crafting as well as the quests are nice additions that are fun. Grinding for mats and monsters is something that I don't have a problem with, especially when it gets me a shiny new toy (and some levels) to enhance how I kill stuff! Personally, I think the graphics looks fantastic. Nice effects, runs at 60fps at 1080p flawlessly on Epic settings on an i5 with a GTX 1060 Max-Q, textures and atmosphere both wonderful. For those complaining about some of the design choices (main character design), this type of game isn't supposed to look super-realistic; it's a Japan-developed fantasy RPG/platformer with a female protagonist. What were you expecting? Anyways, I'm only a few hours in, but I can tell that many, many more will be spent exploring, crafting, killing, etc. Highly recommend.
