So this sat in my backlog, and I decided to play it this year. It is frustrating as all hell. A JRPG battler, but you also have Castlevania exploration** and lots of character But it is the Jack-of-all-trades, except not very good at the other trades besides art. Castlevania exploration? Ye, you'll see the breakable floor or double jump spot in the map, but the maps are painfully linear. The only reason to ever backtrack, seems to be because you can collect the power up gems...which you can use to either purchase an additional attack turn with your party members, or boost your defences. The combat mechanic is really nifty, if not a bit cluttered, but i love how you can start comboing things, not that it'll matter, because you'll quickly find that each character has the most "optimal" pattern. The defence upgrade barely matters, because in the 2nd act, when you need to activate 3 ancient layline sigils, you'll run into a bowl of noodle that WILL oneshot you, unless you perfectly time the block. The movement and animation...it demands Hollow knight level handling for some obsticles, shame that the animation for those things are completly wonky AND CLUTTERED. Want to down attack for a pogostick? NOPE, you'll spear forward. Want to wallboost with your axe? NOPE you'll spear forward. They knew it was bad, because the consequence for failiure is that you lose a bit of you healthbar. What happens when you run out? You'll reappear at the last local"area checkpoint",not savepoint, and have to redo any nearby gems that you collected along the way. Characters. Yes, this was made by a really good art team. They really should have started cutting characters after 5, because you'll get "hidden" ones that have NO dialog in the story or even cutscenes. HECK, they might not even appear when you're supposed to "all be outside the mental world". So 2/5 or 4.5 to 10. Not bad, but very sloppy. Should have either kept more to the RPG aspect like FF or made it fully Castlevania
