This game improves on the original SW:H. The open map also adds an extra dimension allowing you to explore and find hidden resource boosts.
This game blends some of the aspects of Megaman, Ducktales, Mario 3 and Castlevania together in a very nice mix. To elaborate: There's a sub-weapon system very similar to Castlevania but you gain the weapons themselves at set points (more similar to Megaman). Your movement is more akin to Simon Belmont or Scrooge than Megaman though (which is my biggest gripe). There's also map screen (kinda like Mario 3) and there's even some challenges that show up (a la Mario 3 hammer bros.). Despite my comparisons to Mario 3, it plays like a modernized Castlevania more often than not. To continue the Castlevania comparison, your movement is relatively stiff in the way that Belmont moves in the NES games. It's not a "bad," but it causes some slight issues when you're doing the various precision platforming you need to do to complete some of the levels. As someone who played a lot of the old 8-bit games as a kid, I would definitely recommend this. I'd recommend a gamepad as well (works fine with my DS4).
