I got pictures for free. This is incredible!
So much of the golden era of Castlevania games are in here. The music, the settings, it's all here and more. Other than the series that put the vania in MetroidVania, I've run into some surprise nods to other games like Metal Gear, Bayonetta, and even Shovel Knight. I really hope for the huge success of this game to turn this into it's own franchise.
First off, It's a descent game. Not great, but descent. I think the real issue is the hyping up of 1996 action packed gameplay. It's not like the shooters you remembered playing back then. It's definitely more like the rogue lite shooters that are coming out these days. I'm fine with that, but if you're expecting something along the lines of Doom, Quake, or even Blood it's not this game. The procedural generated levels are nice, however the rooms are fairly small and don't leave much room to run around gunning down enemies. At the beginning of each run, you pick one of 3 weapons that you will mainly use. There are others to grab as you play, but ammo for them is limited. Oh and there's reloading. That combined with the small rooms really slow this game down since most of your encounters will be getting the attention of some enemies, backpedaling while shooting at them, and then ducking around a corner or dodging fire while reloading. Overall it seems that a lot of cherry picking was done for the trailers on the actual gameplay. The combat shown in them is there in the game, but it's pretty slow going through areas. Again, I'd call it a very competent rogue lite shooter along the lines of Immortal Redneck or Ziggurat (but a little more cramped). It's definitely not what they were trying to advertise it as.
