Recent reviews by D4SBOT

Superb. The new characters are amazing and fit the game well, the stages are even better, the whole drone update made drones actually worth picking up and the new items are very well balanced, unlike the SoS overtuned ones. Even the new boss path is pretty damn good, sitting easiliy above both of the previous dlcs.

For the average player, it will be well worth the price. The gameplay is fair, introducing new interesting and fresh mechanics in each chapter to avoid getting stale. The music is great and the atmosphere the graphics bring is just spetacular, it really does go nice with climbing a huge ass mountain. The story is nothing special but that shouldn't be your main worry in the first place in a platformer.
Now I must say, chapter 8 and 9 are really not good, at least they are epilogues so they work as an extra. They rely way too much on almost pixel perfect dashes and jumps and anything you time poorly is death. It's not fun, just frustrating, and that's not what a game is supposed to be. I've seen people saying the accomplishment of beating them is well worth it but really, hours of pure torture just to get mere minutes of satisfaction doesn't make the chapters good nor worthwhile.

Overall great game, not to mention it only costs 5€ on sale for ~50 hours

Pros:
-Phenomenal cast with great english voice acting
-One of the best written protagonists I've seen in a JRPG, edginess done right
-Constantly progressing story, without huge breaks
-Decent build variety
-Acessible combat that doesn't require extremely demanding chains of actions
-Characters feel different enough during gameplay to feel unique but not unfun
-Story takes place in a fantasy world without being too generic (it does start a bit generic in its themes but they get enough development to make them stand out)
-Actual good antagonist that gets enoguh screen time (unlike Vesperia)

Cons:
-Combat starts kinda weak because of the lack of skills
-Boring and unrewarding dungeon design (sometimes backtracking to previously inaccessible areas give trivial items)
-Painfully slow character movement in the map
-Velvet's character design, they could very easily make her repair her clothes later in the game (which is even mentioned in the story), but they didn't because of fanservice or something
-Overall weak graphics for a 2017 game (Recommend using Reshade if it bothers you)

After playing every game and replaying them with the (main) bonus characters, I feel like I have a really good understanding of them to really recommend them.


It's hard to compete against Aria of Sorrow, and while I don't think this one is nearly as good as it, it's still a worthwhile experience.
First of all, the graphics are a little bit less saturated but very pretty. The OST is, in my opinion, the best in the collection and better than in Aria of Sorrow. The basic combat continues to be amazing and even more polished than before, with a huge amount of weapon variety and soul variety. I also consider the method of getting the true ending to be way less cryptic in this game, therefore more accessible, which is amazing. There are also tons of bosses, with almost every single one of them being very well-made and fair. The soul system is back, and even though it's grindier than ever, the souls themselves are still insanely fun to use.

Dawn of Sorrow was sadly hit by being the first one on the DS, which caused some very obnoxious touch screen mechanics to be implemented in the game, most notably the seals (Which are actually fine in this collection because they turned them into a sort of QTE, but they still break the game's pacing). Also, the progression and reason for actual exploration was hit by the crafting system, which is absolutely awful. To get better weapons you must grind souls with insanely low drop rates, and sometimes you need to sacrifice souls you can't regain in the same playthrough. That settles DoS as the least rewarding game to explore in the series.

Julius mode was... alright. Actually I kinda like the exploration in this mode, but it's a shame Julius himself sucks complete ass, unlike his AoS counterpart. This happens because of the other 2 playable characters in the mode that, even though are decently well-made, feel insanely more powerful than Julius. Overall, it's not a bad mode but the others are better, but it's alright since this is the first release.

7/10

My favourite out of the three. It's imperfect but insanely fun to play.
The weapon and subweapon variety is insane, counting that you have control of 2 characters. The whole 2 character dynamic is really well implemented as it never gets too intrusive with the puzzles nor boring with the gameplay since both characters have their own unique play style and Dual Crush abilities. Controlling a character with the vampire killer again is fun since it's amazingly well implemented, being both the first and weakest weapon and one of the best later on. The areas are done insanely well, rewarding exploration a lot and with a bunch of fair secrets that never feel like must haves but are still rewarding. Most bosses, like in DoS, are really good with a few exceptions. It's also very natural to get the true ending, rewarding people who are paying attention to the story and without being too difficult.

However, the graphics here are likely the weakest of the three. They are not bad, they're pretty decent, but especially the scenarios and enemies get reused a lot, including an overly huge amount of sprites from SotN. A few portraits, especially nation of fools, feel very tiring to explore, hurting the overall experience of them. My biggest gripe however is the quest system that, in my opinion, feels a bit intrusive. Some quests are really not easy to do without any guide and sometimes they feel unrewarding (even though they are not necessary).

Richter mode was also pretty damn good. We never got to see a Belmont with such freedom of movement working this well. Unfortunately the other playable character in this mode feels a bit undercooked, but at least she's still very strong dps wise. I'd recommend this mode if you liked the base game.

8.5/10

This one is definitely one of the most unique Castlevanias out there.
The atmosphere is unmatched, the characters are somehow actually pretty decently written and the glyph gameplay is one of the most diverse I've seen. Having three loadouts available at any time is insane as you can combine them either to cover every enemy weakness, synergize with others, etc. Some boss fights are also really insanely well done and polished, even to the series standards. Not to mention, the more linear and way more difficult levels are a breath of fresh air after so many regular metroidvanias. The last thing I want to mention is, this one is absolutely beautiful and aged like fine wine.

Unfortunately, it's not all good. In the collection, this one clearly has some of the highest highs and some of the lowest lows. Some bosses like Brachyura and especially Eligor are insanely gimmicky, and not in a good way. Eligor might be one of the worst, most annoying boss fights I've seen in a game if you don't bring some hyper-specific loadouts. Another thing I don't like is that they lock the good ending behind breakable walls. If you're using a magic loadout and explore everything you'll very likely rescue everyone for the ending, but if you use mostly physical builds? Good luck! Also, the quest system can be boring at times.

As a side note, the bonus mode ( Albus ) is really fun and fast-paced. I ended up liking it way more than expected and the touch controls actually translated really well to right stick movement in the collection. He's kinda OP but still really fun to play as.

8/10


Now something that goes for the whole trilogy: ♥♥♥♥. Cave. Trolls.


I actually didn't beat this one because I value my time. I won't waste my precious time on a game that was originally made to be a terrible arcade game to grab some money from kids. I played only a bit, and it's not good. Only good thing is the music. It's actually one of the worst Castlevania games and I'm glad it doesn't even have that in its name.

Wow. Nobody expected this game to ever exist but here we are.
It's classic but modernized, 16:9 ratio, beautiful graphics and really satisfying gameplay. Music is back and even better. They even added a boss rush mode recently, which is pretty fun.

Only negatives I can think of are the really short duration and being kinda easy, but that doesn't actually hurt the game at all tbh.

It's a mediocre game that's worth playing just by how fun the combat is

Gambling

I've seen powerpoint presentations run better than the online mode
Not to mention some very stupid item quality changes. At this point we might need rebirth 2, the code is just so damn spaghetti at this point

It's pretty good but also frequently flawed.

First of all:
-There's a bunch of weapon variety. For most of the game I used mainly great swords but there are whips, guns, swords, daggers and much more which really adds a lot of fun to the game. Elemental damage is also really well implemented in this game and feels more rewarding than it did before.
-There's a LOT of shard variety. Thankfully most of them are fun to use and actually useful or at least usable. Even though some are underpowered you can make them decent with ranking up, which is something I really appreciate.
-There's plenty of distinct areas to explore, removing a lot of the fatigue you would get from playing a game like this.
-Most bosses are fun to fight and a decent, balanced challenge. When you get to the point when you have plenty of movement abilities it really gets insanely fun and fast paced, it's a shame that point only comes really late in the game.
-The bestiary is decently big.
-Multiple playable characters for extra replayability, including a secret character that somehow got the best mode of them all. All of them get the same castle though, so don't expect complete new campaigns.
-Multiple extra modes, like speedrun and classic are fun additions.
-A lot of references to Castlevania: weapons, regions and even characters.
-The art style is phenomenal, as expected from Ayami Kojima.
-The OST is overall pretty solid, including the classic mode tracks.

However:
-Some characters, especially the MC, feel flat and don't really have interesting personalities or development.
-Some bosses have insanely bs attack patterns and others have way too much hp instead of actual proper challenge.
-The game is just overly long. Some of Iga's best work: Symphony of the Night and especially Aria of Sorrow are very short games yet that made everything new feel refreshing and not exhaustive, I don't get why Iga would go a few steps back with this. There's no need to have a game be this big when in the end it will just make the experience more tedious, and the next point complements that:
-The grind. In previous titles by Iga you would get weapons either by opening chests or dropping them. Now you either get mediocre weapons in chests or you grind MATERIALS so then you can craft weapons. I feel like the addition of this extra step adds absolutely nothing to the experience and shouldn't return in later titles.
-It's kinda buggy, however they frequently throw updates to fix bugs which is pretty good. However sometimes you just get stuck inside enemies without getting proper knockback making you get damaged like 3x as much as you should've, which is by far this game's worst bug(?).
-Lastly, It's too stuck to Castlevania. I understand Iga wanted to play safe since this was his first big independent project, but like, half of the regular enemies are just slightly different Castlevania enemies. And the shard system is basically just a slightly worse version of Aria/Dawn of Sorrow's soul system. I'd like his next games to experiment a bit more, but it's fine that this one played safe.

It might seem like I hate the game but it's just that people happen to be more vocal about negative aspects of things :/

For It's price, especially on sale, it's definitely worth the money. It's a really good game that has some flaws holding it down but it's an interesting experience nonetheless, especially for people who already like Castlevania or Metroidvanias in general.

I always think I know what I'm doing until the misplay of the year happens and I realise I don't know what I'm doing.
10/10

What a freaking masterpiece. 10/10

The gameplay is fluid and fast-paced, full of variety with skills.
The visuals and aesthetic is honestly gorgeous, I don't know how this was originally a vita game.
The cast of characters is genuinely insane, It's insanely fun descovering the backstories of such a huge cast of characters.
The story, despite having some holes, is very interesting overall and quite unique compared to most JRPGs.
The music is one of the best in a JRPG, doesn't get repetitive and has a really beautiful and unique feel to it.

It might not be for everyone knowing that it's a decently long game that starts slow but god does it pay off. It's not every game that makes me want to explore 100% of the map, do 100% of the sidequests, get 100% of the chests, get 100% of the people entries and get every single item there is. There's even a post-game dungeon, that's actually really fun. Would absolutely recommend as it is a perfect gateway to this kind of games.