Citadale - The Ancestral Strain

First off, this is not a metroidvania. It is a level based platformer that has some exploration aspects in some of the levels. Of the 4 levels I played 2 were linear, and 2 had some exploration. That is not a bad thing, I actually prefer linear platformers to metroidvanias, but if you buy this thinking it is a metroidvania you will be disappointed. This game is very heavily inspired by castlevania, just looking at the trailer you can clearly see the influence of that game here. Many enemies are similar and the sub weapons are all identical to those you would find in various castlevania games. In this game you can hold 2 sub weapons at once, which is neat, and you also have a block button which is fairly useless 90% of the time. The game plays pretty well and I initially was having fun with it. The controls are responsive, the graphics are nice, the music is really good and could fit right into a real castlevania game. So why is this not recommended? This game falls into h...

Unfortunately, I can't recommend Citadale in good conscience. Though it has some redeeming qualities - the pixel art is crisp and the music is thematically appropriate - there's much here to take issue with. Level design is comprised largely of long, empty hallways packed to the gills with dead ends, forcing the player to backtrack numerous times in order to ascertain the correct path for progression. Enemies are by-the-books in design and behavioral patterns, and bosses fair even worse: the first boss in particular is compromised of entirely randomized movement patterns and doesn't telegraph his attacks at all - they're clearly proximity- and radius-based. Progression is gated off by doors that require a toll in the form of coins, a-la Mario 64's star doors, but strangely, these coins can be farmed from random enemies; they also seem to respawn behind torches and lanterns across each level, making them trivial (and random) to obtain. Top all this off with a number of bugs - spamming...