This game feels genuinely terrible to play. The combat feels weightless and horrible while also being incredibly delayed and slow. If I didn't get this for free from a friend (he bought a bunch of game keys off of fanatical) I would have refunded it.

Input lag is great with this one. So far bosses are far easier than regular oponnents.

This game ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sucks. Not very eventful. Not interesting. Not many options. Dumb story. Clunky gameplay (you'll die more often because the game ate your input than because you made a mistake). Ugly. Desperately tries to appeal to metalheads. Difficulty floats between annoying and easy, never truly hard (really - just memorise where everyone is and parry timing and everything else is basically scripted - if you don't follow the script you get stun locked and die). No character development. You don't even get more powerful - the first stage will always be that hard even when replaying it at endgame. Yeah, a few enemies are more vulnerable to fire, ice or nothing but that doesn't matter if you're parrying and/or charging, which is what you're always doing anyway. Quite short. Ranged enemies ALWAYS get you between swings for some reason, so you cop damage instead of the intended deflect. Their blasts going in go through enemies, but going back don't (so you'll always have that idiot shooting at you from a distance till the end of the encounter no matter what). Ranged enemies always surround you and kite you so you have to rush and die. And seriously, achievements for no damage on bosses, ganks and gimmicks? That's just desperate. Achievements are just a grind really. Very unimpressive game conceptualised by a 12yo from the 80's. There are MANY better ones around. AVOID.

This game is mediocre at best, but my major issue is that everytime I would turn my character to the right, sometimes it would face left. I thought it may be my controller and it happened with another one. So I chalk it up to the controller input. it's an XBOX controller, relatively new, so not sure what the deal is there. Overall, the game was kinda boring, and i would recommend.

It's incredible to me that this game somehow feels less responsive than the actual old school Castlevania games. In that game, you expect input lag, but the input lag is even. It's the same. Somehow, this game manages to be both slow AND unresponsive. You move like you're in mud, you attack like you're drunk, and ultimately you feel like you might as well be punching underwater.

Now, poor controls you can chalk up to incompetence rather than malice. But the problem is the game almost feels DESIGNED to exploit how frustrating the movement is. The enemy placement is based around where you will HAVE to move, knowing you can't dodge it unless you KNOW it is there. The platforms are deliberately made more annoying BECAUSE of the movement. Everything about how they've designed the game is to deliberately frustrate you, it isn't an accident.

Because of that, none of the visual charm or impressive soundtrack means anything. All you feel when you're trying to play the game is "why is this so annoying to play". That is ALL you think.

I'm really tired of this current trend in video games, that they are either casual timesinks, or excrutiatingly ultrahard ragefests, that are purposely created and endorsed by hyper-super gamers online to gaslight you into thinking that you can't play games if you don't like soulslike/retro-reminescing stuff / you're a baby / get good etc.
Back in the day when Maddox wrote an article about Contra 3 being cool and manly because it's so difficult, it was meant to be a joke. THIS GAME IS NOT FUN. And yes there were games like this in the 8 & 16-bit era (Ninja Gaiden, Castlevania 3, Contra 3, Street Fighter 2010 etc.) that were cheap, and frustrating to play like Slain and Valfaris, but they are not fun either. This is not the reason why people like retro games. How about making games that have REASONABLE challange and still enjoyable, instead of gaslighting players that "they suck because they die 100 times, unlike me hahaha"?

On the flipside: I like the pixel graphics and the heavy metal aesthetic.

I played this game a long time ago shortly after I bought it back closer to when I first made my Steam account and I remember it being quite bad. I remember the controls feeling very clunky and it just feeling unfun and repetitive to play while also being one-dimensional. I even gave it two tries! Out of some of the first games I bought out of the massive selection on Steam, why did this have to be one of them? The game is really just mediocre because the aesthetics are good. I don't know why there are so many positive reviews. People's standards have gotten really low.

Before you read other reviews, take note of how little playtime other reviewers have and think about why that may be the case. I spent 5 whole dollars on this game which means it was on sale and I still don't think it was worth the money. I might try the game yet again if I'm feeling really bored and I'll revise my review if it's somehow far better than I remember.

Glad I only paid 1€ for it.

Slain: Back from Hell.

Maybe this game should have stayed there.

The game looks great and has some good mood...but the combat is overly dull and sluggish. There are far too many games that do this combat style better. And is Hell really cold these days? Every time I stopped moving it was like I was sliding on ice.

I will still get more playtime in it since I own it. Might as well..but I know my tastes, and this will have to pull an amazing 180 move for me to change my opinion. Right now this is the classic example over why substance beats style all the time.

I got this for $1. I'm not going to cry over that. But you will if you get it for full price.

Stopped on the second level. Sluggish controls, cheap enemy placement, bland repetitive level design. ( the same platforming tasks came up 3 separate times in the first level). Give this one a miss and go for the messenger instead.