Before beginning my review in earnest I must proclaim that not only am I a backer of this title, but a $300 one at that. Considering this information I would understand that there is ample expectation that I would be an overzealous advocate for the title. I will do my best to put forth an honest and fair evaluation regardless of my investment and initial expectations of the game.

To start with a summary for those who aren't interested in a complete rundown, the game is good. I would say it is all around very well made with some areas better than others, but without any specific parts having significant drawbacks. The criticisms I will provide are all somewhat negligible so for anyone interested in purchasing I would say that without a doubt the game (at it's current iteration before any major patchwork or DLC) is very worth it. Take all of the following with a grain of salt over time as there is plenty of free content and updates coming down the line that may alter or invalidate parts of this review.

To start off, I would like to address the gameplay mechanics. Anyone familiar with metroidvania games will quite easily pickup the playstyle here. I have played all the Castlevania games to date so I seemlessly jumped in with absolutely no learning curve necessary to figure out. I would presume the simplicity of the mechanics would lend themselves to be easily picked up even by those with no prior experience however. As you progress through the game new mechanics will unlock that also act like keys of sort to advance to areas that were previously not accessible. This is a pretty familiar style of implementation in Castlenvania games so it likely come as a surprise. It was a nice surprise that a couple of these mechanics were not spoon fed in nature like most games, so there is a small amount of out of the box thinking in order to proceed through certain areas for the first time. The ability to attain these new mechanics outside of the standard "kill boss get skill" pattern was refreshing. If there is a drawback from this it is that some of these mechanics are barely used. One even gets exactly one use ever in the form of progression which makes it feel slightly under utilized. Considering all of these have uses in standard combat and traversal though it is easy to not care about this. There are several types of optional combat mechanics that can be used viably so varied playstyles are supported for progressing through the whole game. I even went the extra mile of tying the hardest bosses on hard difficulty with wildly different setups as to test how viable the different types of combat actually are. I can safely say that while I personally believe the different weapon and spell types could be better balanced, they are all well represented and usable throughout the game. As far as the different mobility options are concerned, there are some mechanics that can overlap in usefulness so it also can come down to preference in many circumstances as far as traversal options.

As far as audio and visuals are concerned, I am personally of the belief that they are very good. The game will definitely not be the best looking title you play this year, but it definitely has artistic nuance and details that are beyond what I had expected. The initial pitch did present a purely 2D sprite based look but this ended up not being the case. The game takes place on mostly 2D plane with 3D models for the character and all the enemies. The background are also three dimensional in nature with some of the areas presenting some gorgeous effects. I can say that there were several times I stopped momentarily to admire the design. I found the foreground to have received noticeably less attention. It's not that the walls, ceilings, and doors are badly designed but rather that it appeared that there was a definite choice to make the background the focal point for visual design. There are a few areas where the foreground was uniquely implemented however. The camera remains locked for nearly the entire game with very select instances chosen to manipulate the viewpoint in order to show off extra design choice. My criticism here is that the moments where these changes happened made me desire more of such designs. Largely the visuals are appealing while playing and the areas have enough variation that you probably won't get bored of any single scenery type before you move on.

The audio is quite well composed with a definite overall theme but with solid variation so you will likely be able to identify each area by the soundtrack alone. There are a couple surprised in the compositions as well so even for those coming in with expectations based on previous igavania works there is a pleasant selection provided. As far as other sound effects are concerned, the sound design is well matched with all of the attacks and creatures. I don't believe for the most part that the sound effects with become repetitious. The exception to this rule will likely lie with the player character herself. There are certain dialogue lines that will be repeated whenever you cast certain spells that you may end up hearing dozens of times. The voice over work is well done though, so it shouldn't ever become grating even if it is repetitious depending on your consistent use of the exact same moves.

The enemy variation honestly surprised me. I didn't expect there to be such a wide array of enemies. This comes with a caveat of the fact that certain enemies may appear somewhat ridiculous. Certain backers were able to have their pets added to the game as enemies so coming across those may throw you for a loop. There are a couple other enemies that may also feel slightly out of place thematically but not enough so to pull you out of the experience. The variation in designs is also reflected in combat with different encounters requiring different different tactics to avoid a drawn out combat at times. I will say that as with almost any game, it is possible to get to the point where you will use one weapon or spell for almost every monster. This is largely personal preference though as I spent over an hour killing with only one gun soon after swapping from playing all night with only one sword with no issues. This provides a malleable experience while fighting that let's you experiment but still retains some challenge. After the first play through, I did feel like the enemies were sadly not as challenging on hard as I had hoped based on my previous experiences in dealing with them on normal. Similarly nightmare mode provided even less of a scaling challenge as it appears to be the same level of difficulty as hard simply with the limitation of not being able to level up at all. Overall while the game is initially challenging in both normal enemies and bosses, you will likely need to place arbitrary restrictions on yourself to keep challenge after multiple play throughs. It is hard to complain about overpowered weapons or spells though since they provide a nice crutch for players with less experience or skill to progress. The power ups like these are also mostly out of the way or grindy to get so you won't be flying through encounters right away. The bosses themselves are well varied but not exactly consistent in progression difficulty. There were definitely a handful of boss fights that were unexpectedly easier than previous ones. There are a handful of hidden bosses and mini-bosses to spice things up as well though.

The weakest point of core of the game is undoubtedly the story unfortunately. While the dialogue isn't poorly written per se, there is definitely no real depth to the story presentation. Most of the plots points you encounter while progressing are quite straight forward and quick to move from point A to point B. Some of the exposition feels like little more than this happened so do this dressed up in a few creative naming conventions.

Rating: B+