Status Chovus May 1, 2022
I started this game thinking it would be generic, boring and low quality like the SNES Dracula game. It was instead much worse. The creature was sluggish and unresponsive. Jumps felt delayed and too floaty, and he often jumped immediately again after landing when I held down the button too long. The stick attack also had a delay and was …
I started this game thinking it would be generic, boring and low quality like the SNES Dracula game. It was instead much worse. The creature was sluggish and unresponsive. Jumps felt delayed and too floaty, and he often jumped immediately again after landing when I held down the button too long. The stick attack also had a delay and was mostly awkward to use. Some enemy attacks could be avoided by ducking while other small enemies could only be hit by the duck attack. The up attack was half decent at hitting enemies from below. I did not see a point for the roll move. Pretty sure it did not give invincibility frames so I guess the only possible use would be avoiding flying enemies maybe. But the distance covered was way too long to risk falling off a platform. And whoever thought the ranged magic attack should cost health should be forced to rip off their own flesh and chuck it at stuff. Seriously, at no point was this ranged attack worth the health loss. There should have been a mana or ammo resource. So the creature controlled and fought like ass, making it incredibly difficult to get anything done without getting hit by enemies and hazards. You know they done fucked up the game when they have to give the player a dump truck sized health bar. Despite that, there was not enough health pickups. A slow lumbering tough monster does not fit well in a platformer and I feel this game should have been a beat em up or something.
I was not able to beat the 1st level. I was at a place with a pushable wagon and a bunch of switches. I tried them all and could not figure out how to proceed. I can hardly believe that these developers had the gall to put in obtuse puzzle nonsense when they could not even get the basic combat and jumping right. Cheat password to level 2 and I somehow made it to the boss despite all the block pushing switch puzzle garbage. I could not figure out how to hurt the spider boss though. There was a note about using a key to bypass the boss and I had enough pieces to make the key, but I could not leave the boss room. Was I supposed to have used that earlier? Whatever password to next level. I actually beat level 3, including figuring out how to disable bear traps and beat the slug boss. I did not find enough items to make anything so have no idea what it was for. I guess the gameplay loop was explore and collect items to skip the boss? Decent concept but poorly executed. I managed to beat level 4 too and actually did not find the platforming too difficult. The boss was a pain that took a while to figure out what to even do, then many tries and hardcore save state scumming to get it done. It was about using timing to avoid the attacks from above to move around and smash all the beakers. Then hope I had enough health to smash the ones on the ground before the bride killed me. I won with a tiny sliver of health left. The ice level was not too bad. I did not get enough items to melt the ice so have no idea what was behind that. I did make a raft which I guess allowed skipping the boss. I did fight the boss enough to figure out the pattern but yeah skipping the boss was better. The final level on the ship was a slog to figure out what to do. And god damn respawning sea gulls. There should not even be annoying weak flying enemies in games. I spent too much time going back and forth until I made a tinderbox. I somehow used it to light the stick on fire but could not get it to work a second time. The whole item system was abysmally designed. I managed to figure out how to blow open a hatch with the little pushable barrels, but that took so long that my stick went out not long after crossing a point of no return. It looked like there were secret areas to blow open but I could not get the fire lit. No idea what the crank was for. I beat the boss then beat the game.
If this game was more straightforward I would be more forgiving, but instead it is complete garbage. If there was a walkthrough it might be a half way passable experience, but I did not see one. So if you have to watch a let's play to figure out what to do, might as well skip playing it altogether.
3.0/10