Review scoopings 2/5 · Apr 24, 2024
Potentially Great, Disappointing Execution -- Overly Difficult And Tedious
Preliminary: Wow, there's a coop 2 player feature for a console?! And a bunch of favorite Konami characters in a platformer setting? Interesting. It's described as difficult, though, hoping not too difficult! And omg the list of characters include Mikey from the Konami Goonies games I love!
Day 2
Okay, so I'm getting more into it. I was a …
Preliminary: Wow, there's a coop 2 player feature for a console?! And a bunch of favorite Konami characters in a platformer setting? Interesting. It's described as difficult, though, hoping not too difficult! And omg the list of characters include Mikey from the Konami Goonies games I love!
Day 2
Okay, so I'm getting more into it. I was a bit iffy at first, the action/platformer elements seemed a bit less than what you'd expect from Konami, but like often happens, I think it just took getting used to. And accepting that this is more than a straightforward action game. It seems to be like Megaman where you can enter any of the 6 areas right from the bat, and each area gives you upgrades (indeed, outright playable characters in this game) to use in the other areas, culminating in a final level. The initial characters aren't the best, I wound up preferring Konami Lady for the start, but things are falling into place. The Sound and Look aren't really standing out so far (very expected NES affairs with both); the Play is getting better but nothing spectacular; but the Feel is where it's really at--having favorite Konami characters like Simon Belmont and Mikey. Fortunately, they are quite forgiving with Heart drops, and enemies get stunned when you hit them, otherwise this is already feeling a bit too difficult for me!
Sadly, as much as I love Konami and these characters, this game felt a lot like a chore. I stopped at this point: 
Goemmon was my favorite character to play as, but the Sound for him was terrible. I had to mute it while using him. The Megaman-influenced format is a bit neat, but it wasn't the first to do it and I didn't love it in Megaman either. And as if anybody said "my favorite part of Castlevania is the stairs mechanic, Konami, please use those in this game and just have an insanely high difficulty please"
Look: 7/10 Boosted primarily because of the variety of settings and the characters I know and love
Sound: 6/10 For the most part, it's okay, but some is outright no
Play: 6.5/10 Good enough controls. Some potentially good ideas in this like the minigames in Feudal Japan where you could revive characters and whatnot, and the special weapons for characters. But they somehow made Konami platforming tedious rather than exciting and expansive. It felt a lot like the first Megaman but like a weird copycat that uses sprites and settings from your favorite Konami games
Feel: 7/10 This definitely would have earned an 8+ if it had a better feeling of fun and excitement to it. Maybe if the Look and Sound were better, I would've just savestated my way through the difficulty. Instead, there was nothing to look forward to besides the hypothetical excitement I would get when I saved Simon and Mikey.
Attachment: 6.5/10 As much as I want to think I'd possibly return to this, I know I will never be in the mood for a tedious, overly difficult platformer.
Overall: 6.6/10