Beat with 19 out of 20 chalices. The early game was very easy and I had little trouble killing enemies with the basic sword. I crept around in blocking stance and would try to time my attacks in between those of the enemies so I could block their attacks. It was important to play safe because the camera was not often ideally pointed, and using the analog stick to rotate it was awkward. It might have been better bound to L1 and R1 because I rarely used strafe and change target. The strafe was a bit weird in that it let me sidestep and back peddle but moving forward seemed to revert to normal movement? I did not use the ranged weapons that much because the enemies were either too easy to bother or too dangerous to risk it. I instead saved them for bosses. The swords were overall the best weapons and a great tactic I found was to sprint circles or figure 8s around enemies while jousting with the sword. I only enchanted the broadsword once or twice and was disappointed that it was on a timer. I found the arm and throwing knives pretty much useless other than as the last resort. I used the hammer until getting the broadsword but really missed the better range of the swords. I found the huge amount of different ranged weapons to be unnecessary; like why were there 3 different types of bow and why did the master archer guy who gave me them not know what flaming and magic arrows were? I assume the different bows represented different arrow types instead of lugging around 3 different bows. I barely tried the spear and lightning, while the axe was a good ranged weapon for generic enemies that did not require ammo.

I made sure to fully explore each level and get the chalice. I could tell how the levels were accommodating for those who did not get the better weapons, but it was so easy to get them that I wonder who would miss them. I did the levels slightly out of order, going to the enchanted place and doing the anthill side thing before I was supposed to go there. That anthill was the most confusing level to navigate and I wished there was an in game map. I first ran into trouble at the scarecrow fields where I completely missed the exit and had to look up a map online. Then I had to play that level twice more to get the chalice because I did not know I could kill the scarecrows with weapons; thought the serpent thing had to kill them. The next pain was the town because of not being supposed to kill the villagers. Screw that I killed them all then did the level again properly after i knew exactly what to do. I had to come back a third time because I missed the quest artefact. My first game over was at the asylum because I was not expecting the sheer amount of enemies all at once. The axe was too unhandy for that. The next time I used the bow, and then the chicken for the fast zombies. From here on the difficulty ramped up severely, but not so much from the combat. The worst part of the game was the clown puzzle where I had to hit the 5 pictures to show the other side, but they turned back on their own. It was obnoxious and frustrating to the point where I almost quit playing right there. A walkthrough did not really help. Between the stupid double press a direction to run, awkward zoom and camera getting me stuck on stuff all the time or missing swings, and trying to figure out what I was supposed to do. I just beat my head against it until it finally worked. It was such a massive difficulty spike that came out of nowhere compared to the other puzzles.

Then I got game over again at the marsh because falling in the water cost a full life bar. I did not have a problem navigating narrow walkways without falling off but making even a short jump over a gap.... not my forte. Another game over at the castle because there was a time limit at the end; lovely just what I like. I took way too long killing the golems and ran around wildly not sure what to do. I did it the next time after some walkthrough help, especially that I was using the complete wrong weapon on them. Then came the worst level, the god damn ghost ship with the worst kind of platforming. I could do the bouncy net part easily enough but the part after that with 2 different paths of moving platforms. Nope, just nope, this was the kind of bullshit that needed save states, but unfortunately I was not playing on an emulator. Infinite lives would have helped too. And if that was not bad enough, failing the top path sometimes sent me back to an earlier part of the level rather than taking life and letting me immediately try the platforming again. At this point that was even more annoying. It took many tries to finally get past that platforming with enough health to beat the enemies and boss, and at that point I did not even try to get the chalice. No way in hell will I play this level again to go for that last chalice. I barely scraped by the time device level, of course managing to fall in the little gap around the train; why were there no guard rails? Then took 3 tries to beat the final boss. First attempt failed because I had no idea I was supposed to heal my allies. Triage puzzle, seriously? Maybe I would have known what to do if the spell was called "heal" instead of "good lightning". Who the hell thinks lightning = healing? Then took a try to figure out the boss mechanics and what weapons to use. I tried the lightning and magic bow but the best way seemed to be magic bow for the dark rider, and sword for the final boss.

This was a well made game with hilarious story and characters; very much a macabre horror that reminded me of Tim Burton stuff. Good combat and level design for the most part. I liked being able to replay levels to farm supplies but it could have used a secret tiny level for healing and items, Super Mario World style. I would have enjoyed this game far more if the combat challenge was seriously ramped up; way more enemies and combined forces that were not present in the game. Brutal combat that would force mastering each weapon and making use of all ammo. I could have done without a couple of the puzzles and the obnoxious platforming. At least make failure cost only a little hp instead of a whole bar. As it stands certain parts of this game frustrated me so much that I never want to play it again. This makes the game a little tough to rate because I really enjoyed the good parts, which were the majority of the game.

7.8/10