Castlevania

I have played almost every sidescrolling Castlevania game in the series, and while this takes some getting used to, it is super fun with a lot of replayability and room for skill expression. I still wish somehow for this game to keep going on and I hope that it doesn’t get removed from the app store anytime soon. If it does, I hope a port is released somewhere else where we can hopefully save our hard work and data. I really enjoy everything about this game, especially the story. Would love to somehow see new things added haha though I know the history of this game so it’s unlikely.<br/><br/>Anyway, just wanted to put the review as my little way of showing support!

Like the actual gameplay but I feel like this game is flooded with too many resources sub menus and things to upgrade. It’s a simple concept, but somehow they over<br/>Complicated it. I just want to plan and not spend half my time equipping things with confusing resources.

ITS OUTSTANDING THE MUSIC ABSOLUTE HOMERUN THE GRAPHICS ABSOLUTE HOMERUN THE STORY THE HOMERUN-IST OF THEM ALL / AND TO THE DEVS THANK YOU FOR MAKING MY LIFE BETTER THIS IS THE GAME FOR ME THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR WONDERFUL GAME

I’m fairly far along in the game, well into book 4, I have every item from every book before 4, including astral weapons and argos weapons, my levels and stats are fairly high, 330K gold with a ton of fragments and materials. I was cruising through the game having a good time. <br/><br/>I beat stage 1-5 in book four, game gave me my rewards and then saved. Loaded the next area and boom, black screen and music. I’ve deleted the app, deleted my data, created a new save, loaded the save, continued and nothing. Stuck on a black screen with music. This is 12.5 hrs wasted, NO MATTER WHAT I’VE TRIED, stuck on this black screen. Please fix this.

The portraits are gorgeous; the 3D graphics are bland and ugly. The game is a grind-fest, and the controller support is incomplete (d-pad movement isn’t supported?!) I do appreciate that, *if* I felt like I were missing out on some Castlevania experience due to the micro-transaction-heavy original version of the game, that this is basically the home console port of the “arcade” game (Ironic, I know!). So yeah, the game gets a bonus star because Apple Arcade managed to at least save it from predatory monetization schemes.

Such a fun game…! I would recommend because it’s easy, solid, and has great graphics. The story is well thought out and the soundtrack is outstanding. Definitely worth a five minute sesh here and there!

Game crashes during starting cutscene, isn’t playable on iPhone 16 plus.

A lot of things in this game scream (Iga-style) Castlevania, something they clearly lean into, but Grimoire honestly suffers from the comparison in almost every way. If you are unable to play SotN or any of the gba or DS Castlevania games, this is a fair substitute. Otherwise, you’ll probably have more fun revisiting any of those games no matter how much time your spent with them prior. My understanding is that Grimoire also had a lot of gatcha and play to play/win elements previously. While the latter was removed, there are still a lot of random pulls and daily junk to do. That might be a plus for some, but I think most prefer a more traditional gaming experience. It’s also pretty grindy. That’s not really unusual in the genre (metroidvania), but you’d be a god in most games in the same time it takes you to grind for rolls for one of the 5 playable characters in Grimoire. I did play a lot of it, and finished the main playthrough (there’s also a hard mode). I’m still missing one achievement, but it’s been months and I haven’t found the motivation to pick the game back up. If I do, I’ll likely just do that and then put it away forever.