I feel ill-equipped to judge this game. Although I’ve done the research, I’ve only played a handful of Castlevania games; nevertheless, it seems appropriately fanservice-y for a crossover between different eras of Castlevania. On the other hand, I’m also terrible at fighting games and generally dislike them. So I can’t speak too much to this one but it does seem insufficiently balanced; I managed it after turning the difficulty down but that speaks more to my own ability.

So it’s a fighting game, but I liked that it’s less restrictive than others I’ve played. You can roam around the stages freely, and there are stage hazards and items to pick up. There’s not too many buttons used but they have to work hard to cover all the moves, and trying to pull off the maneuver you want can sometimes be tricky. There’s charging and directional inputs change them, and sometimes your character will attack a candlestick instead of your opponent. I found it was also easy to get interrupted. Each character is different too, and requires practice to see what they’re about. My favourite was Shanoa for her mix of ranged and close attacks.

Having said that, I’ve stopped playing far from the end point. I’ve cleared Story Mode with everyone, true Story with Aeon, and the challenge room-based Castle mode with one character. After that I’m confident that the game is not 100% for me, and I’m not willing to put in the hours for the “content grind”. It just wasn’t that fun for me. The best part was seeing how they’ve depicted this range of characters, seeing their moves and their little lines. But the novelty wears off quickly.

Of course, the depictions have gone through a process of reinterpretation. Each character has been redesigned by Obata, the illustrator of Death Note. I enjoyed Death Note and it’s interesting to see that design philosophy applied to a series that already had its own visual identity. Of course you do then get some glaring issues, even getting past the concept of “What that’s not what my favourite character looks like!”. I’m talking about the sexualisation; it’s bad enough to give massive knockers to Sypha, but to focus the character arc of the little girl character around a fixation on other women’s bodies is just creepy. Japan strikes again!

Well I’m sure you could read insights like this anywhere on the Internet so I’ll wrap it up. It’s cool to have this mashup of characters of the series, even some which IGA has declared non-canon (Cornell from the second 64 game). (Which by the way, I freely disregard; I like to be inclusive in my canon.) It just falls a bit short on the execution. The plot calling back to Kid Dracula/Boku Dracula-kun of all things is funny, but it takes itself really seriously within the game; there’s not much of a sense of fun except for the odd brief glimpse when Grant is on-screen. So a missed opportunity in some ways, but a work with some effort put into it.