Chronicles of the Wolf

• Genre: Action Platformer (Metroidvania... emphasis on the vania.)
• Spoiler Free Review: Pretty much.
• Time Played: 12 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It was pretty solid, actually a bit longer than I expected but didn't really wear out it's welcome.
• Did I cry: Nah.
• Soundtrack: Way better than I expected it to be, the music went pretty hard.
• Why I played: It looked like they were really going for that classic Castlevania-style gameplay, but more wolf-centric, what else did I need?
• Jank: There are some aspects about the platforming I could nit-pick a little. Some things I think I could do before I was meant to do, and times where the controls feel a little finnicky - not as responsive as they should be, such as when trying to climb a rope, but for the most part it's not really a problem.
• Difficulty: It's not too difficult overall, but there are some ridiculous difficulty spikes and upgrades that level things out passed those progression barriers - I usually reexplored areas enough to always be the most upgraded I could be at whatever point of the game I was in, but there were a couple bosses that were pretty tough.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I'm very pleased. Overall, I think the game was very well thought out and while very traditional and not really modernized in any ways - did an excellent job of recapturing that classic Castlevania feel.
• Recommend to others: I definitely would. This goes toward the top of games for people who "wish there were more Castlevania games". I mean thankfully we're getting at least one pretty soon, but it's been a bit of a dry spell for some years. This definitely fills the void in the way games like the Bloodstained series do.
  

Chronicles of the Wolf surprised me a few ways. I didn't expect it to have voice acting at all, and most story dialog is voiced. Most of the music is pretty solid, but some tracks are especially good. There is a day/night cycle, which does have an effect at least on a few situations in the earlier part of the game. The puzzles, riddles, etc. are generally well thought out, a couple maybe ruined by them more or less telling you, but it really fleshed out the environment to have so many little things going on. Speaking of which, I thought the game was maybe going to be a few hours, based on how much of the map there was, then when getting to a specific section, I thought "oh this will be the same size as the others", only to really learn that I hadn't even explored half the game and it truly was a Castlevania game in all but name.

Pretty much just full of pleasant surprises. I do wish that the pacing was a little better as far as upgrades. Some of the "upgrades" barely feel like anything because they're only used to access one or two little areas and are used for nothing else, and that kind of takes the spot of more useful upgrades you get late game. By late game I had everything I expected, but there was a long time I felt like "I must have missed something" and kept retreading all the prior locations hoping to find a secret I missed. I didn't miss many secrets throughout my playthrough, the upgrade progression is just tilted a little bit in the wrong direction.

Overall a very minor complaint. It's a great game, a great classic-style Castlevania. No stamina bar, no parries, technical combat, no secondary equipment systems and crafting, no gem slotting, no farming materials(maybe just a little gold to buy all the shop items), no ridiculously low item drops requiring farming enemies to get special abilities. Just a straight forward game that is fun to play and has a lot of neat little environmental puzzles and riddles.

Dragon Loop

• Genre: Action Platforming (Metroidvania)
• Spoiler Free Review: Pretty much, normal allusions to progression.
• Time Played: ~24 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It may run just a touch too long, but that could have been my fault for being obstinate about trying to get stuff and apparently pseudo-sequence breaking rather than wait for the easier methods to do things.
• Did I cry: Almost got me.
• Soundtrack: This is actually the weakest part of the game, to it's detriment just a little. It's not that the music is bad, but the... loops are a little short and it gets to feel a bit repetitive, for a game of this length.
• Why I played: I just thought it looked really cute. I think I added it to my Steam wishlist before it even had an english version and had just been kind of following it for a bit. It was released on Switch so I grabbed it immediately.
• Jank: Not gonna lie, this is a janky ass game. If there is a type of bug, this game has it. Times where I couldn't use certain moves, times where I can't access the menu. Weird stuck collision with game objects. Lines missed in localization. There are times when you can't actually navigate the menus you bring up. Most of the time going to a checkpoint will resolve these issues(except for the neglected translations), but there are a couple areas this seems to be consistent issue with. Maybe it's not as bad on the Steam version, but that's not what I played. It just came out on Switch so hopefully they release a patch.
• Difficulty: It's pretty much just right, with a caveat. There are times where things seem to hard, times where they seem to easy, overall it's well balances enough. There is a problem with it's attempt at balancing the game I guess to prevent it from getting boring, and that's basically done by tying how much damage you take to your overall progression. This means even weak early game enemies can take a good quarter of your health away late game - even after you have 15 upgrades to your HP! It can be a bit frustrating that basically you always have to focus a certain amount of upgrades on your HP or else you'll be one shot by even early game enemies. It kind of makes sense why they did it this way because of how you can progress in the game, but it doesn't mean I have to like it.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Despite the jank and the weird choice for game balance, I actually loved this game. I wasn't so sure in the beginning and thought I may just play a little to try it out and move on, but it ending up grabbing me not too long. I just wish I didn't replay the first hour thinking "I skipped stuff", whoops.
• Recommend to others: It's a tough recommend because it's so janky, but it's very clever, has a lot of cool abilities that are utilized in interesting ways, and how it handles navigation is unique - seems tedious at first, but I actually found it pretty clever as I moved on and learns how to navigate better. I want to recommend it, but you have to be tolerant of issues. Maybe it has less of them on Steam? That might be the way to go.
  

For awhile I was on a bit of a roll with metroidvania-style games and could confidently say I played more than most people, but I feel like in the past couple years I've fallen behind a little. A lot of games that have come to be some peoples favorites are ones I haven't even touched - or barely have, if I started it.

Something about 2024, I guess. It looks like I played no Metroidvania's that year. I guess I got burnt out. 2024 was also a record low in game completion numbers in recent years as well. To be fair - I finished a lot of RPGs that year. 3 full Final Fantasy games, a Xenoblade game, Metaphor, Fantasian, and a number of others. Several of which I know were at least 100+ hour games.

Anyway, so I've fallen off of what at some point I may have said was my favorite genre. It's still very up there for me, but I guess they've become a pretty popular genre for indie devs, and modern games I didn't entirely love like Hollow Knight have been a big influence on that market. That along with them trying to stick souls-like or rogue-lite into as many games as possible. I just felt tired of the formula. It was feeling repetitive, or at least not what I like out of the genre. A lot of them really want to be combat focused but neither Metroid or Castlevania really are outside the boss battles. You shoot or stab something once or twice, it's gone you move on. You're just trying to get from point a to be as quick and efficiently as possible.

I understand "metroidvania" is far removed from either of those games at this point. I constantly see social media threads from the youngins, mentioning how so many of them have never actually played a Metroid or Castlevania. Heck, a recent interview with a producer of the upcoming Castlevania: Belmont's Curse was cited saying he wanted to develop the game for this exact reason.