Citadale - The Ancestral Strain

Challenging difficulty is fine. Although you have unlimited continues, when you give the player just 1 life to do a whole level then kicking them back to the very beginning of the stage when you die doesn't entice me to play much further. Made it to level 4 and the difficulty spike is insane. The flip boards you stand on have some very precise timing required otherwise you fall through to your death or repeating a small section you just did. Over and over.

Unfortunately, I can't recommend Citadale in good conscience. Though it has some redeeming qualities - the pixel art is crisp and the music is thematically appropriate - there's much here to take issue with. Level design is comprised largely of long, empty hallways packed to the gills with dead ends, forcing the player to backtrack numerous times in order to ascertain the correct path for progression. Enemies are by-the-books in design and behavioral patterns, and bosses fair even worse: the first boss in particular is compromised of entirely randomized movement patterns and doesn't telegraph his attacks at all - they're clearly proximity- and radius-based. Progression is gated off by doors that require a toll in the form of coins, a-la Mario 64's star doors, but strangely, these coins can be farmed from random enemies; they also seem to respawn behind torches and lanterns across each level, making them trivial (and random) to obtain. Top all this off with a number of bugs - spamming the slide move layers its sound effect atop itself, exiting the options menu closes the game entirely - and you can see there's a lot of room for improvement. There's a good game underneath it all, …

Well, for starters i prefer the previous trilogy. The new subweapons are pretty much useless and i miss the old text dialogs from the prequels. There are some wonky design choices in this one like the illusion castle level design or the flipping platforms but even with this is playable and fun. The difficulty i would said is medium as 8bits games go, not as hard as the description says, there are checkpoints at boss battles and after completing a level. Multiple paths with different bosses and levels allow for further replayability this time and a alternative ending, the secret stages are actually better than the main ones. The music is catchy. Simply dont forget that is an indie and you will enjoy it, there are not that many Castlevania look alikes in Steam...

Was having fun and I like how you can keep retrying when you make it to a boss. The game autosaves but unfortunately after making it through 4 or 5 chapters I accidentally clicked on new game and it automatically deleted my save file. Uninstalling out of frustration. There should be save slots or at lease have a confirmation before starting a new game so you can back out.

Citadale – The Ancestral Strain, developed by ERMedia and published by Plug In Digital, is a retro-inspired action platformer that deliberately embraces the design philosophy of classic 16-bit era games. Instead of following modern trends such as open exploration, RPG progression trees, or cinematic storytelling, the game focuses on straightforward stage-based action and demanding gameplay that rewards patience and precision. Its visual presentation, combat style, and overall pacing feel like a tribute to the difficult gothic platformers that defined the early console era, creating an experience that is both nostalgic and intentionally unforgiving. The story centers around the Dorleac bloodline, a family long tasked with protecting the world from ancient forces of darkness. Players take control of Arion Dorleac, a descendant of this legendary lineage who must confront a familiar threat from the past. The powerful and malevolent Rhogul, an entity known as the Lord of Darkness, has returned after a long period of silence and now seeks vengeance against the family responsible for his previous defeat. As the latest warrior of the Dorleac line, Arion embarks on a dangerous journey thro…

This game has its own rules and does test your resilience. For easier time, cheese the hell out of re-harvestable hearts, coins and pork chops by simply re-entering the screen (you can go back and re-visit screens - that is the 'metroidvania' part of the game) and the HEAL "sub-weapon." If you try to play it like the traditional CV games, you will have a needlessly bad time with it. You can have TWO sub-weapons (you can switch by pressing SPACE). Sure, there is the manual, though that is for nerds. The game is about 3.0 hours long first time through. It have five (5) stages. The fourth level, man, and those flipping platforms over bottomless pits. Unless you press jump in a specific way as soon as (or soon afterwards - it is unnecessarily cryptic and random at tunes), your jump will get ignored and you will fall. To improve the game, I would increase the duration the flipping platforms allow you to jump on them. That is because if the game lags even a little, the jump inputs in that 0.1 to 0.2 second window will get dropped and there is nothing you can do about it at that point. Make it closer to 0.5 seconds to match the overall stiffness of the game controls. Otherwise it will …