I love the Castlevania series enough to have played a lot of them (and given up on beating all of them except Simon's Quest) over the years. I've never been interested in dating simulation games at all. However, I love attempts by game designers to make something new or mash up different videogame genres, so Romancelvania struck me as something unique and potentially fun.
The studio behind this one is The Deep End Games, whose previous title was Perception back in 2017. In one of the great untold videogame stories I have from the 2010s when I was not blogging, a very generous friend who knew of my love of videogames actually gifted me a Kickstarter access to the project. I participated in the game's development via email, where I helped nail down some story aspects. The game was alright, but seeing my name in the credits was something special.
The generous friend kept getting emails from The Deep End Games after its release which led her to also Kickstart their next game, and thus did I receive Romancelvania for free. I did not participate in the development on this one, though. I tried it briefly after its release, but only recently picked it up again and played it to completion.
The premise is simple: One hundred years ago Dracula was defeated and his castle left in ruins, and his girlfriend dumped him on top of that. The Grim Reaper, tired of the downturn in damned souls coming to him via Drac, strips Drac of most of his powers and forces him to participate in a modern reality dating TV show, where he must select a new mate so he gets over the ex and starts killing again.
The gameplay is classic 2D side scrolling, jumping, combat, and exploration. Drac controls pretty well in combat and jumping, maybe not as tight as Castlevania but functionally fine. The combat is well handled, with a menu wheel to assign weapons and items to the controller keys. I kept the whip on the square button and the spear on the circle button most of the time. Certain enemies are vulnerable to certain weapons, so it's important to upgrade them all when you can.
So the gameplay is good, but the enemies are gloriously silly and cool. One starts out in Drac's Castle with some standard skeletons and bats and such, but once Drac's out in the world they get a little weird, in a good way. The bosses are unique as well, and require a little strategy to figure out how best to damage them. I found the difficulty of the game overall to be relatively easy, with the caveat that I explored most areas thoroughly as I went along, and backtracked to most of them twice after getting upgrades to access previously unreachable areas.
Drac gains experience and personally levels up, but also unlocks upgrades for his weapons in a unique way - by raising his relationship level with the various contestants. I've got to say that the cast of potential mates was thoroughly developed and written for maximum hilarity. They're all interesting, funny, and sometimes poignant. For players looking for replayability, I'd wager that every ending for each cast member offers something different.
Drac has conversations with them, goes on side quests for them, gifts them endlessly as exploration reveals gift items as loot here and there. There are romantic scenes he encounters in the world that allow him to invite a cast member on a date. He usually ends up helping the relationship but can cause a faux pas as well. Maybe next time, dude, don't take the mermaid queen to the seafood restaurant where she might know someone on the menu.
The world is well-developed, too. Starting from Dracula's Castle (rebuilt as a part of the show's production) to the nearby woods, the map expands as the story progresses, even opening up another map in what seemed like a later part of the game. There are save points only in this game, and most save points are also fast travel spots. Oddly enough, this is the only way to view the world map. It all works though, and is not that hard to adapt to. Only once did I get glitched into the environment and had to load my last save and recover some distance. The game is fun so it was no big deal.
I guess my experience with Romancelvania was one of exceeded expectations in both gameplay and story. The combat was good, the characters fun, the story had some depth, and it lasted longer than I had expected. I thought Romancelvania was going to be a little lowbrow, but it was classy and cool.
