Castle of Venia

My first few minutes with Castle of Venia had me genuinely hopeful. The visual personality is there: dark castle corridors, undead sprites that nod warmly toward the Castlevania lineage, a chunky CRT filter that wraps everything in that warm, slightly warped cathode-ray glow. There is clearly some love behind the aesthetic, even if the craft stops almost entirely at the art layer. The moment you touch combat, that warmth drains fast. The holy sword, your only tool against the demon Venia's undead armies, can only be swung from a standstill. No mid-air slashes, no attacks while walking, no flowing momentum of any kind. You stop, you wait for the character's landing slop to settle, then you commit to the attack animation and hope an enemy walks far enough into the hitbox. The reference points here, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts and classic Castlevania, were games built on momentum. Stopping to attack was never the point; surviving the push toward the exit was. Castle of Venia inverts that entirely, asking you to 100% clear every single stage of enemies before you can progress. That design choice turns every level into an exercise in patience rather than skill, and the game's sparse few stages offer almost no variation to make that patience feel earned. Players across the community have flagged the same issues: the attack delay is real, the soul-collection requirement is grating, and there is still no way to disable the permanent CRT fish-eye filter even in the options menu, which, to add insult, contains no actual options. The art style earns a genuine mention. Whoever composed the visual identity here has a good eye, and a few of the darker gothic backdrops carry real atmosphere. One player note described it as "a nice nod to the old Castlevania series with something new and personal," and that tracks. If you freeze-frame certain moments, the game looks exactly like what it wants to be. It is only in motion, under your fingers, that the illusion collapses. The blood crystal upgrade system for the holy sword hints at a progression loop that could have been interesting, but the short overall runtime means you will barely feel it before the credits roll. The whole thing wraps up in well under an hour. I want to be fair to small developers swinging for something difficult. Retro platformers are hard to get right, and the inspirations here are some of the most demanding design templates in the genre. But Castle of Venia does not clear the minimum bar for combat feel that those inspirations set, and without satisfying controls, the dark atmosphere and pixel work can only carry so much. There is the seed of something worth playing in here. The bones suggest a developer who cared about the genre. The execution, though, needed considerably more time in the oven before release.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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