I went into Wallachia expecting a fairly different experience than what I actually got. I mean, I didn’t actually go to Wallachia. I’m not some world traveler or something. Actually the only other country I’ve been to is Canada and I don’t even know if that counts as me leaving the US. It’s like saying you’ve been to another neighborhood and you just walked to your exceedingly clean, polite, and partly French neighbor’s house.

ANYWAYS. Wallachia: Reign of Dracula is developed by Migami games, who’s responsible for various Castlevania fan games. That said, this is not a Castlevania homage like you’d expect. It’s got the look of some Castlevania titles, specifically the 16 bit games like Castlevania: Bloodlines and Super Castlevania IV, but that’s about where it ends. No, instead of playing like a past or present Castlevania, this game is much more of an arcade-styled game that you would’ve played back in the 80’s or very early 90’s. It has the difficulty to match. Does that mean it’s bad or should be skipped? That will vary greatly from person to person – allow me to elaborate!

So the story is much more grounded than anything you’ll see in Castlevania – also sorry for how many times I’ll reference that game. You play as Elcin, a girl whose parents were killed and brother was taken by Vlad the Impaler – the real life inspiration for the Dracula you usually see in modern media – who is on a years-long quest of revenge against him and his army for, well, everything I just told you. She’s got a gang of helpers with her that you don’t really get to know all that well but are helpful nonetheless and provide special attacks and magic.

The story is told through a few static cutscenes along with a paragraph in between levels to set up the next stage. I personally felt the writing was a little weak and relied too much on the way overused storytelling of – “You can’t possibly be strong/defeat me because you’re a girl” followed by Elcin going “I’ll show you, bitch!” and then she wins. Also for whatever reason, everybody hates each other in this game. Like everybody who has an interest in killing Dracula, treats each other like garbage. I really miss stories where people work together and there’s comaraderie. Infighting stopped being good or even interesting storytelling a long time ago.

Why can’t we have a story where people go “Oh, sweet, you want to kill Dracula too? Welcome aboard! I’ve got some delicious Popeye’s chicken sandwiches and some craft beer in the fridge if you’d like one. Frank over in the next tent needs another player for Rock Band 4, can you play bass or sing Weezer?”

For me, the graphics and sound are the most attractive thing about this whole game and it’s what drew me to it when I saw it on the eShop to begin with. Actually playing it, the game looks and sounds great and I was not disappointed at all. The whole package has this arcade quality to it with clean visuals, sound effects that pop, and the music is excellent with mixes of gothic tones and guitar riffs that set it just far enough apart from Castlevania that it sounds totally original. The levels are all pretty different from each other with great looking backgrounds and imaginative ways to get around, so that you don’t feel like you’re just moving from left to right.

Also getting killed makes you lose anything you’ve gained when you start over, so if you get killed, the game actually gets harder until you build that supply of orbs and powerups back.

The gameplay is easily what’ll be the most polarizing with anybody buying this game blindly. As I said earlier, this is NOT a traditional Castlevania or side-scrolling console game. This plays a lot like the arcade games of Rolling Thunder, Contra, and Shinobi. The difficulty on this one will also make you want to break your controller at times because Elcin has only a few units of health, and EVERYTHING kills you in this game. Being that this plays just like the arcade games I mentioned, you’re not meant to just run around and blindly kill stuff and make it to the next level. You will lose if you do that. Instead, everything is scripted to happen the same way every playthrough, so just like those older games, you’re meant to memorize the levels and the enemy placements. The deaths in this game will feel cheap, but they’re not if you take the time to learn the layouts.

Your main attack is with your bow and what’s apparently an unlimited amount of rapid fire arrows. You’ve got a sword for close attacks, a slide move, and your helpers can pop in for a special if you’ve got enough orbs you’ve collected from enemies. You can also get power ups from enemies and birds that fly around at the top of the screen, but those powerups are gone as soon as you take a hit, so you can’t really get all that attached to them. The controls are tight, but quirky. You can’t use specials while you’re crouched and you can’t cancel out of whatever you’re doing in order to do another move, and that will probably get you killed a lot because of how many modern games allow that. Also getting killed makes you lose anything you’ve gained when you start over, so if you get killed, the game actually gets harder until you build that supply of orbs and powerups back. That’s going to turn off some people from enjoying this.

The enemies will feel pretty grounded here as well, as you’ll fight mostly human enemies like enemy soldiers, attack dogs, and crows or ravens that’ll swoop down to try and take you out. I don’t know why it’s always those birds. Why not use pigeons? Or maybe cockatiels? The bosses here vary between your typical large soldiers with even larger weapons, trap rooms, things like that. I actually thought the trap room was a really cool idea because there’s no actual boss to fight, and you’re just trying to escape.

As far as extras and replayability go, you can change the difficulty if you’d like a greater challenge or just need to ease into the game more, and there’s trophies to get along with some challenges. It helps to break up the pace of the story-mode if you want to just hop into something, otherwise there’s not much else here.

So ultimately if you go into this expecting an arcade-like experience, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. It’s great looking game and a fun time for those who like a challenge, but if you go into this expecting the usual modern gaming tropes like experience levels or character progression, you will be totally disappointed. If you expect any sort of hand holding, really, then you will be totally disappointed. This is a game to be learned and memorized and you can’t really just wing it through. If you liked Rolling Thunder or Contra, which are very much this type of game, then you’ll get a kick out of it.