Classicvanias are having a bit of a resurgence lately with many great titles such as Lords of Exile, the Bloodstained Curse of the Moon games, and of course, Haunted Castle Revisited, and so seeing more release is always good. When Carpathian Night Starring Bela Lugosi was announced there was a considerable interest, but also a fear that it would be a subpart experience trying to save itself with a gimmick while failing to live up to Konami’s Castlevania series. Instead, the game showed itself to be an extremely well-made game that clearly understood what made the classics work and how to stand shoulder to shoulder with them.
Carpathian Night Starring Bela Lugosi sees you take control of either Abbot Dorin or Irina Dracul, a member of Dracula’s family, and go through twelve linear stages.. The characters are callbacks to previous Castlevania characters, with Abbot Dorin wielding in the style of Eric Lecarde from Castlevania Bloodlines, while Irina Dracul serves as the whip wielder. Both characters have full basic eight-way directional attacks with their weapons, straight out of Super Castlevania IV, but more importantly, both characters can gain unique abilities by collecting green gems littered throughout the stages.
These abilities are picked out through a skill tree and the gameplay will change thanks to new abilities you can gain. While this means you will be able to go back to earlier stages and access more of the game, this is still a Classicvania and not a Metroidvania style game. And as this is a Classicvania, Carpathian Night Starring Bela Lugosi will soon show itself to have a steep difficulty that will test you.
This difficulty will manifest itself both in terms of level design becoming more challenging, and also in terms of enemies. The enemies are well designed and would fit well in an actual Castlevania game, and the movement pattern makes it that the blame will be on you for not keeping up with the game, rather than the game being unfair. Indeed, as the game goes on, Carpathian Night Starring Bela Lugosi will begin to throw a lot at you but endurance and patience are the key to continuing.
The difficulty in Carpathian Night Starring Bela Lugosi feels just right eevn with the boss fight with Dracula himself, who will remind you of some of the more frustrating final boss fights in Castlevania. One thing that needs to be said though, is that for all the hype of Bela Lugosi’s inclusion, his likeness is just in two static pixel images, meaning it really did not amount to much. That said, the game does have other aspects to remind you of the classic Bela Lugosi Dracula film such as the inclusion of the Swan Lake theme, which gets a fantastic chiptune version.
The music in Carpathian Night Starring Bela Lugosi in general is great and while it may not be on the level of classic Castlevania, it still is a collection of amazing music. The pixel art is also incredibly well done, with fantastic designs and the result is a gorgeous package overall. The game overall has the look and feel of a true Castlevania game and that is a commendable feat.
Addition, Carpathian Night Starring Bela Lugosi has something else up its sleeve and that is its replay value. Because both characters have unique playstyles, you will want to replay the game after completing it with one character, just so you can try the other and see what you can do differently. Of course, if you want more of a challenge, you can start the game again and choose ‘Wicked’ difficulty, for an experience that will bring in more enemies and change their placements among other things to create something that will test even the most hardcore of players.
Ultimately the one fault I have with Carpathian Night Starring Bela Lugosi is that Bela Lugosi feels so tacked on. Even with other callbacks to the movie, it would have been nice if more could have been done with the license. Still, it is good to see Bela Lugosi get another chance to reprise the role of Dracula in some form even decades after his death. He was an actor who never got his due and with a game like this, is finally being being honored by video games in a respectful way.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
