GuestLog in

When it comes to crossovers in Mario fan games, Castlevania is a pretty common series to cross over. After all, they're both platformers with a side view perspective, which makes it easy to use the graphics and resources from one in the other without too much extra work.

As a result, games with elements of both show up everywhere, from individual levels in Mushroom Kingdom Fusion to full-blown crossover projects like Super Mario: Blue Twilight DX.

With Castlemania being another project in the vein of the latter. But can this Mario and Castlevania crossover stand out from the crowd?

Well as far as graphics go, probably not. It's a mix of SMB 1 foregrounds and Castlevania backgrounds, with a few original things thrown in. And while some of the original graphics swaps look cool (like the giant bat boss made from a reskinned Boom Boom, or the Death boss made by updating Undine), the overall feel can be a bit inconsistent as a result of all the different graphical styles. It's especially true with the later levels, where graphics from 16-bit Castlevania games are mixed with 8-bit ones from the original SMB.

The music is also a mixed bag too. For the most part it sounds great (and fitting for the Castlevania theme), but there are a few songs that break the sound effects here. So, you'll hear Mario's jump sound effects turn into tinny instrument samples due to the background music overriding them.

Not the end of the world, but it's still a tad distracting when it happens.

Level design is mostly good. It's fair, has well placed obstacles, and keep things fresh with a nice mix of themes throughout the game. Good stuff, and enough to make each level feel like its own thing rather than a series of repeats.

Sadly, the bosses don't work as well. They do sometimes have some nice new graphics to fit the Castlevania theme, and some of them are fun to fight...

But they're wildly inconsistent in terms of both quality and difficulty level.

For example, Tryclyde shows up at the end of one level, despite said level having nothing to do with him, snakes or SMB 2 at all. Given that he doesn't even have a Castlevania style makeover here, it feels really random to say the least.

And he's also really easy too. In fact, the last two major bosses (Tryclyde and Magikoopa) are significantly easier than the two before them (Medusa Head Fryguy and Death Undine). This makes the later levels feel incredibly anticlimactic, since you'll fight through tough levels expecting a challenge at the end, only to get put against an opponent that's lucky to last 20 seconds in battle.

Meanwhile, the final boss is a mess in of itself, albeit for entirely different reasons. You see, you've probably figured out that the final boss will be Bowser, Dracula or a combination of the two.

And you'd be right. Its Dry Bowser fought in Dracula's throne room.

Problem is, Dry Bowser is only weak to fireballs here, while being immune to them in all his 'canonical' Mario appearances.

So, you'll see him here, and try to figure out another way to beat the boss. Can you jump on him? No. Can you find an object to throw at him? No. Is a switch going to drop from the ceiling at some point? No...

Eventually realising that your fireballs are actually doing damage here. It's rather confusing to be honest, especially after so many other hacks use these Bowser graphics for much more complicated boss battles.

It also runs into the issue that all of these Bowser fights do in hacks, where only Fire Mario can actually damage the boss at all. As a result, if you mess up and get hit, you're just screwed here. The battle is unwinnable, with no way to proceed.

Given that the room is pretty small, that Bowser is firing hammers like there's no more tomorrow and you only get one Fire Flower to replenish your health... you're probably going to make that mistake at least once.

Finally, if you do understand the fight and go carefully, it's over even more quickly than the last few battles. Bowser goes down in like 5 shots after all, and he does nothing to vary his behaviour in that setup.

So yeah, the final boss is a bit of a let down here, and the difficulty for the rest is wildly inconsistent.

Regardless, Castlemania is generally a good game. The levels are fun to play, the new graphics and setups often work well and there is some fun to be had here, even if the bosses sometimes let the experience down.

I know this one just released a couple of days ago, but I am loving this so much I have to write a preemptive positive review ...without even having finished yet. So, I gave it a whirl last night and could not stop playing on account of the successful merging of the the Mario and Castlevania aesthetics and atmospheres. I thought these universes had the potential to clash like two great standalone dishes put together into a blender, resulting in a gooey mess. But, these two distinct universes really synthesize into something instantly addictively playable.

I'm also incredibly impressed with the music, sound effects, and boss battles, and, well, virtually everything- there's just a ton of detail, retro homages and above-and-beyond sort of extra touches: I'm just giddy as a school boy playing this masterwork feat of hacking, so a heartfelt thanks to LetsTalkGames! This is a priceless gem of a romhack.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the general idea, and, frankly, I'd rather resume playing Castlemania!