Romancelvania Review

Romancelvania tells the story of a lovelorn, brooding Drac (male or female) who is thrown into a monster reality-dating show after a century of moping around post-heartbreak. The Grim Reaper hosted show will take our protagonist through Transylvania’s perilous countryside as you slay absurd baddies on your hunt for the most eligible bachelor or bachelorette. Will Drac find love?

Romancelvania is 2D action Metroidvania action platformer will players will navigate the treacherous areas of Transylvania. as a typical mechanic, exploration and progression will reward you with new skills allowing you to access previously inaccessible areas.

While you’re not hunting and killing the various enemies hunting the area, you’ll need to find 12 different monsters to romance, befriend or eliminate. Speaking of killing enemies, combat is pretty simple and straightforward; lacks a bit of depth, but it does what it’s supposed to do.

While on the surface combat looks straight forward, you do have a bevvy of sub-weapons that can be used alongside your main weapon. You can summon bats, rats or even find bone-a-rangs. Finding new cast members also rewards you a new special weapon. For example, finding Medusa let’s you use her head in combat. You’ll find a bevy of weapons throughout the game; giving players a chance to choose their favorite methods of attack.

You can also easily map your favorite items to the face buttons. Pressing LB brings up your wheel of weapons and items; simply highlight your item of choice and press either X, Y, or B to assign it the item for quick access when in combat or roaming around the castle and surrounding areas.

There’s also a bit of shopping to be done. The shop will allow you to upgrade your sub-weapons or generic skills such as allowing you to stack more money, increase special attack duration (for the Mist for example) or make yourself immune to fire. However, a lot of these require your relationships with the colorful cast of characters to be on specific level before being purchasable.

In order to help grow your relationship with the characters, you’ll be able to take them on a one on one date where you’ll enjoy a casual conversation and based on the conversational choices you’ll make, the relationship can either improve or go sour.

The game looks great; it features a mix of darker color tones to go with its themed, but also has a more colored palette to complement the darker tones. It also has a Castlevania-like style to it, albeit slightly more cartoonish. And it’s not a bad thing as it gives the game a certain personality. On the audio side of things, the voiceovers are surprisingly well performed. Nothing really over the top and it feels just… right.

While this is a decent addition to the Metroidvania genre, there are a few things holding the game back from being great. There are some really dark areas throughout the game that you won’t notice enemies until you see your health drop. Additionally, given you find and discover new potential mate up to the last few chapters, there’s little to no time to get to know them properly and feels “rushed” in a certain way.

Romancelvania is easily one of the best Metroidvania style games of the last decade. It feels a bit like Castlevania with a dash of humor with its reality TV setting. Thankfully you’re able to explore outside the castle and each area is uniquely designed. While it is annoying not being able to see enemies more often than not, but it doesn’t deter the complete experience. Romancelvania is a must play.