Castlevania: Spectral Interlude | Spectrum playthrough | Deaths Cut out
2This is an unofficial spectrum game released in 2015 by a Russian developer. The initial intention was to create a demake of Castlevania 2 on the NES but as they worked on it, they realised they could create a brand-new adventure. The result is incredible what they managed to fit on a spectrum game.
This is a simple Metroidvania style slasher. There is lots to explore and it’s easy to get lost. The graphics and music are really impressive for a spectrum game and the game plays really smoothly. There are lots of environments – 150 screens worth, so as a Spectrum game, it’s huge.
While it controls really well, some of the controls are unintuitive and not explained unless you bought the physical copy (which I found out after I completed it). You have to crouch on items to pick them up, hold the attack button to throw secondary weapons, and crouch to freeze water platforms when you get the ability. I could have easily been completely stuck if I never worked it out as I’ve never seen such an ability before. I found out later that there are further controls if you use a keyboard, such as bringing up a map (no wonder I was lost) and being able to cycle through your secondary weapons (I thought you could only use the last one bought). I used an Xbox 360 controller to play this and it really let me down once I had the double dash ability. The D-pad is crap and double tapping the analogue stick isn’t effective. Also Up is jump as well as the separate jump button, so I made many mistakes with the bad Xbox 360 d-pad. This game was made to be played with keyboard.
The difficulty is something that stands out. You have to play incredibly safely throughout and the bosses – don’t get me started. They are incredibly difficult. All of them. It’s so difficult to find a strategy as you are being bombarded with attacks. I always felt like I found a way to cheese my past a boss rather than finding the correct strategy. Every battle I just scraped though. Especially the last boss fight which took me 1.5 hours of grinding, with every attempt being based on luck depending on how often he would randomly use a double attack which would almost always hit me, and if a bat gets through my constant whipping, which again happened by random. I had to change my controller to an arcade stick because of accidental dashing with the d-pad, and had to disable UP in the emulator in case I accidently jumped. I also had to turn on Turbo mode on attack because you have to constantly whip and I couldn’t keep that up for 1.5 hours. But at least this game has save stations just like a Metroidvania so you can have infinite tries and not have backtrack miles. This really impressed me that it could exist in a spectrum game.
There are lots of secret power ups to collect and I enjoyed finding them. Unfortunately, the whip upgrade is very underpowered and you have to find a few before you notice any difference in the number of times you have to whip an enemy to defeat them. I didn’t realise the game was about collecting key parts so I walked past the keys as they looked like part of the background at first. This set me back.
I must mention the story. While it’s impressive how much effort went into the dialogue, I didn’t appreciate having to sift through walls of text. I’m really not one for stories and while I tried to read, I didn’t pay any attention. At least the bosses don’t repeat the text when you retry.
Overall, this is a very good spectrum game, but I felt I spent way too much time on it due to its brutal difficulty. I can’t believe there is a ‘hard’ mode!
Rating – 9/10
Difficulty – 9/10
Played on retro pie emulator
No Cheats
No save states
More like this:-
Castlevania games - • Castlevania Playthroughs
SNES games - • Final fight 3 - SNES playthrough/guide
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