3.5/5 ★ – Damoople's review of Maldita Castilla EX.

Everytime I play through a challenging platformer, like say, Castlevania 1, Slain: Back from Hell, or even the original Ghosts 'n Goblins, I think, "Well, I can say I beat it now. Time to put it to rest." I play them for the sake of achievement (or in the case of Slain, being a dumb metalhead). I don't think I can say that here. Despite taking so much inspiration from retro arcade platformers, it also ignores or modifies glaring issues they had, on top of better presentation and more content. Take the jumping in Castlevania and Ghosts 'n Goblins. You're dedicated to the direction you move, for better or worse (often worse). On the other end, you have Mega Man who has more control of moving in his midair jump, which I believe is why it's not often put in the category of famously hard platformers. Cursed Castilla is the happy medium between these. Your jumps are heavy as hell, but you have just enough air control to make the best of your mistake (which was probably jumping in the first place). It may just be enough to align yourself to shoot an incoming enemy you mistakenly jumped away from thinking that you would dodge it. You're likely going to be punished anyway, but good reaction time could weasel you out. The weapons, for the most part, also serve different purposes in different situations. Other than the axe and the bolas, I found that every area and boss encourages at least two different weapons to approach them. That being said, the wrong weapon makes some parts unecessarily frustrating, and causes more trail and error in a game that already has a whole lot of that. Speaking of trail and error, what's up with the secrets? I don't think I'd catch on to even half of them if I didn't have a walkthrough. Crouching beneath a small cross in the background for a few seconds? I'm not really in the Zelda II mindset here. Hitting a wall several times to reveal an object required for the final level? Do yourself a favor and look up a guide if you're playing this. I could also do without all the bosses that make you wait for extended times to be able to attack them, especially if the challenge in that wait time is negligible. A lot of games will have one or two bosses like this, but a third of the game? It makes retrying the levels so much more of a slog. Boss visual design, however? Rad. Everything in the game is based on Spanish folklore, which allows for unique creatures beyond your typical wizards and skeletons in your gothic medieval world. Please let me know if there's another game where you fight Don Quixote in his burning library. The references should be a treat for any literature fans or people that pretend to be literature fans, like me. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this despite the frustrations that usually come with platformers like this. So surprised, in fact, that I wrote all this dreck instead of just making a joke. If you like those old bullshit platformers, play this game. If you think those old bullshit platformers are bullshit but like them conceptually, play this instead. Or Mario 3.