Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls

F2P hellscape , Legion bugged

Book 4 boss is bugged or something. I’ve got Alucard at 40,000 strength and I’m only doing 80 damage to the boss… I beat him with Belmont with no big issues, but Al is doing a tiny fraction of the damage. So another reviewer says you get 1000% more rewards for perfecting a level than when this was F2P elsewhere. It is still not enough to be called a premium game. Drop rates of rare and legendary gear are horrible. Now on book 4 i have only won 4 pieces of legendary gear from summons… 48 stages perfected= 4 legendary… for 5 characters. Horrible. However the worst part is leveling up weapons and characters. Your 5 characters each equip 4 weapons and 5 pieces of gear: 5x(4+5)= 45 gear you need to constantly upgrade to stay up with the difficulty requirement. This was fine up through Book 4, where the level req. is suddenly much higher than even my strongest ally. The weapon trial awards at this level are horribly inadequate; I have to play them about 8-9 time to max out (lvl 15-35) ONE gear piece… and I’ve got 9 per character. So, I stop my adventure here where the Grind to level up has become unbearable. It is too bad, too, because the gameplay looks great and plays well. It would have been better if they ripped out all of the F2P loot boxes and just given us balanced gameplay without the grind.

We need a PC port!

This is the only mobile game I have ever taken the time to review. As an avid Castlevania fan, it has been many years since I have had so much excitement for the series. This game is amazingly well put together, and remarkably has a canon story. With controller support already implemented, this game deserves a PC port like Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Links. No Castlevania fan should miss out on this game. It is not your average mobile title, while there are daily login bonuses and a little bit of gotcha game devices, it looks like everything in the game can be obtained through gameplay, and there is no time limit to how much you can play other than daily trials missions. It’s great to see characters throughout the timeline interact with each other and the gameplay is great. The touchscreen controls work about as good as you can make touchscreen controls, but there is complete controller support worked into the game. Overall, this game honestly is a masterpiece. The only shame is that this game is only available on mobile, and more specifically, only the apple arcade. I would pay money ($10-20) for a PC port of this game with update support. I’m talking to you, Konami!!! Between the success Super Smash Brothers, Netflix, and the new Getsu Fuuma game, you know that the people want more Castlevania! A PC/Switch port of this game is the next step!

Not that great.

I'm not sure if the other people that left reviews actually played the game even to the first boss. It supports a controller, but movement is restricted to analog stick. The D-pad doesn't work. This makes precise movement difficult. Stages are quite linear. It can take as little as 1 minute to get through them. There is almost zero back-tracking or exploring. This is nothing like SotN. Goals are sometimes vague. You have to defeat a "target" that may or may not be encountered. Does the target show up randomly? Is it hidden? I've retried a stage several times, exploring ever possible area, killing every single enemy and I still missed my "target". Progression is incredibly slow. This game was obviously made to be Pay 2 Win, but with the removal of the ability to pay for anything, you're left to rely on daily rewards and grinding the same levels over and over. You can spend all your gems to completely max a weapon's levels and still find yourself completely out of your league. You simply need to "summon" more and more items until you get something rare enough to be leveled up higher. Summoning items and enhancing them requires countless gems and gold and other currencies that you simply have no way of purchasing in this version of the game. It's a bad game, limited by Apple Arcade. And yet I see that most people have given it good reviews.

Actually not bad

Not bad at all and I LOVE that they actually want you to put a bit of effort in to unlock things rather than pay to play, gives a better sense of connection to the game. Sometimes the rolls dont make sense like doing a 10x summon with not even a purple but for instance like today I got 2x 5 star weapons on a 10x summon. The special mission is kinda weird like I can't progress till I claim 10 logic bonuses, minor but to me just weird considering it took only 6 days to beat whats currently playable and get 3 skulls on every mission. I cant wait to see whats next the story is good and feels just like a better version of the original in terms of combat, weapon/element types, enemies and bosses/mini bosses, overall a good way to get into the castelvania series if you're unfamiliar and a good way to pass time. It will definitely feel weird and confusing at first how things work but after awhile trust me you'll be 1 shotting common enemies and 5 shotting bosses in no time. In 6 days already 38k overall equip level with alucard and rank 27. Would recommend

Ugh pay/timer wall?

Game started great and you plays well on Apple TV. There is occasional missed jump input on a controller but it is good most of the time. There is a huge amount of currencies and upgrades which is overwhelming. But you in theory can look past it. After you get to book four you get a huge increase in the equipment requirement. Like double the power you have to beat the previous boss. This is pretty much a pay wall that they brought into Apple Arcade. Apple Arcade mission is to get rid of thing like that. Why do you do it? Let people finish the game and enjoy the story. You gotta learn a different way to hook people in instead of just asking them to play levels over and over again. Game even has the skip mechanics but then you have to wait till next day. A good game ruined by free to play mechanics. Dear Apple please pay attention to the games you are bringing in. Game looks good on the surface and then uncovers it’s true face later. I was praising Apple Arcade to my friends, saying this is a place for good games not that are not ruined by free to play mechanics. Place where game developers can create games and not addictions. And look where are we now :(

WOW

Where to start. First off it holds true to the Castlevania spirit only in its art work, beyond that what a shame this game is. Everything about this game is to satisfy the “mobile” spirit of gaming. Castlevania in its core has always been 2D side scrolling action at its best and while some have failed to live up to that spirit some have failed miserably, but if you’re going to use Alucard from symphony of the night as your star role, your game better live up to that standard. This game does not. The progressive stage select system interrupts the core essence of Castlevania making it feel more like a mobile game than an actual video game. The fact that is even has “in game purchases” completely ruins the spirit of the game and makes it feel more like a cash grab for a company that has already consumed billions of dollars off of this franchise. Graphics are fantastic and the music really takes me back to those old glory days of side scrolling action at its very best! But this game in its core betrays everything I feel about Castlevania and I for one will not give this “game” anymore of my time or effort. As a wise VH once said “Die monster! You don’t belong in this world!”

Something Old and Something New

Let me start by saying that I’m writing this review as a counterpoint to the other reviews already posted (writing reviews before actually playing the game, misrepresenting the actual gameplay, making assessments before getting past the tutorial). If you are a fan of 2d side scrollers AND a fan of Castlevania games on the Gameboy Advanced, you will love this game. If you didn’t care for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, then you probably won’t enjoy much here. The familiar gameplay is here, with the added replay value of playing as different characters from the Castlevania legacy. Add to this the flexibility of trying different weapons and armor, along with the mission system and you get a gaming experience that is perfectly tuned to the controller-less mobile experience (using a controller is totally worth it). If this is your first “Castlevania”, you will definitely want to play all the classics. When you finish this game, spend the money on SOTN.

A grindy gatcha

The intro cutscenes and the music were pretty good. Aside from that I’m struggling to find positives. I went into the game with an fresh mind, as I don’t have much experience with this genre. However I expected some aspects of exploration and a strong plot driven narrative to immerse me into the world. Unfortunately expectation and reality are two different things. What really astonished me is that it’s a gatcha game. They use in game crystals for micro transactions instead of money for summoning 1-5 star weapons. No comments about the rng but this style does not fit a game like this that’s being marketed as an arcade game!! It’s a shame the game turns out to be a button mash with just some levels to clear. Grind, collect resources, power up weapons rinse and repeat. That’s the generic formula here. Which brings us to the topic of level design and enemy design———simply underwhelming. All in all the game is a grind and a gatcha. I believe the essence and the experience of Castlevania is lost. I can generously hash out a 2 stars . This game belongs in the main App Store with “in app purchase” games not on the arcade.

A Gem

First of all. More characters to come. Sounds amazing. Controls are situational. Some characters need semi auto attack on and some don’t. And some stages might switch that order. There’s a bit of input lag. You notice it the most with controllers. Touch screen still has the input lag but much more manageable. Otherwise input feels smooth all around. It’s not classic Castlevania but just as good. Each stage is only meant to occupy 3-5 minutes of your time. When you beat the stage, you’re left in a good place. Wasn’t too short, wasn’t too long. If you lose the stage it can aggro the calmest of gamers too meaning It’s easy but challenging at the same time. Progression is fair. The pulling for equipment was weird at first but if you play like it’s a regular gatcha game you will have a bad time. Save gems for what? Pull your equipment, Fuse the scrolls from the repeat equipment you pulled to make better equipment. Rinse repeat. 5* stuff will come eventually. Between weeklies, dailies, and dispatch, gems shouldn’t be a problem. Just use em! (Side note) Equipment upkeep becomes a hassle when approaching lvl 20 and above. It feels like a hassle to manage all that gear for 5 characters… and again in the game description it says new characters coming. That’s a lot of upgrade stones to farm! Awesome Game

Total troll game

This game is a total troll game. Enemies are overly hard. Endless stunlocking. Controls are laggy and unresponsive. Insanely inaccurate movements. Straight from the rip. Game expects you to know how to move , run, dodge and everything, when you try to attack but enemies attack same time but you can’t end attack motion to dodge because game is laggy and unresponsive for touch controls and just take an insanely 30% hp damage from a regular mobs. Bosses are HP sponges with endless attacks so you can’t even do much damage. Game throws endless tasks without you even slowly learning the game. Game just throws you in expecting you to be a master player without easing you into it and slowly learning. This game is only for end game players or dark souls elitists. A sadistic Beat them up where all the edge is given to the AI and very punishing game. This is not an “arcade” game and has an insane difficult spike in the first few levels….. if you like that style game where it’s more of torture than a “game” then this is for you. If not, game needs refining

Update: Well, that was unexpected. Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls was announced in 2018 (see story below), soft-launched in Canada in 2019...

Nintendo Life Mon Aug 23 2021

Subscribers can also check out updates to Star ... Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls. Developer: Konami Digital Entertainment.

CNET Thu Sep 23 2021

The game is closing down on September 9th at 8:00 AM CEST. Purchase of gems in-game has been disabled as of now as well. If you have a Canadian...

TouchArcade Thu Jul 23 2020