Real quick disclaimer: I’ve never played any of these games before. In fact, I have only played Castlevania About 20-30 minutes before. I didn’t hate the game or the gameplay, I was just distracted by other things. I did access every DS game for at least an hour, though more time was spent Church Medal Because that’s how I started.
As far as I can tell, these are faithful ports of DS games that I’ve heard high praise for before. While playing through these games, I definitely enjoyed my time with each one. I really like how each title has its own character but is part of the same series. Looks to me like sad dawn Even though the story takes place in the distant future, it’s the closest game to the original in terms of gameplay. It’s a little weird to me that most, if not all, of the weapons seem to be medieval rather than futuristic, but it is Castlevania So what are you going to do? I also like how you can combine monster souls with weapons to upgrade them. at the same time, ruins portrait What makes it stand out is that you control two protagonists at the same time, which is fun but takes some getting used to. I’ve played Church Medal At most, since it’s listed at the top of the main menu list, and it’s interesting because instead of picking up a weapon, it lets you manifest the glyph of the weapon. It’s a fun system and I honestly really enjoy this game. Ultimately, if you want to play DS games on a modern platform, this is your chance!
Now let’s talk about the quality of life improvements these games bring. First, you have the rewind feature. This is helpful when you make a stupid mistake and don’t want to go all the way back to your last save. Of course, the introduction of saved states is amazing in my opinion. Now you can save at any time and load from there instead of the last save point. Third, you can view and customize your controls within the game in a way that works best for you. You can also access each game’s synopsis/fable from the pause menu. There’s a gallery mode in the main menu to view cool never-before-released artwork, packaging, instructions, and more. Plus, there’s a music player for you to listen to your favorite tracks. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the fact that from the main menu settings, you can switch which regional version you want to play in: US, Europe, or Japan. I don’t know if there are any other differences besides language, but I do think it’s a cool feature.
Another interesting aspect is how they decided to integrate the DS’s second screen. They don’t just remove it, they also give you some layout options. The default layout (as well as some others) provides the game screen taking up a large portion of the screen, but the map takes up a quadrant with character and enemy information below it. Some layouts eliminate the third information pane, but I find the default layout works just fine.
As for performance, Castlevania Overlord Collection Runs smoothly for me. I’ve played it exclusively on my Steam Deck and it runs at 60fps with no issues, I’ve even read online that you can lower the TDP significantly to get better battery life and maintain 60fps while gaming. I played a bit in handheld mode, but also took the opportunity to use my dock to connect it to my TV and use Retro-Bit’s Tribute16 controller, which is a little more comfortable for this type of game.
I’m reluctant to judge this collection on the quality of a single game. To that end, I will say that on Metacritic, these games all have critic reviews in the mid-to-upper 80s, while the original DS versions all have user reviews in the mid-80s. These sound like very good games. As far as the port collection is concerned, I think Castlevania Overlord Collection Really good. Now, I haven’t really messed with the ports yet haunted castleto be honest, I’m not interested in it, but I know it does add value to quite a few fans. Considering the price of around $25, the fact that these games have been well received by fans, and the fact that they come with a lot of nice extras, I think this is a great deal if you’ve ever wanted to play these games or want to revisit them purchase. This is definitely something I would recommend to a friend.
