The Castlevania franchise has some great titles in the series. From developer Migami Games and publishers PQube and PixelHeart comes Chronicles of the Wolf, a Castlevania game in all but name.

“Hunt the legendary Beast of Gévaudan in Chronicles of the Wolf! Step into the boots of Mateo Lombardo in this epic adventure featuring brutal bosses, vast castles, and secrets to uncover. Narration by the legendary Robert Belgrade and other special appearances!”

Before I get into my review, I want to address a bugbear of mine. I do adore it when indie devs go back to the past and pay homage to the classics. But my bugbear is when those devs don’t tread too far off the homage path and end up doing a game that is more a copy than a new take on a classic game. Chronicles of the Wolf definitely falls into this category. This is Castlevania, the art, the music, the controls, the setting, the mechanics and all. This title is a Castlevania game, just without the official IP. This does make reviewing the game a bit of a double edged sword because, Chronicles of the Wolf is good, really good. I very much enjoyed playing though this and will tell you here and now that, if you do enjoy the genre, then you should go out and buy a copy. That is one edge of this sword. The other is the lack of original personality and just speaking (writing) from a personal view, I would’ve liked to have seen something with a bit more uniqueness.

Going for the popular Metroidvania gameplay style. You play as Mateo Lombardo and cutting a long story short (and to avoid spoilers), you try to seek out and kill a murderous werewolf that has been terrorising local villages. There is a bit more going on but as I say, I’m not getting into spoilers. But yeah, all the usual tropes apply here. Start out with nothing more than a basic attack and jump. Explore the map, take out bosses, learn new skill, and use those skills to explore previously inaccessible areas of the map. It’s a Metroidvania.

In it’s basic form, Chronicles of the Wolf doesn’t do anything new or original. However, as unoriginal as the game may be, it nails the gameplay brilliantly and offers up a tough, but fair and a very rewarding gameplay experience. Admittedly, I was not that impressed for the first few hours of the game. Part of that was Chronicles of the Wolf’s lack of originality and basic Castlevania copying. However, I did find myself being drawn into the game more and more as I played. It does feel very plain and the hard difficulty does lead to a lot of game over screens. Still, I persevered and as the new skills came, the game opens up and what seems like a pretty small map opens up to something much bigger than I was expecting.

I reckon experienced players will get to the end credits in around seven hours or so. However, there are multiple endings and to get the best ending, you will need to explore the map thoroughly with a lot of backtracking, and this will add another three or four hours. Speaking of the multiple endings, there are several bad resolves to find. These do end the game prematurely and lead to a game over, but they can still be fun to seek out anyway… just make sure that you save regularly as you don’t get a warning ahead of time that what you are about to do will end the game. There’s this one bit with a vampire that… I’m not going to spoil here.

My issues with this one are few and quite light. The previously mentioned no warning before a game over bad ending being one of them. There are a few instances of just getting a game over without an ending too. Several of these do seem a bit cruel. As I said, save a lot. The controls can feel a bit stiff and not as fluid as I would’ve liked. Think more like the very early Castlevania titles. This stiffness causes several issues with the combat and platforming. Map navigation can cause a few frustrations too, as there are very few markers and you will have to try to remember a lot of minor details, like the location of some random NPC you talked to several hours ago and need to return to. I do like games that don’t hold your hand, but some gentle reminders would be nice, at the very least.

Speaking of NPCs, they don’t seem to advance their dialogue with the story of the game. As an example, one of the first things that you need to do in the game is get rid of a spectral wolf head that is scaring local villagers. One of the NPCs that you talk to in the village tells you about the spectral wolf head to the east. You go east and deal with the issue, destroy the spectral wolf head, job done. You go back to the village and the NPC is still talking about the spectral wolf head to the east… that’s no longer there because you took care of it. I played for hours, kept passing through this village and the NPC was still talking about the spectral wolf head to the east. I played right up to the final boss, I used the fast travel just to explore the map, in case I missed anything… and the NPC was still talking about the spectral wolf head to the east. It’s not there it hasn’t been there for hours, I delt with it at the start of the game. All of the NPCs seem to suffer from this being stuck in a dialogue time warp thing as they all keep talking about events connected to the story that are no longer relevant, as if they are still relevant.

Speaking of using the fast travel. Very much needed and I think that the system was implemented well with decent gaps between the portals that you need to use. But, when using the fast travel, it doesn’t show you on the map where you are travelling to. You just select the name of the place that you want to go to from a list. Honestly, it’s kind of hard to remember the names of all of the locales and I would often fast travel to the wrong place, to then have to go back into a portal and try again until I got the right place. Just let us fast travel via map so we know where where are going. Oh, you can’t zoom the map in or out either, and that’s quite annoying.

These are only minor niggles and stiff controls, dialogue time warp stuck NPCs, and awkward fast travel aside, Chronicles of the Wolf’s is a solid and really great Metroidvania. Pretty difficult at times, some epic boss fights that you will have to attempt several times until you work out the attack patterns and such. It’s tough, but not frustratingly so. This of a mix of Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest (but a good version) and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (without the “What is a man?” bad acting), and that pretty much sums up what Chronicles of the Wolf’s is all about. It a really good game and the rather slow, somewhat plain opening third of the game gives way to a much better and enjoyable last two thirds. I can only repeat what I wrote several paragraphs ago, if you do enjoy the genre, then you should go out and buy a copy. Available now for all platforms.