Wallachia: Reign of Dracula brings old-school vampire-slaying action to Nintendo Switch. Developer Migami Games is mostly known for its work on Castlevania fan games, and the legendary series' influence is immediately apparent in Wallachia too, along with other classic titles like Contra. The result is a retro, punishing side-scroller that would have eaten many quarters back in the day, but perhaps won't find as many eager participants in more modern times.
Despite a surprisingly impressive voice cast that includes NieR: Automata's Kira Buckland and Castlevania veteran Robert Belgrade, the story is simple and largely unimportant. Elric's family is ruined by the evil Vlad the Impaler, and she's out for revenge with the help of a wise old mage. The tale of violence and revenge against Dracula, even if it's more rooted in history than fantasy, will be familiar to anyone who's played a Castlevania game or watched the popular Castlevania anime adaptation. Bits of dialogue and short cutscenes bookend levels, but the clear focus is the old-fashioned action reminiscent of classics that have recently been made available on PC.
Elric can use her bow and her sword, the latter making up for its lack of distance with the ability to smash barrels and deflect arrows. A few well-timed shots at birds flying overhead will yield special arrows, like triple-shot, that come with limited ammo but can turn the tides of a fight. Her allies can also come to her aid, such as a sweeping attack from her pet wolf that demolishes enemies in her way. These can only be activated after collecting enough orbs from fallen enemies, and reset after each death, but are extremely powerful when used correctly.
While not as hard as the infamous Contra, which was so demanding that the code for extra lives has become one of the most iconic cheats in video game history, Wallachia: Reign of Dracula is no walk in the park. Dozens of arrows, projectiles and enemies fill the screen, and all spell danger for Elric as she navigates the platforms and obstacles. Four hits cause players to restart the section and lose a life. Lose all of Elcin's lives and it's an old-fashioned game over. It requires skill and precision over button-mashing to time jumps and avoid damage while still attacking, but can be frustrating.
The Switch JoyCons are not ideal for how Wallachia is designed, and make aiming the bow in diagonal directions or executing the slide move unreliable, and playing with the D-Pad is uncomfortable. Power-ups are removed on taking damage, reducing their effectiveness, and ally moves can't be executed while crouching. Along with these decisions that fall on the wrong side of challenging, blocking arrows with sword attacks isn't reliable, which can be frustrating when there isn't space to jump or crouch out of the way. The difficulty is part of the game's appeal, but when lives are lost due to a missed arrow or the wrong directional input, it can feel unfair.
Anyone longing for an unforgiving arcade experience will be at home with Wallachia: Reign of Dracula. Impressive pixel art visuals, with highly detailed and varied backgrounds, along with a solid soundtrack add to the experience, although many repeated deaths lead to many repeated song intros. The retro presentation means that the Switch can run the game without any issue, and the short bursts of gameplay are suited to handheld mode. If it wasn't for the unreliable controls, this would be a near faultless port, but either way there's not a huge disadvantage to playing on Nintendo's hybrid console.
The niche for punishing, old-school games has produced some stunning titles, like indie darling Shovel Knight and Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon. With Shovel Knight developer Yacht Club going three-dimensional for its next game, Migami Games has produced something that could fill in the hole left in the retro game market. What it has come up with in Wallachia: Reign Of Dracula is a serviceable addition to the genre that will appease fans of the genre and likely frustrate everyone else.
Wallachia: Reign Of Dracula is out now for Nintendo Switch and PC. Screen Rant was given a Switch code for the purposes of this review.
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