Wallachia: Reign of Dracula may show some Castlevania inspirations, but its rapid-fire arrow attacks make it feel more like a horror Contra.
While you might be used to whipping ol’ Vlad for his indiscretions, Elcin is more interested in perforating the jerk with her bow. After seeing her family impaled, she’s pretty dang motivated, too. And she’s got an arsenal of trick arrows, a charged shot that hurts even more, a sword for anyone who gets too close, and an array of summon-able allies who want to help her put the hurt on anyone who gets in her way.
It may seem like a lot of tools to always have at your disposal, but the gameplay is more inspired by run n’ gun titles than the developer’s previous horror action games (which you should really head to their site to grab). Enemies come at you in a flurry, with their own arrows coming at you from all directions. You can take four hits before dying and being sent back to a checkpoint, but those four hits come quick when you have minimal invincibility time. While you can dole out pain quickly, your enemies can too.
Wallachia: Reign of Dracula comes at you quickly, quickly shifting between making you feel like a relentless killing machine and having you scrambling to avoid taking that last hit. Being able to move and fire so quickly makes the game highly compelling, feeling like you’re dancing on a tightrope as you do anything you can to stay alive against the monstrosities that are dogging you. Which more than makes up for a plot that feels just the teensiest bit hokey. Still, I don’t exactly come to my machine gun arrow monster shooting game for its story, though.
Wallachia: Reign of Dracula is available now on Steam.
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