Introduction
Today we are going to review an IOS game that you can only play if you have the Apple Arcade service. This means I played this game on a iPhone as the original game on Android and IOS have been discontinued. The only way to play this game is a monthly plan with Apple Arcade. In this game, you will once again delve into the Castlevania world, in 2D style, that has been a long time. We need an official game.
What did I think before playing Castlevania Grimoire of Souls
I did not know about this game until I started browsing the Apple Arcade service. This game jumped out and I thought, I am in for this Castlevania game. I really wanted to see what this game is about, what characters will be playable and is it fair for F2P gamers, since you already need to pay for the Apple Arcade service. For more information I went to the Apple page.
The Apple page
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/castlevania-grimoire-of-souls/id1552347138
The first thing that I noticed are the pictures, this looks like a true new Castlevania game. The next thing I noticed is that Alucard and Shanoa are playable characters. It seems you need to hunt down several grimoires and there are many levels to go through. It seems that Soma is somehow involved too, I am interested to see how fair this game is.
Rating
I rate Castlevania Grimoire of Souls with a 7.7 before playing.
There is the problem you need Apple Arcade, and a iPhone, but all in all it looks great at first sight.
Story
It seems as if Dracula has been destroyed for good, peace has been restored and everyone can live happily ever after, or not. A letter is sent to Alucard, who gets sucked in a big mess. He must do all he can to stop Dracula from coming back to live!
Rating
I rate the story of Castlevania Grimoire of Souls with a 9.4.
The story is actually very good, with a lot of twists and character development written into it.
Gameplay
The gameplay of Castlevania is very detailed, you will have many books with a lot of missions in them. These will take you through a lot of places like castles, forests and a lot more. Your job is to get three stars to unlock new missions, and finally the boss of that book. As you go through the grimoires, you will start unlocking the five main characters, and alternate characters who can aid you in battle, or send them on missions.
As you clear missions, your characters will level up, and your rank as well. All your characters need different weapons that you can summon with gems. These gems can be earned from many things. There are no micro transactions. You will get a lot of free gems. Armor is shared, but you need to rank up to equip more armor. All equipment can be upgraded and enchanted. You can collect souls for enchanting, and runes for upgrading. Souls can also be acquired by clearing 30 missions in a row, once per day.
The controls take some getting used to, but they work amazing and each character jumps different, one can even fly. They stay true to their previous games. Then you also have training sessions where you can gather experience or gold very quickly. There is also a skill tree for all five characters. Then there are stamps to turn into weapons or trade for godly items. There is a lot more to do in this game, but if you are a Castlevania fan, and you have an Iphone, it might be time to try this game!
Rating
I rate the gameplay of Castlevania 9.5
I mean, there are no micro transactions, and a lot of hours of gameplay!
Sound and Graphics
Graphics
The graphics are amazing, there are sprites from nearly every Castlevania game! Levels that feel fresh and new while sticking to an aesthetic of one of the themes of another game. The special attacks are flashy, and the equipment looks amazing. All in all, this game just looks amazing!
Sound
What can I say? The best Castlevania soundtracks, with the original sound effects. What else do you want?
Rating
I rate the sound and graphics of Castlevania Grimoire of Souls with an 8.9
There are a lot of secrets in each level, I always like secrets.
What did I think after playing Castlevania Grimoire of Souls?
While there are five playable characters, Shanoa is my favorite. She has the best skill set, and a great move to jump up by using the glyphs. I would have loved to see Soma as a playable character instead of just an alternate character, kind of playable but only for a few seconds to use super overpowered attacks. This can be helpful in boss fights, which there are a lot off!
The biggest problem of this game, is also the biggest pro. It is on Apple Arcade only, meaning there are no micro transactions but, you do have the monthly price that you need to pay. Which is a bummer, but if you pay five dollar for one month, you can easily get over 20 hours of gameplay out of this game, and play it without internet!
Rating
I rate Castlevania Grimoire of Souls with an 8.0 after playing
While there are no micro transactions, you do need an iPhone.
What are my personal thoughts about Castlevania Grimoire of Souls
I thoroughly enjoyed this game, I have put a lot of hours into getting to the final book, upgrading my equipment and clearing many of the missions! If you like Castlevania, then this game is for you!
Rating
My personal Rating of Castlevania Grimoire of Souls is a 8.6
I had a lot of fun when playing this game.
Last Words
Pros
- Finally a new story for Castlevania
- Amazing graphics and soundtracks
- Play through many chapters as you discover the secret on how Dracula wants to come back alive
- Meet many characters from the Castlevania verse
- Upgrade five playable characters
- Collect souls and runes to upgrade your equipment
- Level up your characters and learn new skills in the skill tree
- Rank up and gain new training sessions
- There are no micro transactions
Cons
- You need an iPhone to play this game
- You need to pay for Apple Arcade to download this game
I enjoyed that they put this many elements of Castlevania in this game and it somehow all works together!
Final Rating
8.7
Let me know what you think of Castlevania Grimoire of Souls in the comments!
I hope you enjoyed reading this review, I hope to see you in the next review!
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sounds great
love Castlevania games, but mobile ones are skip for me
Why do you skip mobile games!?
Thanks!
Beautiful graphics
Yeah, the graphics are pretty good!
Mix of Prince of Persia and Metal Slug 🙂
I don’t own an Apple device, so I am out unfortunately.
Mobile game without microtransactions, awesome.
That is indeed, awesome!
I agree with the sound part of it – the game rocks some awesome music! The sound effects are a blast too.
I would play this ported onto a PC (not a MAC, tho :P).
If this got ported to the PC, it would be a great hit!
Seems a pretty cool game, good to have the option to play it on phone
Most mobile games often have subpar story and gameplay so it’s nice that the story and gameplay are good for this game. 😀
Yeah, they really did their best on this one!
Looks quite okay for a mobile game
agreed with Jaromir
As good as this game might be, I can’t get interested because it’s on a phone.
They need to port it!
looks nice, but no to mobile especially if have to pay
I’ve never played Castlevania but it looks cool! I love that you can send out a little purple cat spirit as an attack haha! Too bad it’s only on IOS
Yeah, it used to be on Android, but people disliked the micro transactions, thus it got stopped and added to Apple Arcade to salvage the game.
Looks really good for a mobile game.
Good review! This is a fun game.
It is indeed a fun game!