Dead Cells-Return to Castlevania Edition

Battle through the ancient corridors of Dracula’s Castle wielding iconic Castlevania weapons, in this expansion to the acclaimed fast-paced action roguelite Dead Cells. The inspiration behind it all returns to its 2D action roots! Castlevania’s unforgettable characters & gothic setting meet the fast-paced combat of the award-winning roguelite Dead Cells in this unprecedented collaboration. A gateway to a striking castle has suddenly appeared, and an imposing warrior called Richter asks you to help him vanquish the great evil within. Enticed by the promise of new loot rather than a sense of moral duty, you strike out through the grounds and corridors of the gothic castle to find and kill this mysterious Dracula... Slay hordes of his supernatural minions as you progress through our biggest DLC yet, including two levels, three bosses and a new storyline! WIELD CLASSIC CASTLEVANIA WEAPONS Unlock 14 iconic weapons such as the Vampire Killer, Throwing Axe & Holy Water to decimate Dracula's bestiary of monsters and finally the dark lord himself. Each item has been translated into the fast-paced combat of Dead Cells while keeping their original essence. EXPLORE EVERY CORNER OF DRACULA'S CASTLE Secret rooms. Flame-lit corridors. Gloomy tombs. Beautiful paintings. Food hidden in the walls. Full of original monsters from the series, such as harpies, werewolves & haunted armors, the character of the iconic castle will transport you into the realms of gothic fantasy. ENJOY CLASSIC & REIMAGINED MUSIC We're giving you access to an alternative soundtrack made of 51 of the original Castlevania tunes, that can be heard across the entire game. Yes, 51! On top of this, we've taken the 12 most iconic tracks, such as Vampire Killer, Bloody Tears and Simon Belmont's Theme, and reimagined them in the style of Dead Cells as a soundtrack for this DLC, while preserving the Castlevania ambiance of course. DISCOVER A NEW STORYLINE Richter Belmont and Alucard will be by your side throughout your quest to vanquish Dracula, helping you to navigate the maze of Dracula’s Castle and providing you with strong weapons (sometimes willingly, sometimes not). However, where there is good there is evil, so watch out for powerful foes who will try everything in their power to stop you from reaching the throne room. MASTER THREE EPIC BOSS FIGHTS Fight against the very essence of evil in two intense duels versus Death and Dracula, both set against a majestic backdrop. If you can survive these gauntlets, prepare yourself for our most ambitious boss showdown yet... UNLOCK CASTLEVANIA CHARACTER OUTFITS Unlock 20 outfits as you progress through the castle, letting you roleplay as all your favourite characters like Alucard, Richter Belmont, Simon Belmont, Maria Renard, Trevor Belmont, Sypha Belnades or even Dracula himself

In the era of AAA day one patches and games being little more than macro transaction shops with graphics you get an ABSOLUTE gem that is Dead Cells. Loads of free content, DLC that adds hours of content and fun, and one of the best games in the last decade. Controls? Tight. Responsive. Precise. Game play? Metroidvania goodness of shifting levels and challenging foes, with an extra heaping helping of replayability that keeps the game going on and on. Sounds? Great soundtrack and enemy attack queues to alert you to an attack. Deadcells is hands down one of the best games on any platform and I can not recommend it enough. Get it, love it, and have sooo much fun.

One of my all time favorite games. The gameplay loop is very satisfying. It’s a hard game, but once you get into it, you can tailor it to your gameplay style. Like fast and twitchy gameplay? There’s items for that. Prefer to time perfect parries? Yep, there’s a loot for that too. Tanking it more your style? There’s shields galore. Don’t be afraid to start fresh and only unlock items you like once you get a feel for it. It will make your life much easier. If you don’t want to bother with the grind though, there’s customer mode that lets you dial in available items and monster stats so it’s as difficult or easy as you want. In my opinion, this is a perfect rogue-lite.

Not my type of game. I ordered it to try out, it was fun for a few hours. Good music and art style. I gave it a high review because I can really see the charm and appeal for others, just not for me. Just fyi for non-gamers or people that are buying as a present for a gamer, this is a rougelike game, which is what the play style is called. Just make sure you know that prior to purchasing.

Awesome and fun to play.

Writing this review after seeing another review that claimed that the DLC wasn't on the cartridge. This isn't actually the case, but they aren't completely wrong as updates are the size of the complete game. If you put the game cartridge into the Switch while in airplane mode, you can still play the game with all DLC included as v1.23.1 is the version on the cartridge (this corresponds to v3.3 of Dead Cells based on its platform agnostic changelog on the Wiki GG page). To be specific, the cartridge contains update 3.3 of the game as well as the 5 DLC keys that enable you to be able to use the DLC (since the game includes DLCs in updates and then you normally pay to download encryption keys to decrypt the DLC features). HOWEVER, the moment you try to start up the game while connected to the internet, the game will prompt you to download an update (specifically the "Clean Cut" update at the time of this review, which is v3.4 in the changelog) that is roughly 2gb in size. This big size is because updates for the Switch version of the game are essentially re-downloads of the game that completely replace the game's source code (instead of changing sub-files within the code). As such, this essentially changes the role of the physical Switch cartridge of being a complete build of the game into a license key for the update (PC and PS4/PS5 just download the necessary data chunks for DLC, for the record). In short, Motion Twin did not lie when saying that all DLC is on the physical game. However, because the cartridge and disc were made before the Clean Cut was released back in April/May (updates change the title screen, but the title screen can be adjusted), you would need to effectively re-download the game on the Switch in the form of an update to get some of the newest content of the game (v3.4 added new stuff to the Castlevania Content like a boss rush, for example). As such, you DO get all of the DLC on cartridge/disc as v3.3 (based on Dead Cells changelogs) and the license decryption keys, but you don't get ALL of the newest content on the Switch cartridge since this is an August release of a March v3.3 update that was shrtly followed by a May/June v3.4 update (and any future updates after this review) that forces a download the size of the compiled game. Seeing that Dead Cells frequently releases new physical copies of the game that contains more DLC keys on the discs, we might get another version in the future that contains all updates (assuming another DLC pack is released or the game ceases development). For reference, this game has the following physical releases: -The Original Release; -The Action Game of the Year release that has the Rise of the Giant DLC key; -A revised Action Game of the Year release that added the Bad Seed DLC key; and -The Return to Castlevania release that added the Fatal Falls DLC key, the Queen and the Sea DLC key, and the Return to Castlevania DLC key. Since updates completely replace the installed game that's on your system, each Switch cartridge release essentially acts as a new collection of DLC keys to be used with the current update. tl;dr: Product actually has DLC keys on cartridge and v3.3 of game (corresponds with Switch version 1.23.1), so you can play the DLC as is without internet updates. However, the Switch version of game has 2gb updates that completely replace the installed version of the game with a new build of the game (cartridge still has v3.3, but system has v3.4 / Switch software v1.24.1), so you would still need 2gb+ of space on your system or SD card if you want future additions to the game. This gets 4/5 stars as they didn't wait on creating a build that incorporates the v3.4 content. Instead, we only get up to the v3.3 content, which forces Switch users to download a free update the size of the game if they want the v3.4 content (instead of having a complete build of the game that has all content included by the time the game comes out physically).

To clarify some questions: this is the full Dead Cells game and includes the Castlevania DLC along with all the others (i.e. Rise of the Giant). The Castlevania Quest is available right at the beginning (and is optional) as long as you can find Richter Belmont in the Prisoner Quarters or find the Castle's Outskirts entrance. That said, Dead Cells is one of my favorite roguelike games of all time; it's fun, visually appeasing, addicting and satisfying, and the Switch version just plays so well minus a couple of infrequent loading lags. The partnership with the Castlevania franchise is perfect especially for spooky season. I love the reversible cover too for the old school NES-looking cover art design! Highly recommend for Castlevania fans or Dead Cells fans wanting a new challenge.

Such a good little game if you like Castlevania style games this one is perfect for you