So, this hack is really really fun at the start of the game because it forces you to change the usual “attack and tank everything” strategy from the original game, so it’s a breath of fresh air for someone who’s been playing the game for 20 years. I have to say though, as fun as it is at the beginning, after the Chapel area, the difficulty drops to the levels of the original game for some areas and bosses, but for others it goes up a ton. It feels like there is no difficulty curve or consistency at all.

Leaving that aside, there are also some huge problems with the hack, and those are the glitches. I wouldn’t mind if they were small things that didn’t affect the gameplay, but these actually crash the game entirely. For example, every Golden Medusa Head will freeze the game the moment it touches you; for whatever reason they petrify the entire game instead of just Alucard! There is also another major glitch in the Olrox fight, and while it doesn’t crash the game, it does soft-lock you. The attack that forms some sort of toxic pillars sends you flying to the side while poisoning you a million times, so you can’t move at all, the Poison status gets infinitely inflicted on Alucard and it even squishes you inside the wall! Similarly, Salem Witches have this game-freezing effect with their poisoning attacks. Also, sometimes my emulator (mednafen) gives an error about unrecoverable areas of the game, but nothing happens after the message appears.

All in all, it’s a good hack that gives you an excuse to play SotN for the 50th time, but the difficulty is all over the place. The glitches are very annoying and literally game breaking. I had to abuse savestates in a few areas like the Clock Towers because neither Alucard nor my attacking familiars can touch the Golden Medusa Heads without freezing the game.

Also, thank you for restoring the shield spells!