A lot of the retro games happily don the constraints from eras where developers were constantly straining to be free from them. Undertale is pretty fantastic for how it wears these constraints, and takes them off selectively for impact.

But SotN? Even in these first five minutes, they pull out all the stops.

The parallax 3D clocktower in the background as you scale those steps, voice acting, the sprite backgrounds melting away to a 3D noise-textured vortex, and watching Dracula's healthbar melt away as he dies? Fantastic, my mouth was wide open the whole time. I can't imagine how this must have been experienced 28 years ago.

The "first boss is the final boss" fakeout is a well-worn but welcome trope, so I wasn't expecting to be expected to defeat Dracula in that cutscene. A short bit of exposition later, and enter Alucard, stage left, in an entrance that gets you really pumped to be the worlds broodiest twink.

I've really leaned heavily into the "Metroid" side of the "Metroidvania," and all the "-vania" heavy games I've played seemed really bad. The sluggish wind-up feel of the characters is something I'm getting used to. I'm not above being charmed by theatrics-- I'm sold.

Okay, time to go play the next five minutes of this game