Castle of Heart

Genre: Action-Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in Castle of Heart + Jet Kave Adventure Bundle, along with Jet Kave Adventure.)

Castle of Heart is a n Action-Platformer released in 2018 on Nintendo Switch, where players take the role of a knight cursed to turn into stone, setting off to get revenge on the evil wizard who did this and rescue the woman he loves.

The presentation here is decent, using 3D visuals for the characters and backgrounds, backed by dour, medieval-sounding music to match the game’s tone and setting, with voice acting for narration during the game’s cutscenes. Nothing here is particularly great, but it works well enough for what it’s aiming for.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the gameplay. Jumps are extremely floaty and just do not feel satisfying, and the “2.5D” gameplay and visuals combination frequently makes judging tricky jumps more difficult than it needs to be.

If the Platforming in an Action-Platformer ain’t great, one can always hope that the combat will make up for it, but in Castle of Heart, combat is a slog where players need to wail on enemies with multiple hits over and over again as enemies are frequently spawned, making this seem like an endless, repetitive errand.

I should also note the game’s signature mechanic, which has your life constantly draining away and needing to be repaired by either grabbing pickups or defeating enemies. While this could have had potential to be interesting, life drains slowly enough that it’s more an annoyance than a major factor in the gameplay, and life is automatically refilled when hitting checkpoints, so players need only to survive to the next checkpoint to keep progressing.

Ultimately, while I credit Castle of Heart for trying something different with its presentation and its life-draining mechanic, nothing here is enjoyable or worth engaging with, and there are just far too many great Action-Platformers on Nintendo Switch to waste your time with one that can’t deliver good action or platforming.

tl;dr – Castle of Heart is an Action-Platformer where players take the role of a knight seeking vengeance on the wizard who turned him to stone. This game’s presentation is decent, but neither the platforming or combat are enjoyable, resulting in a game that is just a tedious slog to play.

Grade: D+

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