Toziuha Night: Dracula’s Revenge
This is not the story of a heroine who seeks to protect people. Xandria, for selfish reasons, goes on a dangerous mission to Dracula’s castle.
In Transylvania, the story is told of a legendary alchemist named Vlad Tepes (Dracula), one day he was sentenced to death for having made a pact with a Toziuha, and thus acquiring demonic power. Years later, several alchemists from [The Order] have been found impaled outside Dracula’s castle, and it seems that somehow Vlad Tepes has been resurrected in search of revenge.
Find out more about this tragic story of a girl who fights with a whip of iron chains, a cruel reminder of a tragic past.
*This is a game made by a fan of Classic-vania games*.
Toziuha Night is a side-scrolling action platformer. It runs through different linear stages set in a dark fantasy world; such as a gloomy forest and even Count Dracula’s gloomy castle.
Play as Xandria, a beautiful and skilled alchemist who, using an iron whip, fights against the most fearsome demons.
Features:
– Original symphonic music.
– Retro pixelart style paying tribute to 32-bit consoles.
– Test your skills fighting final bosses and various enemies.
– Play without internet connection.
– Anime and gothic style characters.
– Discover more of the tragic story of the protagonist available in English and Spanish.
– Compatible with game controls.
– Fully customizable touch controls.
Game Discussion
Steam User 2
S U M M A R Y
Toziuha Night: Dracula's Revenge is a side-scrolling action platformer that is heavily modeled after the classic Castlevania games and was impressively made almost entirely by one person (minus the music).
Overall, I would prefer to give it a mixed review because it's simply average — none of its parts are particularly good nor bad. That being said, it is relatively inexpensive (especially when it goes on sale) so it can serve as a decent "Classic-vania" game if you are hankering to play one that you haven't already.
A C H I E V E M E N T S
As of the writing of this review, the game is marked as "Profile Features Limited" which means that it is not eligible to appear in certain showcases on your Steam profile and does not contribute towards global achievement or game collector counts until it has made a minimum number of sales or has met other non-revenue criteria thresholds.
The game has six achievements and requires you to complete a minimum of two playthroughs plus the Boss Rush mode with a handicap; however, completing the game on the hardest difficulty is extremely unfair and quickly becomes an exercise in tedium. Compared to the normal difficulty, you have 60% of the health, you deal approximately 40% less damage, and the worst offender by far is that you have almost no invincibility frames. This last point means that you do not have enough time to recover from being knocked back (during which you are unable to input any commands) before being damaged again by bosses and enemies.
As such, I recommend avoiding this game for its achievements unless you're a complete masochist. If it weren't for the lack of invincibility frames then it would be much more fair (albeit still difficult) but is instead ruined by this awful design choice. Even worse, the developer admitted that they did not playtest the entire game on this difficulty and it really shows.
That being said, one sub-weapon has an Item Crash that renders you invincible for up to 10 seconds per use and you can use it up to eight times if you have the maximum amount of resources. The game becomes much more bearable if you can get this sub-weapon but you can only find it in one level and will lose it if you lose all of your lives.
R E V I E W
Gameplay
The gameplay is standard as far as side-scrolling action platformers go but the controls are a bit imprecise and there are a few glitches throughout the game, though none are game-breaking. Otherwise, the game is almost an exact clone of the first Castlevania game in terms of gameplay mechanics: you have three lives, infinite continues, a scoring system which can grant you extra lives, breakable objects with items in them, a whip, and five sub-weapons that use a resource which is acquired from breaking objects throughout the levels. Although, the sub-weapons each have an Item Crash which are terribly balanced and vary greatly in terms of potency but are unfortunately very lackluster when it comes to overall grandeur and visual excitement.
Graphics
The graphics use pixel art to paint a retro dark fantasy look for the levels as well as the sprites which end up being very reminiscent of the GBA era of Castlevania games; however, the sprites have no faces which is quite eerie to look at. The character portraits are drawn in an anime style but end up looking somewhat grainy due to the obvious pixelation and this gives the game a bit of an amateurish feel to it.
Sound
The soundtrack is the one aspect of the game that wasn't created by the developer but the songs are very forgettable and are lacking in excitement and energy. That being said, they serve their purpose as background noise that thematically matches the related locale but aren't anything special to listen to outside of the confines of the game. The game also does have a small amount of voice acting but it's reserved for screams and laughs which is slightly disappointing.
Story
The story revolves around the adventure to slay Dracula which is ultimately used to set the stage for the game's planned sequel, Toziuha Night: Order of the Alchemists, which is a Metroidvania that delves further into the main character's backstory and uses that as a focal point from which to expand on the world-building and lore. The English script also has a number of typos as well as simply misused words — it's clear that English is not the developer's native language and that they could have used a proofreader.
I found the main character to be unlikeable as she is selfish to a fault, arrogant (which is backed by her plot armor), and a bit too aloof. Despite being a newly-trained member of her organization, her backstory gives her immense latent powers that allow her to overcome the challenge of the game without much issue and this stunts any possibility of struggle and character growth and I can't help but wonder if this will be carried on in the sequel.
Miscellaneous
The game does have a soundtrack on Steam but I find this odd since you can listen to the entire soundtrack on the composer's Youtube channel for free. It makes me wonder who the proceeds are going to.
Conclusion
Overall, it's an adequate game that merely sets out to emulate a successful formula from 30 years ago and I only recommend it if you want to play a new Classic-vania that you haven't played before. Even then, you could wait for it to go on sale for 60% off at 2.39 USD which has recently becomes its new all-time low.
In fact, I found myself much more captivated by the sequel while playing its demo to completion. It looks extremely well-polished in every aspect and it appears as if the developer has really improved their programming and artwork skills. That being said, I hope that they playtest anything that they choose to add to the game (particularly harder difficulties) as I find the practice of adding something just for the sake of it and merely estimating its details to be a complete indiscretion.