Odallus: The Dark Call has been out for a little over a month now and I just completed it. I loved almost every minute of the game and intend to write a user review soon The newest release from indie developer JoyMasher is a clear throwback to the original Castlevania games on the NES. The game has enough exploration and hidden secrets to be called a Metroidvania, and it is one of the few games in that genre to actually capture the spirit of the NES era of both Metroid and Castlevania.

Odallus is a Metroidvania without a map and without one big world that is interconnected. There is a world map in the game which lets you jump between the games levels. This makes the eventual backtracking much easier. The game follows the general idea that the other games in this genre do: you will complete a level having only seen part of it and later in the game you will be able to come back with weapons and abilities you unlocked to see the rest.

There is a story here, but it is so unimportant to the game that it is not worth going into any real detail about. The small amount of cutscenes in the game actually felt like they were just getting in the way of the gameplay, which is the best part of the game.

Odallus plays great. It gives you the feel of playing the first Castlevania, but it has enough modern touches to keep you from getting frustrated with outdated controls. The amount of control you have over the character prevents you from ever feeling like there are any unfair deaths. The game manages to feel like a throwback while still being totally original. Unlike the series that it is inspired by, there are no pits to fall in in the game. The only real way to die is to actually have all of your health drained.

The main problem with the game is that the levels are large and there is no map. Some of the levels have multiple areas that look very similar so it can be hard to keep track of where you are going where you have been. There were multiple times that levels had “alternate” paths which simply led me back to where I originally was. A map could easily have solved this problem. At one point in the game I realized that I was clearly missing an upgrade but I had no idea where. So, I took to the internet to help me out. This is where I started to feel like I was the only person who had ever heard about the game.

I found almost nothing online about this game. I couldn't find one Walkthrough for this, which may sound like a lot to ask for a game that is only a month old, but the game is short enough that it can be completed in one sitting. Almost all of my Google searches sent me to people asking the same questions I was in the Steam forums. That is it. The only reason I was able to find the item I needed was that I got lucky and found a video on YouTube of someone speedrunning the game.

The question is, how did I find out about this ghost of a game? This game has very little coverage in the press and is getting very little attention from the internet in general. As of this writing, the game only has 77 reviews written for it on Steam. The only reason I heard about this was because I overheard a man telling his friend about it and how it was just like the NES games from their childhood. I was interested in hearing about this Steam game that I have heard no one talking on the internet about. Yeah, I literally heard about a month-old video game for the first time through word of mouth.

I had to do a decent amount of looking to find the information that I wanted about this game. It started as an Indiegogo project looking to raise $5,000. The game ended up getting funded to over $7,000 so it is clear that the game had some attention at the time of fundraising. Being someone who checks out video game news daily I was really surprised that this game somehow slipped by in it's production and release.

I'm simply writing this because I really enjoyed my time with the game and I want to recommend it to anyone who would be interested. You know if you want to play this. If you enjoy Metroidvania's but would like one that plays more like Castlevania I suggest you check it out. If anyone who has been watching VinnyVania has had the urge to go play a Castlevania game I really recommend this. The game takes around 5 hours to beat and at a price of $14.99, you can't afford not to play this game. There are a lot of games which manage to slip under peoples radars, but we shouldn't let Odallus: The Dark Call be one of those.