Been playing the PC release for a while now and this game is criminally underrated. I'd put it up there with the likes of Shovel Knight with regards to how polished and faithful it is to the era of videogames it's paying tribute to, while still offering enough ideas of its own to differentiate itself from the source material. Maldita Castilla also successfully makes you feel like a bad-ass; your actions may appear simplistic, but due to the limitations imposed to the player combined with how precise the hit- and hurtboxes are, some of the pixel perfect clutch moments feel extremely gratifying once you (spontaneously or otherwise) pull them off.
These kind of situations - deliberate by the developer or otherwise - still end up posing a very fair challenge too, thanks to the snappy controls. If it wasn't for the aforementioned accuracy in hit detection in conjunction with all of your abilities feeling perfectly responsive, then the difficulty curve would've certainly been rubbish instead of the incredibly delicate balance that has been struck. Another element that's commendable about this game's design is how subtle it is in gradually teaching the player, to the point these are susceptible to being unnoticed. There's some easy-to-overlook signposting going on with the environment that can assist you in dealing with certain matters, such as for example inconspicuous landmarks that actually highlight 'ideal' positioning vs obstacles or an unobtrusive tutorial for a specific kind of secret you need to acquire. A lot of thought was put into Maldita Castilla, down to the smallest of details and it was absolutely needed given the intent of clearing this game with no continues (or a minimal amount of them anyways) if you want to squeeze the most out of it.
Bottom line: charming pixel art, catchy old-school soundtrack, sufficient replayability for completionists and just all-around stellar gameplay matched with strict yet reasonable hardships. Doesn't happen often either that I have the drive / motivation to attempt 1CC'ing or no-hitting a game, yet Maldita Castilla passes that 'test' with flying colors.
I've followed this guy's work for many years now. He always had the most friendly policy about giving away his previous games for free.. but he's had such a good philosophy on retro revival game design that I always wish I could pay for a copy lol.
Having checked out his prior work, I liken him to Spanish Konjak. Both of these developers have an incredibly keen eye for retro-style experiences and have a nice track record by now.
Homage or not, why would you make a 4:3 game. In 2016.
I don't see anything wrong with this. There's borders you can enable if you really need to fill up your 16:9 screen estate or (heaven forbid) the option to stretch out the entire thing. Total non-issue.
Not a pushover by any means though.
