Castle of Succubus is an adult-oriented 2D Action Platformer inspired by the original Castlevania. In fact, it so closely follows the design of its inspiration that it ends up being Castlevania in all but name. We play as the appropriately named Simone Belmont, our whip-wielding heroine on a quest to slay a succubus. Trying to hunt a succubus with a whip seems similar to showing up to an Alcoholic Anonymous meeting hiding whiskey in your can of Pepsi, but it is as effective a weapon as ever. Before starting the game, you are given an option to pick either Easy or Normal. All Easy does is remove the knockback effect when being damaged, which seems minor, yet makes quite a difference.
Once you are in the game itself proper, it will immediately hit you how much like Castlevania this feels. From the slightly remixed tunes of iconic songs to the very accurate graphic style that captures its vibe, all of it feels authentic. One of the most significant differences is that there is no longer a timer, so you are free to take as long in a level as you please. Another minor change is that whipping apart candles will drop coins instead of hearts to fill up your sub-weapon meter. Besides that, pretty much everything you’d expect from the old linear Castlevanias are all here and present. Including the fact that you can only whip horizontally, meaning flying enemies will once again be the bane of your existence.
Starting off, your enemies will be lowly zombies and floating eyeballs that go down with one hit. It is a decently designed intro that will quickly hand you a sub-weapon, have you recharge its meter with coins, and teach you to smack walls to reveal secrets. Everything you need to know is established to the player in the first several steps in an organic fashion before we set off to annihilate the undead. The setting we find ourselves in is akin to where we start in Castlevania 3, but instead of walking into a castle soon after, we journey through a deserted countryside. It will be quite a journey before we reach a castle of any sort, and after the initial stage, the difficulty finally starts kicking in.
There are six stages in total. All of them are pretty lengthy and feature a boss fight at the end of them. None of the bosses are as difficult as Death from the original Castlevania, yet are no pushovers. They offer a decent fight and considering you fight many in their own turf, playing on Normal and having the knockback effect activated can make any hit deadly. Near all of them have death pits scattered around their arena, while others have hazards such as having to fight under a waterfall and resisting the currents rapid flow leading into the abyss. It is some breath-holding adrenaline as you try to manage that and discern the enemies attack pattern in the hopes of getting a hit in.
Making it far enough to fight a boss is no easy feat either. You will encounter many a challenge in your attempts to get there. Not only do you have to worry about regular foes whittling down your health before you face them, but there are also traps to avoid and quite a bit of platforming to be done. Much more platforming than your typical Castlevania title actually. Luckily, they didn’t go crazy with it and derived all their challenge from jumping over death pits. It is always intense, yet things are placed in such a way as to easily manage with the Castlevania style controls that never were all that well suited for precise jumping. Some of the optional platforms that lead to a slightly different route throughout the level or secrets are a bit too pixel perfect, however. While they may not risk your life, they can be unnecessarily tricky to get up on.
‘Wait, didn’t you say this was an adult orientated title in the beginning?’ you may be wondering by now. Yes, yes it is. You see, you start off with two lives, and the only way to get more is by rescuing women being abused by monsters. Slaying those fiends and setting her free will net you an extra life. On the other hand, you can stand aside and let the monsters do as they please in order to unlock some lewd CGs of the deed. With this title’s difficulty that may seem like madness, but lives will only be valuable for those trying to get as high a score as possible. For everyone else, losing all of them is no big deal since there are infinite continues and it sets you back on the same screen in which you perished, instead of the start of the level.
You will lose your sub-weapon, and your score will be reset upon using a continue, neither being all that impactful to your chances. Back on the topic of the abused girls, there seems to be two in each level. One is available to rescue just by reaching her, yet the other will be behind a locked door in which you have to find its key first. It will be a challenge in itself to find that key as they are well hidden, though these extra lives will be invaluable to those trying to beat the game without a continue. For those that just want more hentai, it is maybe less important. I wouldn’t even recommend this title if all you want from it are the lewd sections. They are quite a bit of work to get to, and there is no way to unlock all the CGs from the get-go that I know of.
There are more secrets to be found than you’d think from such a linear title. Be sure to whip everything and try to get to places you probably don’t have to in order to get more health or money to fill your weapon meter. You will find a decent selection of sub-weapons to use throughout your adventures. Each of them has its own uses. The Holy Bomb is thrown downwards, creating a temporary fire to damage foes. The Cross can be thrown across the screen then returns for a second hit. And the Sickle is useful to strike enemies on a higher plane than you. Basically, all of the original Castlevania weapons are here in one form or another, minus the Stopwatch.
All of the six levels have a decent amount of variance between them. It truly feels like a journey as you whip your way through a graveyard, dodge for dear life at whatever it is the sewer fish are spewing at you, and attempt to avoid the nefarious traps once you do actually reach the castle. I love the artwork in this. From the character and monster sprites to the backgrounds, it all looks true to Castlevania. This is some top-notch retro-inspired looking artwork, making it all the more of a shame that there is no way to play it in fullscreen. Your options are to either play it in a tiny window or completely stretch the window to fill your monitor. There is no in-between since you can’t tweak the window’s size.
Having to play the entire title via such a tiny window made the art look great since it is pixel perfect, yet also made the game itself more difficult. You will be squinting the entire duration of it and walking straight into preventable situations due to it. Going the stretch to monitor route is even worse. Since it uses the odd resolution of 768×672, stretching it to a 16:9 ration distorts it significantly and makes it difficult to control. This won’t be much of an issue with those that have a 720p monitor, but for everyone else, this is a significant issue that only gets worth the higher your resolution happens to be. On the topic of flaws, there is no way to pause the game. If you happen to get a phone call, you can either choose to miss it or probably die in-game as you attend to it. It is never an ideal situation for a single-player game.
Aside from that, everything worked perfectly fine. I did not encounter any issues, and the game was a breeze to control with either a keyboard or controller. It ran at a solid 60fps with the entire thing taking a few hours to complete. From the main menu, you can access a Gallery mode to view all of the hentai you have amassed and be tempted to go back in for another round to collect more. There is no save system; instead, you head to the level you want via a password system. The passwords are gained at the end of a level or given out by a girl you rescue. They will not be saved anywhere however, it is up to you to remember them.
All told, while Castle of Succubus may be a hentai title, it is a far better product than many other of the none lewd variants that tried to pull the classic Castlevania experience off. Dismissing it due to its adult premises would be quite a shame for any fan of Castlevania or the Action Platformer enthusiasts in general. With this title, the talented folks over at Libra Heart have definitely captured my attention on anything else they create and their other games they’ve released since 2015 when this one was made. You’d be surprised how many great video games are to be found in the lewd sections of the internet only to then pass the general public by. Castle of Succubus is one such exemplary case that deserves more attention.
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