Haunted Castle is regarded to be one of, if not the, worst in the series. Castlevania’s first mobile title Order of Shadows kindly asks, “You think you’re bad!? Hold my beer.”

Castlevania: Order of Shadows is a mobile game…and not much else

When you’re only defining feature is the platform its available on, it shows how poor of a game Castlevania: Order of Shadows is. Starring Desmond Belmont (*groan*) as he goes on a quest to defeat..zzzz.

Ok, it’s a 10 dollar mobile game, there is not much to expect in terms of high quality, but it’s not like a mobile game HAS to be horrible. Take a look at the awesome Doom and Wolfenstein RPG games. Maybe going for a first-person dungeon crawler would have been a good idea? Point is, a side-scrolling platformer with all the awkward controls as the other games makes Order of Shadows basically unplayable. The controls are either unresponsive or too sluggish. It almost comes off as Konami trying to make the most actively frustrating Castlevania. Well, they succeeded.

Gameplay is nothing spectacular, just classic jumpin’ and whippin’. If the Metroidvania formula was slowly wearing thin at this point, this bare-bare-bare bones gameplay style is even worse. They try to shoehorn RPG elements…but eh.

Also, it’s super nitpicky, but the game looks horrible. Sprites are way too big, and the same problems Haunted Castle had are prevalent. Also, Desmond looks like a HUGE dork with the spiky hair.

So, yeah, Order of Shadows is bad. Don’t play it.

Luckily the next handheld game was an improvement. A massive, massive improvement.