It also began as a tiny, bite-sized production - hence the 'Prologue' subtitle - before exploding into a full-sized game featuring dozens of stages and three different protagonists.īrave Earth does such a good job of impersonating Castlevania that some people will undoubtedly dismiss it as being too derivative. And it feels absolutely spot-on frankly, I found my demo of the game more satisfying than I did M2's legitimate WiiWare throwback creation from a few years back, Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth.Īccording to Kayin, Brave Earth began as something of a programming exercise and blossomed into a proper game project. The pacing, the visual style, the mechanics: It all lines up. From subweapons that you activate by holding up as you press the attack button to those infamous stairs, this is very much a game cast from the mold of 8-bit Castlevania. Produced largely by a single man-Kayin, the creator of brutally difficult NES mash-up I Wanna Be The Guy-Brave Earth makes no pretense of being anything besides the most loving tribute to vintage Castlevania imaginable. In that case, our prospects for a proper Castlevania follow-up suddenly double to include not only Bloodstained but also the excellent-looking indie project Brave Earth Prologue. Unless, of course, you don't mind dabbling in works by people with no official connection to Konami.

Brave earth prologue music