Castle in The Clouds is a Castlevania-inspired Metroidvania-styled erotic action platformer, developed by pixel-teishoku in collaboration with Libra Heart. Released on DLsite 6th of March 2020, the game is set to also release on Steam later in August, 2021.
Prepare yourself for an old-school side scroller experience crafted in gorgeous pixel graphics. Choose between a sword or whip and begin a long journey through 10 distinctive stages, each with a sexy boss waiting at the end. Explore and discover secrets and new abilities that will help overcome new challenges and obstacles that stand in your way!
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Castle in The Clouds Gameplay
A love letter to old-school gamers, Castle in The Clouds delivers a fully fleshed out Metroidvania experience providing visually simple yet gorgeous sceneries and a reason to explore beyond the main path laid out for the player.
Sprinkled with RPG elements, the main character, Lily, can discover new abilities within levels that allow her to reach new places unreachable before, as well as fight better in general. Defeating enemies is not just for the sake of getting rid of them, this also rewards the player with coins and EXP that can be used to purchase better weapons, as well as upgrade stats in order to become stronger.
When new stages introduce an obstacle impossible to overcome, it is often due to a lack of an important ability waiting in the previous stage that you might have missed. As a Metroidvania title, backtracking is one part of the gameplay and it can be mitigated by being thorough in each stage without leaving a single room or a treasure chest undiscovered.
Though it happens rarely, it is possible to get stuck in a level, unable to escape a room by ordinary means, but in such a case, the player is able to teleport back in town via the menu screen without a loss of progress or need to reload old save file. A small hindrance, yes, but not a dealbreaker.
Tied to the enemies’ damage output, there is a difficulty option available; Easy, normal, hard, and very hard. Even a newcomer to the genre or one lacking in skill has the means to enjoy completing the game.
Castle in The Clouds provides lewd content on top of its well-crafted side-scrolling action, though very light and simple which takes no part in boss battles, unfortunately. While the adult content is a nice touch for something that stands strong on its own, it really does not provide that many opportunities to enjoy it during gameplay.
Story
Even though there is no strong story present, Castle in The Clouds builds a small story around the game by using NPCs who have different things to say; some to guide the player, others to reveal secrets, and the rest to utter words of dread of what awaits the heroine ahead.
In between stages, there is a town to which the player can return. In order to be able to take quests from the guild that lead to new stages and advances the story, the player must first speak to Zenimaki, the leader in town.
Guild
Take upon quests from the guild that unlock new stages on the world map. Once a stage has been completed, new quests become available on the guild screen. You are free to complete the stages in whichever order you like but some stages require specific abilities before they can be beaten.
Shop
Before starting a new game, you are given a choice to choose between a sword or whip to take as your main weapon. This however is not a final decision as you are free to purchase a new weapon later on after having collected enough coins from defeated monsters. In addition to their unique powers, different types of weapons can provide a slightly different angle of attack and reach.
New weapons do not only provide greater strength but there are also stages in which a specific weapon is required, thus saving money towards them early on can help make the journey a smoother one.
Inn
You can make Lily stronger in many different ways to best suit your own playstyle. By defeating enemies, you can level up and earn ability points which in return can be spent at the Inn to increase stats. Upgrade Lily’s strength, defense, attack speed, and other attributes like the speed in which experience points are acquired.
Boss battles
Castle in The Clouds lets you fight 10 beautifully pixel-crafted monster girl bosses, each waiting for you at the very end of a stage. These are the main spectacle of the game that will put your skills to the test.
Dying on a boss sends you straight back to the entrance of the boss room, so fighting bosses while experimenting with new tactics to defeat them is a smooth ride of fun to have.
Castle in The Clouds Hentai
Not much to write home about, Castle in The Clouds offers a small handful of animated hentai mixed in its gameplay, though not enough to recommend a purchase. There are 11 H-scenes to enjoy, many of which have very little variety to provide. The biggest missed opportunity however is not adding the bosses in the hentai which are all sexy monster girls begging to be included.
Much of the adult scenes focus on Lily getting molested by humans and monsters but there are other characters as well. During these H-scenes, there is a simple minigame to play in which the player must tap X-key to escape or press the C-key to enjoy a climax.
Getting caught by tentacles and other enemies provides invincibility for a short moment while damaging all the enemies on the screen. Leaving the minigame unplayed does not punish the player and thus allows the H-scene to be enjoyed for as long as one likes. Not all enemies offer an H-scene unfortunately but only a select few.
Accessible from the main menu, Castle in The Clouds provides a gallery from which to view unlocked H-scenes upon witnessing them for the first time during the story mode.
Learn more about Castle in The Clouds by watching a short gameplay demonstration going through one of the 10 stages. For more erotic Metroidvania games, check out Midnight Castle Succubus, Alien Quest EVE, The Adventures of Kincaid, and Crisis Point: Extinction.
