In case you're not aware, Castlevania Anniversary Collection is now available on Steam (as well as on PlayStation 4, Switch and Xbox One). It includes the following games:

• Castlevania (NES)
  
• Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (NES)
  
• Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (NES)
  
• Super Castlevania IV (SNES)
  
• Castlevania: The Adventure (Game Boy)
  
• Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge (Game Boy)
  
• Castlevania: Bloodlines (Genesis)
  
• Kid Dracula (NES)

The collection also includes some really cool extras in the form of design docs and concept art for each game. Definitely read the reviews to get an idea as to what sort of issues the package has at the moment, as there are certainly a number of oversights in the PC version (some of which also plague the console releases). That said, I've really enjoyed my time with this collection on Xbox One X, and I daresay that the aforementioned design docs and concept art alone are worth the asking price for a serious Castlevania fan.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1018010/

In case you're unaware, Season 2 of Netflix's Castlevania series is now available. Season 2 is twice as long as Season 1, consisting of eight episodes. Here's a link to the series page on Netflix:

https://www.netflix.com/title/80095241

If you've already watched it, then share your thoughts in the comments below.

Since the beta [$60+ Kickstarter] backer demo for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has been available for a couple of days now, I figured that I'd see who's played it and what you think about. If you didn't back the Kickstarter by pledging $60 or more, then you can check out a play-through of the demo that I recorded a couple of days ago to see how development has progressed below.

https://youtu.be/Hqkq0S4scVs
While the demo doesn't look as good as I'd like it do, I'm hopeful that further improvements will be made to the animation and lighting. The demo's chock-full of weapons and other equipment, as well as plenty of items and shards to mess around with. You can even craft a decent selection of items and take on some side quests, although the UI for the latter isn't fully implemented yet.

You'll get to see four areas in the demo, consisting of the ship from the first demo, a town, the castle entrance and the garden. You'll also get to see plenty of interesting enemies, many of which are very similar to enemies from the various Castlevania games.

Anyway, whether you've played the demo or simply watched videos of it, share your thoughts below!

For anyone not following Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night's Kickstarter updates, I wanted to post an announcement to bring your attention to Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, which releases on May 24th. Think of Curse of the Moon as a retro take on Bloodstained intended to satiate Castlevania fans' appetites until the release of Ritual of the Night (or potentially as something that'll cater more to fans of the more linear installments of the Castlevania series).

Here's a link to Curse of the Moon's store page:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/838310/

Once you've played the game, feel free to post below about your experience with the game. I'll be purchasing it on Steam, of course, since the Xbox One code that I requested through Kickstarter probably won't arrive on May 24th. I'll probably be spending more time with it on Xbox One, though, since I'd prefer to play this on my TV.

Enjoy the game, in either case!

With one DLC stage, four DLC characters and the most recent update (which tweaks various aspects of the game, including certain weapons' effectiveness and item drops), there's still plenty to keep players busy in Harmony of Despair. So, who here's still playing it? If you've purchased the DLC, then feel free to share your feelings about the new characters. Or just discuss the latest update.

If you haven't been playing Harmony of Despair, then what else have you been playing? Are you playing another Castlevania game or something else entirely?