On Romhack Thursdays, we bring you interesting finds from the world of game modifications.
Been awhile since we did a romhack, and this one is pretty cool. Someone used an editor to turn one of the DS Castlevania games (probably Portrait of Ruin, I’m guessing) into an homage to the comedy vampire sitcom What We Do In The Shadows, starring Laszlo Cravensworth the vampire. You can play it in your browser, or pay five bucks for a downloadable ROM that you can transfer to a physical Nintendo DS, if you have the means, or play in a standalone emulator.
I should warn you that saves don’t seem to survive page reloads in the browser version, but if you run out of HP you can continue from your save as long as you remain on the page. The game’s really short and can be easily completed in one session.
The great thing about this hack is the writing, it reads very much like an episode of the show, down to the frequent profanity and grotesque content like peeing werewolves, so this one’s for adults only. It follows on from the end of the show, after Guillermo had given up on becoming a vampire and learned to stand up for himself a bit, and Nandor the Relentless decided he was going to try out being a superhero.
There is a bestiary with descriptions for all the enemies you’ve seen, and a few secrets to find. It even has one of the celebrity cameos the show was known for, near the end. The game does sometimes hand you a new ability only to take it away later, but the true draw here is the dialogue anyway, and the game’s so short.
It’s difficult to take screenshots while a game is in progress, so all my images are from moments when the game is paused in some way, but it looks pretty nice, at least when the werewolves aren’t peeing. Here are a few more images.
P.S. Sorry for forgetting to make a post Tuesday, but if you live in the U.S. I’m sure you realize that something really important and distracting was happening that day.
\Laszlovania, by Edward La Barbera (itch.io, free to play in browser or $5 for playable DS ROM file)
