Ghosts 'n Goblins 'n Gonks: Cursed Castilla Released
Retro platformer
Cursed Castilla [official site], an expanded version of Locomalito's ace Maldita Castilla, has arrived on PC for more Ghosts 'n Goblins-y, Tiger Road-ish shooty platforming action. It improves on the original with new levels, new enemies, new bosses, a new illustrated bestiary, new songs, and remastered audio - it's the fancy polished commercial version of a game that was already really quite pleasant. This revamp (also known as Maldita Castilla EX) hit Xbone first but is now back home, soaked in pixel art ichor. Here, check out the launch trailer:
It's not my genre but it does have some good-looking stuff in there, some oddball monster designs and locations, a grab bag of folklore and mythological influences. It does look to be of the era it's imitating, a time before fantasy games mostly settled on the same few enemies, a time when you'd often exclaim "What the heck is this and why is it and I adore it." You're leaping around Charon's boat as he punts past crucified corpses and a giant green water serpent spits fire. You're bouncing across the backs of turtles. You're fighting the page-flinging metalman Crazy Quixote. Sure, why not?
Cursed Castilla does also have a variety of screen modes to simulate old CRT displays with their scanlines and spriteblurring too (or not, if you'd prefer).
You can pick up Cursed Castilla on Steam for £8.09/10,79€/$10.79. It doesn't have a demo but hey, the original Maldita Castilla is still free.