Haven't listened to the video commentary or music/sfx—is it any good?
Loving the artwork and that gorgeous 3D parallax scrolling. They’re also switching up the sub-locales very nicely indeed. Over a stone bridge we go and up into a wooden building. Through an outer gate, down a ravine into caves and even a spot of swimming. Beautiful and all (relatively) seamless. Environments don’t look at all out of place compared to any other Castlevania.
Liking that the zombies take 3 rather than 10+ hits to fell. The platforming also looks better than initially expected. The jury may still be out, but there are gradients, bridges, boxes, stairways, ducking, grappling, and the swimming is a pleasant surprise. Fingers crossed there is much more besides, given this run seems to be a tutorial stage.
I'm not especially keen though on all these cut-scenes and prompts though (did Dave reveal if they were skippable?). I understand they’re helping present more information and enriching the story for the player, but I mean, zooming in when a zombie pops out of the ground? That’s quite a spectacle. Similarly with the barrel part: we know we’re going to have to destroy those barrels, and we can guess what the hearts do. Is the target audience going to struggle with these basics? You've got a clutter of near-redundant messages like: 'You just earned some experience!', 'Press R to use' (incidentally also doesn’t seem very appropriate when you come upon a dead soldier?).
Still, it's the way it's done these days . . .
It also appears they're still using that silvery glow on objects and bodies making platforms and secrets (and alternate routes probably) too easy to identify. I think that may take away a bit of the challenge. Maybe that can be turned off though.
Looking good though, and looking forward to the next two parts.