Maldita Castilla - New Old School Retro style Freeware Game.

Maldita Castilla 

New, Old School, Retro Feeling Awesomeness in Video Game form, and best of all Free!

Maldita Castilla - Title Screen

This is the work of some pretty cool guys over at:

http://www.locomalito.com/

Locomalito Games

From looking over their website and doing some reading, It seems these guys have a great ethos and sound, admirable philosophy on what they do and why they do it, which in turn gives the Games they produce that extra bit of soul, sometimes lost in commercial developers.
 

They have a number of games so head over and check them all out, But this post will focus on just one of the games, and that game is Maldita Castilla:

Platforms: Microsoft Windows, GNU / Linux, Ouya

Gameplay:

The Game plays pretty much exactly like Ghouls 'n' Ghosts or Ghosts 'n' Goblins, so has nice simple responsive controls and a familiar gameplay mechanic, pretty much pick up and play 2 buttons, "jump" and "fire" and the direction buttons, up, down, left, right. Kill the ghoulies, beat the bosses and collect power ups and different weapons, there's also other items such as coins, crowns and general "loot", either dropped by enemies or from chests or "secrets", the whole point is to obviously beat the game with the highest score possible, there is also a time limit so keep an eye on that. There is a variety of enemies also which change and increase in difficulty as you progress.

Graphics:

Graphics are done purposefully in the style of late 80's arcade games in fact not only the graphics but the whole game is in that style, and as far as I am concerned that is a good thing. The graphics have been created pixel by pixel to give an authentic old school look, which works. The sprites look good and animations are all smooth and flow well nothing looks out of place or tacked on. Also they graphics scale well, attention has also been taken to give the game an old school look and feel with optional scanlines and "old n used" monitor look, although I didn't see any way to configure this on the Linux version(off by default).

Sound: 

Sound for the game for me is excellent, It's been created via emulated yamaha YM2203 sound chip, which was used in many late 80's / early 90's arcade games. This gives a really nice authentic feel and sound..erm to the sound. Me Likey.

Storyline:

The game has a storyline and there's a text and graphic intro so I'll let you be the judge of that. The setting for the game is old Spanish / European medievaly legend / history. Which in itself is fairly bloody and very fitting with the graphics and gameplay.

My Youtube Video on the Developer and Game and where I found out about this little gem of nostalgic awesomeness:

Conclusion

My Verdict, in case you have not already guessed, CHECK IT OUT! NOW! GO DO IT! DOOO EEEET!