The storyline of Serenade of Chaos follows the events of the Game Boy installments of Castlevania. Christopher Belmont has defeated Dracula twice, with his son Soleiyu's life at stake the second time. However, after Dracula's defeat, Soleiyu fled his home into the wilderness. Soon enough, Dracula's castle re-emerges, and Christopher's advanced age causes him to lose when he goes inside to end the dark lord. In response, several different heroes, from vampire hunters to errant mages, pledge to enter and defeat Dracula in Christopher's place. Much like all the Castlevania games, the story boils down to "Dracula is back, go kill him." There's not much behind it, but there doesn't need to be.

Serenade of Chaos has some of the best graphics and sound in any rogue-like we've played. The game supports two graphics modes: Console, which is an ASCII tileset, and Graphics, which uses tiles that would not look out of place in a real Castlevania game. The work on the character, enemy, and environmental sprites is stunning, and the game incorporates some graphical tricks not seen in other rogue-likes, such as layers (to give the illusion of height) and special effects (fog, rain, etc). Note that this is only truly impressive in Graphic mode. The sound effects are approximations of Castlevania sounds, and many classic Castlevania songs are on the soundtrack in MIDI format.

As with all rogue-likes, you choose your basic statistics at the start. Unlike most other rogue-likes, however, the differences between each class are extremely wide. There are six classes to choose from, and each appeals to a different play style. Vampire Killer is the classic Castlevania mode, as you must pick up abilities and use extremely powerful mystic weapons. Darkness Renegade is similar to Symphony of the Night, with more of a focus between collecting gear and using your dark powers. Vanquisher Wizard plays like a mage in any other game, and the versatility of his spells makes him more self-sufficient than most characters, albeit at the cost of less melee survivability. Soul Master is much like the handheld Aria/Dawn of Sorrow titles, as the player character summons monsters to do their bidding. Manbeast plays like a monk in other rogue-likes, and has an emphasis on unarmed combat and beastial transformations. Finally, the Knight is the warrior class of the game, and excels at surviving while being unable to do much in the way of spell-casting.

Character attributes falls into several simple categories. Each determines the players effectiveness in a certain area, and start off at defaults according to the character at the start of the game. Sample attributes include Invokation, which determines the player's effectiveness with spells; Wealth, which determines how often gold drops and how much you get on average; and Resistance, the attribute that keeps you alive when you get smacked around by a skeleton or warg. There's also the standard Hit and Heart meters, which go up with every level and are the only attributes that you really pay attention to most of the time.

Those used to playing any rogue-like will instantly feel at home in Serenade of Chaos. It's played from a top-down perspective, takes place over turns, and has many of the things you would expect from a rogue-like. There's levels, several different ways to attack (throwing, spellcasting, firing, and straight attacking), and different interactions with the environment. However, it's been greatly simplified, and the control list is far, far smaller than your average rogue-like. You can't move diagonally (although you can attack diagonally) and your inventory is both limited in size and interaction. You can only drop, throw, use, or equip items. Nothing else. This makes Serenade of Chaos a much more action-oriented game than its peers, and falls in line with what you would expect out of a Castlevania game. Player tactics are far more important than knowing hotkeys.

Many of the elements from the Castlevania series make an appearance here. Platforming is present, as players must jump across some gaps if they want to progress and jumping allows them to escape from monsters faster. Shopkeepers wander around, much like those encountered in Vampire Killer, Simon's Quest, or any game after Symphony of the Night. Secondary weapons such as the dagger, axe, holy water, and such are available for the Vampire Killer to use. The town becomes infested with zombies and bats at night, like Simon's Quest. Enemies are, quite obviously, from the main games, and classics such as Monkey Skeletons, Mermen, and Zombies will be encountered quite a lot. This is a game by Castlevania fans for Castlevania fans.

Serenade of Chaos is hard. This shouldn't come as a surprise, as it's both a Castlevania game and a rogue-like. However, you may find yourself getting frustrated after dying on the first few levels countless times. Thankfully, like any rogue-like, there's a scoring system in place, and you do get better as you play, especially since the game is based more on skill than luck. The only real disappointment we have is that there is no elements outside of the scoring to encourage you to play more. This is enough for most players, but DoomRL has spoiled us rotten with its incredibly in-depth unlocking system. We hope in future updates that something like an awards system, challenges, or unlockable classes show up in Serenade of Chaos.

Rogue-likes seem to be the lifeblood of the independent gaming scene, and for good reason. They provide countless hours of replayable entertainment, and most of the time they are completely free. Serenade may be outside of the box with its focus on action, but it's swiftly become one of our favorite rogue-likes to date. You can get CastlevaniaRL: Serenade of Chaos from the official site. The full version requires the Java Run-time Environment, while the executable version does not but can't save sessions.