3000th Duel (Nintendo Switch) Review

A genre that has always excited me is metroidvania, a type of game that has seen a massive flood of titles that fit the mold but can vary in quality greatly. For the most part, the metroidvania titles I come across are stellar, aside from maybe a few glaring problems or a personal taste issue. Upon startup, I thought 3000th Duel was going to fall into the bin of less than average metroidvanias and in a lot of ways it sits on the lower end of the spectrum but there is a precision to the mechanics that I found engaging enough to finish the game, reach the level cap of 99, max out a few weapons upgrades, and hit every tile on the map. For their first game, NEOPOPCORN has released a title that shows a ton of promise but it’s certainly not an experience for everyone. 

At the outset of this dark fantasy adventure, the player is shown some mysterious clips that allude to events in the hero’s past. These are flashes that even after finishing the game are hard to put together. The general gist is that a voice is asking the hero to forget their past and keep pushing forward which is good enough for a game. From here, 3000th Duel establishes itself with a few basic mechanics that any Castlevania fan will find familiar, especially those that have played something like Aria of Sorrow on the GBA. Combat at the beginning boils down to a lot of jumping and slashing, building up a meter for a satisfying mortal blow, and throwing an Occult spell every now and again. It’s basic stuff but it all feels surprisingly tight and only gets better from there.  

I love being able to just kiss the ground after a jump slash to then go into even more jump slashes. It’s a rhythm that can make some boss battles feel fantastic to pull off and the early clashes in 3000th Duel put me into a zen state which is something I connected to how I play most of the Castlevania games. What really sold me on seeing 3000th Duel to the end is the dash mechanic and how that greatly increases the speed and ferocity of encounters. The dash is a simple jump forward or backward and is tied to a stamina meter. Stamina freezes when attacking but recovers pretty quickly otherwise. As the player levels up, points can be put into their Activity stat which allows for more dashes. Now, pair this with an ability that allows one to dash through enemies, even damage them, and the dash becomes the ultimate tool in combat. 

Mitigating damage is crucial in 3000th Duel because enemies hit hard, much like games in the Dark Souls franchise. Now, 3000th Duel has more in common with Castlevania than anything else but the way one levels up is super similar to Bloodborne and upon death an orb of Karma (the game’s currency for leveling, buying items, and upgrading gear) is left behind, draining that resource to zero. Breaking the orb upon returning to that area gets those Karma points back but be warned that the orb can fight back and make boss fights a little tricky when trying to shatter it. 

Of course, with soulslike inspiration comes tough bosses and some of the ones found in 3000th Duel can be just as much of a process as they are in a soulslike. These range from giant skeletal beasts to old tired knights and beyond. These battles are the highlight of the game and I’m surprised there is not an unlockable boss rush mode upon completion or something. My main approach to these monsters was to put my skill points in defense boosts and make my dash as good as it can be. I did later learn that skill points are limited to what’s found in chests and gained by leveling to 99 so if I were to play this one again I would be more careful about the skills I select. 

At its best, 3000th Duel is this fantastic dance of blows. Enemies are all well-telegraphed, making it easier to know when to dash into or away from an attack. By the end of the game, I was darting all around the map, taking little to no damage because I was paying attention to how the monsters moved. One fight in particular against the Dancer in Old Castle (the translation isn’t great by the way, more on that later) was filled with nail-biting moments. This fight not only tested my dashing but also forced me into knowing the difference between high and low attacks. At the climax of our duel, I walked away with a sliver of health and a feeling of immense triumph mixed with an eagerness to face another worthy adversary. 

Even though the bosses can be tough, a little grinding helped me break through when things felt harder than I would like. I also experimented a lot with my equipment loadout of which the hero can equip two weapons, two Occult spells, and two accessories that can drastically alter stats or boost the likelihood of finding more items. The weapons and spells can be swapped on the fly, so I usually carried an ice weapon and a fire weapon because each creature pretty much falls into one of the four elements, usually indicated by their colors. 

Even basic enemy encounters felt considered and interesting. These encounters are sometimes placed in such a way that plays with where the player is looking. For example, one hallway has a bright blue ghost flying around which draws attention from the green trap on the floor. This approach is subtle and made the enemies feel important to the traversal of the labyrinthine map. Much of the level design is focused on linear paths between zones that crisscross into themselves with shortcuts that can be opened but those mazes are held back mostly by their overall layout and how the game’s map works. There are teleporting spots but I wish one could teleport to save statues instead, which are far more frequent. Towards the end, I made sure to have plenty of the Merchant’s Return Stone to warp back to the shop and hit up the nearby portal to bounce to another area. Navigation can be confusing overall but this helped with the game’s final acts.  

Despite my genuine enjoyment of the game’s precise, well-considered gameplay mechanics the presentation leaves more to be desired. Monsters and NPCs have a pretty generic look about them, especially the goblins and skeletons. Most of the environments, while different in color, do tend to be just basic metroidvania mazes. The graphics as a whole just lack the cohesiveness and punch to tie it all together. Although, I do have to give the team props for the game maintaining good performance throughout on Nintendo Switch. There are some hiccups occasionally like when opening the map but for the most part I had a great playing experience on the Switch both in handheld and while docked. 

Speaking of the map, this one is not great. There’s no zoom feature and the doors are hard to see, so I spent a ton of time in the late game just running into dead ends or in an area I didn’t expect to go. There are even walls that are not marked, which makes it frustrating when trying to complete the map. Doing that takes a ton of patience too. There are some areas that can only be completed after unlocking the 8-way dash, which means going to an area and just jumping straight up, for no reason other than to touch the map tile. I wish the map detection was more liberal because getting the tile to pop is sometimes less about being in the general area and more about being at the extremes of the box. This means I had to drop into spikes or retrek areas to finish my map but I did it for the huge attack boost I could get off of a specific accessory. 

Artistically, there’s a lot of improvements that could be made and the map is in desperate need of a rehaul but arguably the biggest failure in the presentation is the game’s music. These songs are short loops and because of the expansive, mostly linear map, that means hearing the same loops for hours. This isn’t too much of a downer in games where the loops are a few minutes long and complex like the classic tunes of Castlevania or the hauntingly beautiful tracks in Hollow Knight or even the EDM bumps in The Mummy Demastered but in 3000th Duel the songs are short and the start of another loop is extremely noticeable. There are tracks here that have a good foundation, one of them definitely sounds like something I heard in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and another track reminds me of the Hollow Bastion theme in Kingdom Hearts, yet the way they’re mixed is distracting. 

When it comes to the story, I’m not sure exactly what’s going on. Usually in an area after a boss fight, there will be little notes that can be picked up that detail out some of their stories but there weren’t any that I found interesting. I did come to appreciate the game’s blacksmith and shopkeeper and I think that the little animal people are cute as hell but the stories surrounding them are not fleshed out enough to be appealing. There’s a fascinating theme coursing throughout the overarching narrative that made for a cool revelation at the end of the game but even that moment left me asking questions and trying to fill in the blanks and not having a lot to fill them with. It also doesn’t help that the translation in English, presumably from Korean which is where the devs at NEOPOPCORN seem to be based, could use some work. It looks like the game is playable in more than ten languages (it is entirely text-based aside from a few vocalizations) and more have been added in patches which is always awesome to see. Honestly, I think if NEOPOPCORN could find someone to just alter some of their texts and names it would help elevate the game as a whole. 

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like there’s much to be found after the game’s finished aside from achievements and trying different character builds. Again, I would love to see a boss rush but based on a couple of really simple interviews I’ve found there does seem to be interest in making DLC and mechanics have been tweaked here and there in the patches. If anything, it looks like NEOPOPCORN is paying attention to the feedback being given and making updates with that in mind. 

For most players, 3000th Duel is a fine enough metroidvania for those that like their games on the rustic side. I think that the combat can be really thrilling at times but there are areas that had me groaning. That said, I’m glad I pushed through to the end and I really hope that NEOPOPCORN takes what they’ve learned here for a new project, maybe even a more refined sequel. 

In conclusion, 3000th Duel is unassuming in a lot of areas but underneath the rust is a sharp blade. 

Learn more about 3000th Duel on the official Nintendo Switch listing or the Steam Store page, which does have a forum for those seeking a community for discussion. A digital copy for Nintendo Switch was provided for the purpose of review. Screenshots were captured using the native capabilities of the Switch.