Thank you Lillymo Games for providing us with a review code!

Saint Slayer: Spear of Sacrilege takes place in 1698 where a corrupt priest is stealing Catholic relics throughout the Holy Roman Empire. Your character is a former soldier, now farmer, named Rudiger. After seeing his village pillaged by Father Pacer, Rudiger takes matters into his own hands to stop him.

There are twenty-one levels in Saint Slayer: Spear of Sacrilege, and after defeating Father Pacer in the first level, Rudiger will obtain the spear that supposedly pierced Jesus’ side after His crucifixion. Fans of the classic Castleviania will immediately recognize the similar art style and gameplay mechanics.

For those not familiar with Castlevania games, Saint Slayer: Spear of Sacrilege plays primarily as a platformer. There’s a good amount of variety between the levels, bosses, and enemies. Some of the levels have you traveling on moving platforms like a boat or carriage while dodging incoming monsters, but most have you moving left to right attacking various flying and undead foes along the way.

Most of the stages have a shop where you can purchase hints to locate the treasures hidden in each of the levels. You can also buy additional lives, healing items and other power-ups. Though they don’t do much you can buy a dog and a monster to follow you around later in the game.

There are four difficulty levels to choose from: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Classic. The Easy mode has the most number of starting lives (7), health points (10), and, the most helpful, no knockback from damage. Outside of this mode, most of your deaths will be from knockback! Normal mode starts you off with six lives and eight health points (HP). Hard mode has more enemies, five lives and seven HP. Classic mode has the most enemies, three lives, and six HP. In this mode there are no shops or the option to revive after losing all of your lives. In the other modes you can buy yourself back into the game if you have enough coins. In the event that you run out of lives and the ability to revive you will be shown a password that will let you start the game from that stage and difficulty level. I found a password code "DSP" that started me off at the easiest difficulty and ninety-nine lives. I beat the game with more than half of the lives left in less than five hours.

Saint Slayer: Spear of Sacrilege is pretty gory with bodies of tortured townsfolk lying on the ground or in prison stocks. Occasionally, you’ll be able to rescue a live hostage, or you can kill them by accident or on purpose if you choose to. This game is pretty bloody with body parts rotting on the ground and blood everywhere. The 8-bit graphics spare the gory details, but the message is loud and clear.

Many of the enemies are undead and quite a few of them will use magic against Rudiger. Catholicism isn’t shown in the best light as the main enemy is a corrupt and power-hungry priest. If you don’t mind these moral issues, there’s a lot of fun to be had in Saint Slayer: Spear of Sacrilege.

The retro looking visuals and chiptune music bring back a lot of nostalgia. The gameplay is fun and fans of the NES era Castlevania games should definitely consider adding Saint Slayer: Spear of Sacrilege to their Steam wishlist. There’s plenty of replayability with the multiple difficulties and co-cop mode. It runs great on the Steam Deck too!