And those dogs and cats are looking to share an apartment! It’s all over!

Retro titles developed in 2026 have a certain air about them, but it takes a rarified moment of clarity to really process what that could be or what it could mean. For example, you will end up with titles that are loving, honest tributes to games and platforms of the past, such as Goodboy Galaxy with its tight design and robust exploration. On the other hand, you can end up with unfortunate reminders that pixel art doesn’t always guarantee gold. But, for the most part, you get developers who really want to show what could be done when there are literal decades of documented experience around to influence a modern take on an old machine. With Saint Slayer: Spear of Sacrilege, this isn’t what the NES could have created; rather, it’s what Lillymo Games would have liked to see, regardless of possibility.

If you read the title and thought “huh, I don’t care for that concept at all,” you can bail right now and enjoy something that’s distinctly more Christian friendly, like listening to Thousand Foot Crutch or watching The Prince of Egypt. Our main character is Rutiger, a now retired soldier who would love to spend the rest of his days not fighting corruption and evil. Naturally, some jerk priest is like “Hey, what if I were evil and corrupt?” and now Rutiger has to go kick a lot of ass. He started with a knife, because “murder every evil thing between here and Heaven” doesn’t need additional planning. But after he scares Father Pacer off, Rutiger ends up with the Spear of Longinus, because why not. Evil beware; Rudiger has one of the most powerful holy relics ever, and he is pissed he can’t retire in peace.

Saint Slayer is a pretty straightforward 2D sidescroller with some mild Castlevania gameplay elements and a metric ton of Castlevania design influence. Rutiger will deal with enemies on the ground, in the air and popping out of the water throughout the multiple levels on his way to beat the holy hell out of Father Pacer. There’s some level backtracking to access different areas, but it’s mostly linear as you have an upward/forward trajectory. You can collect coins and money for points, and a jeweled currency to purchase a few goodies at the traveling merchant. Rutiger has a standard attack that lets him go left, right and down (not up, frustratingly) and can throw his spear at the cost of a rosary (MP). The spear’s throw can be modified through pickups that add elements, like multispear or explosive. The spear can also stick into some surfaces to be a platform.

Give it up, dinner crab! I have the high ground!

If you were a fan of the really punishing style of platformer where the Nintendo Entertainment System made its mark, then you’re in for a real treat with Saint Slayer. The standard difficulty has all the obstacles you need to be aware of: enemy knockback, limited health, and really few and far between restart points. Falling into an abyss is an instant death, though there is a chance to find a halo that will save you exactly one time. Not just in the stage: it seemed that the halo was a  “once per run” sort of save, so accidentally jumping into the pot of soup in the kitchen level would negate you from having a backup plan in the sewers or up on the parapet. You can find one occasionally in pickups, but you may just need to buy one from the merchant.

Even if you’re like me and you tune down to easy so you have more health and no knockback, the game is still relentless in enemy waves and massive time investment between stages. Certain areas, such as the gondola, have so many plates spinning at once that you simply get overwhelmed trying to allocate for it all. You need to keep hitting the movement wheel to advance forward, but you also need to not get killed by divebombing birds, projectile-spitting gargoyles, and fending off tiny demons who get dropped and will attempt to make the gondola go backwards. If you accidentally die or jump off the side, restart the whole thing from the beginning with exactly one floor chicken to replenish a couple of health bars in the middle of the siege. It’s incredibly brutal even with the game technically tilted in your favor.

This wizard doesn’t understand I have a spear, and he has a face that’s weak against being stabbed.

Oddly, the boss fights seem to be unbalanced and not properly scaled as you move forward. You start with a fairly straightforward hack and dodge, and then your next boss fight is a “use environmental elements to succeed,” which is fairly trying in getting down the timing and such. But then, after a pretty trying sewer encounter that asks you to dodge both projectiles, striking appendages and not fall into the water, it feels like the difficulty begins slipping away. The librarian fight, which is one of the last before the final boss, was so simple I honestly was bracing for a second stage or a different boss that never came. The final battle does have a bit of an additional twist, but, once you understand the boss’ pattern, it becomes easier than anything beforehand. Bosses shouldn’t make you break controllers, but they should be a good culmination of effort.

The controls of Saint Slayer also contribute to the difficulty, though that seems intentional to match the throwback design. Jumps have no midair control, so plan out what you’re doing ahead of time to the best of your ability. Enemy hitboxes are small and tight, and the spear itself has a pointed strike area, so lining up aerial attacks can be challenging (again, why the hell can’t I attack upwards if I can do the Zelda downward bounce/strike?). There are foes who have an unknown amount of HP to be defeated, and you’ll need to expend multiple spears to deal with them if you don’t have the piercing or explosive spear equipped. Plus, there are split second decisions that you can’t always anticipate, like the ground suddenly giving out from under you, so blind players will just need to accept they’re going to die, possibly a lot.

There are elements that I really enjoyed about Saint Slayer. For example, there’s this morality situation that you might not always be aware that you’re participating in. Rutiger is here for this battle between good and evil, but plenty of errant villagers from 17th century Europe are not pleased, and just want to get out of here. You can free prisoners, advise commoners to safety and cut down soon-to-be-executed folk, and that gives you points and also instantly saves the game, an ominous sign that these decisions matter. Inversely, if you kill these innocents (even accidentally), you might get some coin or a pickup and, again, the game instantly saves. In general, I’m trying to be a good dude, but I also appreciate that a background mechanic is keeping a tally for how well I’m actually practicing what I preach.

Man, you can absolutely just jump over him, don’t sound so moral.

Plus, there are visceral interactions within the game that are so minute but so much fun to see. Early on, you’ll encounter rotten food, which not only depletes your HP but also causes Rutiger to have a prolonged vomiting animation, which is both hilariously gross in 8 and leaves you vulnerable to attacks. Killing certain enemies releases different guts and organs, letting you recreate the famous eyeball stepping scene from Kill Bill Vol. 2 wherever you go. You can eventually find a dog that may join you on your journey, and dogs tend to each whatever they can find. One of the more messed up moments is finding a room full of remains from the villagers, and Rutiger needs to hack his way through it to get to the exit. Meanwhile, your dog is having the time of his life, and that makes you look at your pet differently.

Which brings me to the tonality of Saint Slayer. It’s really, really hard to tell if this game is trying to be funny or not, which can lead to some confusion about how to feel when different interactions hit. On the one hand, Rutiger sometimes evokes a Leslie Nielsen sort of vibe as a straight man in a world gone mad. Father Pacer acts and sounds like an absolute dick in his interactions. An obese boss rides on a comical donkey named Sebastian, and you’re just supposed to take this in stride. The dead rise and continue to rise even after you kill them, but villagers might accidentally get crushed by traps intended for foes and never get back up. There’s some incredibly dated anti-French jabs at one point, and then some weird misogyny with a scholarly boss that feels like it was just thrown in as an aside. 

I know this takes place in the 17th century, but did you consider…saying nothing?

The visual and audio elements of Saint Slayer are really on point, and I can’t deny that it looks like a phenomenal NES era game. The expressions being conveyed on Rutiger are top notch, and he’s got tons to see throughout his journey through forests, into sewers, inside a library and, finally, to the decadent castle where Father Pacer hides. These are the moments that I really relish about retro modern titles showcasing what can be done with a better understanding of how to make the pixel art work for you and exploring exaggerated shaping or using negative space to craft a more ominous and grander expanse. The gory elements were so well crafted in the pixel medium that they were enjoyable, even if grotesque, because they weren’t over the top.

Lastly, it is a killer chiptune soundtrack, and that cannot be discounted. You’ve gotten this full chested approach to capturing something gothic and adventurous while purposely staying in the lane of the musical elements of the machine. Lillymo Games could have taken notes from Urban Myth Dissolution Center and chose to bring a full soundtrack in, but the chirpy, blocky sounds let you live in that Castlevania 3 sort of life, the closest in the franchise to which I would equate Saint Slayer. The driving music when you’re atop the stagecoach, fighting off encroaching enemies on all sides, is an absolute banger of a moment and gives the rather tried-and-true level design some extra life.

Oh, and I love that your own dead body becomes a prop upon respawn.

While Saint Slayer: Spear of Sacrilege has incentive to replay in order to find treasures and unlocks (such as additional animal companions), the game itself is very brazen and straightforward from the drop. If you don’t jive with the excessive blood and gore with the combined difficulty levels, then it’s not going to get better at all. If you like what you see and enjoy the pseudo-historical setting juxtaposed with some allusions to time travel and possible sci-fi elements (no spoilers), then you’re going to have a good time and will want to revisit to learn as much as you can. It’s very digestible over a day, has some wonderful set dressing, and it can challenge without ruining your day. It’s still not as glorious as Infernax, but it has some real love for the art, and I can appreciate the execution.

Saint Slayer: Spear of Sacrilege is available now on Steam, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A Copy of Saint Slayer: Spear of Sacrilege was provided by the publisher.