Introduction
This mod overhauls the balance of the game, but the prominent feature are the many edited stage layouts that allow for a new experience regarding the exploration of the castle.
The new layouts come with new ways to access areas and to use skills to navigate through zones faster by using Power of Wolf (e.g. Underground Caverns), without having to rely on Wing Smash (which can only be gained later in the game).

Exploration
The new layouts heavily rely on narrow corridors or entrances that require Alucard to use skills like Soul of Wolf and Form of Mist.
Progression is also changed, which means that the order with which areas are explored will be different compared to the original game.
There are also shortcuts that allow Alucard to get to some rooms in more than one way, allowing some flexibility in how to progress through the game, even if the overall experience did feel a bit more linear compared to the original game.

Presentation
The mod uses the Quality Hack, by paul_met, to remove the black borders at the bottom and top of the screen (and other minor changes).
The layout of the stages is also edited by using map tiles to draw new walls, corridors and other things, but sometimes the rooms look a bit awkward due how the tiles are used. (The stages may not look smooth and a bit jank)
On top of that, sometimes the backgrounds do not load properly when entering some areas in a certain way (e.g. the moon in Clock Tower, the water in Underground Caverns using wolf shortcuts)
Items have new descriptions that inform the player of the elemental attribute of the weapon, but there are typos here and there.
For some reason, some headgear pieces can be in the armor list and viceversa, which is not intended behavior.

The in-game map is not updated with the new layout changes, so checking it will be misleading most of the time.

Game balance
All stats are inflated, which means that everything in the mod will have 3 to 4-digit stats.
This makes spells less strong, so bosses don't explode instantly after a single Tetra Spirit, but it can make some other enemies very, very tanky, which could make some fights boring, even if taking advantage of elemental weaknesses (e.g. Richter fight).
Some bosses don't flinch anymore when attacked, which makes for a greater experience (e.g. Karasuman fight)
Some boss rooms have new layouts which are supposed to change the flow of the fight, although most of the time, it really doesn't matter. (e.g. Doppleganger10 can still be stunlocked, same for Richter and Succubus can be taken care of with Tetra Spirit spam)
However, Alucard does take a considerable amount of damage from every enemy in the game, which makes things more spicy.
There are some new weapons with some nice special effects, which make for some interesting combinations to experiment with.
Shield spells can be used at any time, however most of them require a lot of MP and damage is nerfed to the ground (e.g. Medusa and Iron Shield). The stat buffs are minimal considered stat inflation.
Overall, balancing is decent, besides the idea of locking subweapon usage behind a cloak.

Playtime
around 3 hours
The inverted castle segment is not available, so only the first castle can be played in this mod (unless Richter skip glitch is being used).

Rating

7.5/10