So, there’s a new Castlevania game coming out in 2010. It’s called Lords of Shadow… it’s been in development for quite some time, having had a trailer shown in 2008 without any association with the Castlevania franchise. From the looks of the trailer, the game looks really, really good and promises to be a true successor to the Castlevania games of old.
Now what does this have to do with Castlevania Judgment?
Well, Judgment was released in 2008 and as mentioned, Lords of Shadow was originally presented via a quick trailer at a game show without the Castlevania name. The general belief is that Konami didn’t want the new game – which is essentially a reboot of the franchise – to upstage Judgment, which was the newest Castlevania offering on console systems (not counting the newest DS release, Order of Ecclessia). There’s probably a good reason for that… because if it had, people would skip over Judgment and not fall into the trap of believing this to be a good game.
The general premise of Judgment is a huge departure from the rest of the series – rather than a 3D action game or another 2D Metroidvania, this incarnation on the Wii is a one-on-one fighting game that pits various heroes and villains of various Castlevania games against each other. In essence, it’s a Castlevania All-Stars game and it seems like an interesting concept. However, the execution is gravely flawed.
STORY: From what I gather, a man named Aeon sees the time continuity threatened and summons various vampire killers from different time periods to collect pieces to fix the time stream or something… I don’t know, the whole thing seems really convoluted and disjointed, and it doesn’t really fit with the whole theme of the series… but hey, they put Castlevania in the future… and made it look nothing like the future. Now see Castlevania In Time! Because apparently Castlevania In Space wasn’t quite the right ingredient for such a bold direction. 3/10
GRAPHICS: The character models look fine, the various environments are adequate, the menus are fairly nice-looking, and… and… oh fine, I’ll get to the point – I HATE THESE CHARACTER DESIGNS. I hate them. Hate them. Hate them. Hate them. Hate every single little thing about them. These people look less like a cast of Castlevania legends and more like a cast from some cheesy Japanese hentai game, but without any of the “qualities” that such a cast would possess. I’m trying to find the right (clean) words to describe these designs, but I really can’t. Only a couple characters seem really tolerable, but the rest seem like… I just hate these designs. Why can’t we stick with what works? Is it really that hard to do? *sigh* Other than that, the various battle arenas look decent and gothic enough and the game has an overall nice presentation, with somewhat easy to navigate menus. No real complaints in those regards, but the character models? Forget it… just say no. 5/10
SOUND: Castlevania has been known for its excellent soundtracks and this game is no exception, possessing fairly good remixes of classic tunes along with a couple new ones. Each character has their own signature theme and they all sound great for the most part. The voice acting is rather poor, but nothing truly memorable or even irritating. Sound effects are pretty standard and also nothing special. 6/10
GAMEPLAY: There are several means of control in the game – Gamecube controller, Classic Controller, or Wii Remote/Chuk combo. You can choose from a number of controller schemes per set-up, but they don’t really function as well as you would like. For the most part, I just stick with the Classic Controller set-up (because without this feature, I wouldn’t even have bothered picking this game up despite bearing the Castlevania name), although I did try the Wii Remote/Nunchuk scheme. In either case, I don’t think it makes much of a difference other than your wrists’ level of activity.
Now the fighting engine itself is somewhat of a mixed bag. You have a series of special moves and a super move of sorts, you can use sub-weapons, and other things, but it’s just unnecessary fluff for what’s essentially a waggle game. I think they were trying to go for a Smash Bros. version of a traditionalist fighting system, and while it works okay for the most part, it just falls flat. In regards to the Wii Remote/Nunchuk set-up, you’re really just waggling your wrist around to perform a quick combo, occasionally pressing another button or two to perform special attacks. On the Classic Controller, you’re more inclined to learn some of the special moves, which are usually easy to pull off. As for the fighting itself, it’s basically a free-roaming arena, meaning you can move in all eight directions as opposed to being restricted to a 2D plain. It makes for interesting combat, but the system isn’t fleshed out enough to make it anything worthwhile. At best, it’s strictly an average experience and outdone by other games in the genre.
There are a variety of modes, including your usual Arcade, Versus, and Survival modes. You have a STORY mode which tells the story of Judgment, and then there’s the Castle mode, which is basically a Challenge mode of sorts where you can win various bonus material and is easily the most fun gamemode of the bunch by a wide margin.
As a side note, why are some of the “super” moves an excuse for showing off really long, really tedious cinema sequences? I could hardly tolerate this in Final Fantasy, I absolute LOATHE this in my fighting games. All in all… not terribly good. 5/10
CHALLENGE: As usual, you have your multiple difficulty settings to set to your own tastes. For the most part, I personal think the AI is fairly balanced and not too overwhelming, although some opponents may resort to some dirty tactics every so often to get the upper hand. Then again, the same argument can be made for a lot of fighting games. 7/10
REPLAY VALUE: In spite of the flimsy combat system and overall design of the game, the Castle mode and the treasures contained therein is worth alone to give this game some try. And in all honesty, this is the only mode I ever really touch these days. However, if that doesn’t suit your gaming needs, then I don’t know what else to tell you. 7/10
OVERALL: Somewhere along the line, the idea of a Castlevania-related fighting game was probably dreamt about in the minds of a select few. Unfortunately, those dreams have been answered with an abomination. And to tell you the truth, I like the concept because it’s something different, but I’m not too crazy about the execution because it seems like there’s no direction in what they wanted. While the game isn’t as bad as I feared, I can’t really recommend this game to anybody… at all. Castlevania fans will gag at the character redesigns, fighting fans will gag at the inconsistent and ultimately flimsy game mechanics, and Wii owners will gag at the fact that another developer has decided to be release more lazy-driven software to their console. Nonetheless, if you’re willing to give this game a try despite its flaws, I highly suggest renting it first before forking out the cash. But if you have a Wii and need your Castlevania fix, then the downloadable Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth is a better choice. 4/10
dtm666 