Castlevania Judgement
Popularity for the Castlevania series really hit its peak with Symphony of the Night for PS1. It was a hugely popular franchise in the NES/SNES days and SOTN still rates in the top 5 best PSX games of all time. However, since then Castlevania has fallen a bit to the wayside. The 3d games for PS2 were decent, but really didn’t feel like Castlevania, and no one really cared about them either. The GBA and DS games are good follow-ups to SOTN, but since they are portable games, most people don’t care either. The only great game in the series recently is the PSP remake, Dracula X Chronicles.
While Castlevania still holds a place in my heart, it’s hard to dispute that the series popularity has been on the decline for quite a while now. So long in fact that I doubt newer gamers even recognize the title. So with that in mind, it’s interesting that Konami would choose to build a fighting game in that universe for the wii.
The game itself is a simple 3d fighter, there aren’t a whole lot of moves for each character, and there’s really only one standard attack button. There are several special attacks and grabs for each character. It plays sort of like a lot of typical anime fighting games, the Naruto games comes to mind.
As a fun fighter, it fails. It’s just not fleshed out enough, there’s not a whole lot of strategy involved. In true Castlevania fashion you can destroy objects like candlesticks to get sub weapons and hearts. The sub weapons mostly work like they have in the previous games, but the range and attack pattern of each can be tricky to get used to. Hearts are needed to use the sub weapons as well, so if you run out you’ll need to break some more objects to get some more.
The story is your typical series mashup fighter type storyline. All the characters from the different Castlevania era’s are pulled into a time warp and have to defeat several foes to escape.
There are quite a few characters in the game, but you are only able to choose between 2 at first. As you beat the game with those characters you unlock additional characters to run through the story mode with. The story mode itself is short and pretty easy depending on the character you’re using. The play mechanics of some characters can make it tough to play through. Maria comes to mind, her attacks are awkward and can make it difficult to land hits on your opponent.
The character design is also hit or miss. Characters from this game were designed by the artist for the Death Note manga. It makes for some really interesting character designs, but some VERY non-Castlevania looking characters as well. Some characters I wouldn’t even know who they were if the names weren’t there. The character personalities and voice overs are decent; most characters sound good and act like they should. There are a couple exceptions, I hate to harp on here, but Maria is way off.
There’s an adventure type mode as well. Your goal here is to move through the castle room by room. Each room contains a different challenge you have to complete. Sometimes it’s land a certain number of hits in a combo, defeat all enemies, or win using a special move. There are branching paths so at least you have some choice on which missions to do next. Completing certain missions will unlock items you can use to customize your character in other modes. Your health doesn’t restore itself between matches. There are save points after every couple of rooms which will restore your health. If you die on a mission you go back to the previous save point. The castle mode offers a good bit of additional gameplay if you’re looking for more to do. You can also run through it for each character, and learn to use them much better + unlock more items.
There are several other modes as well including local vs. and online. So there’s a fair bit of content in this game. It’s just not worth the time for most players. If you love simple anime based fighters and are interested in the Castlevania universe you will probably enjoy this game. If you’re looking for a great fighting or Castlevania experience, look elsewhere.
