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[mosaic]

Wow. A boring Castlevania game.

Never thought I'd live to see such a thing get made.

Blew through this game in under 6 hours of game time, but it felt like what 40+ hours of reading a car's owner's manual would feel like.

Loved the sharp graphics, gothic castle look, and cinema scenes. Music kicked ass. The boss battles were fun, but too few and too far between. Haven't seen such a sparse selection of "regular" enemies since the original Castlevania on the NES...

Was surprised at how few secret rooms there were. The sub-weapons were mostly worthless. The relic/orb augment to the sub-weapons was mildly useful... but nowhere near as cool as the souls from Aria of Sorrow GBA.

The backtracking felt forced... painful... tedious.... the game shows you exactly what to do, so you know how long it's going to take, but there's no payoff for any of it. I will say this much--the fact that the game is 3D isn't what's wrong with it. Konami should have gutted the puzzles and just made this a straight up action romp. Hell, it's bad when you keep saying "thank god, a boss!" every 30 minutes give or take.

I guess I'm glad to have played it, just to find out the origin of the Belmont lineage and the creation of the famous whip...

But I finally just caught up and played through Aria of Sorrow GBA last week, and THAT was a MUCH better game.

 

[Cmdr. Solrak]

But I finally just caught up and played through Aria of Sorrow GBA last week, and THAT was a MUCH better game.

I concur.

 

[mosaic]

I forgot to mention the one drawback to Aria of Sorrow -- the only one really -- it throws a potential wrench into the whole Castlevania continuity.

*spoiler warning*

Lament of Innocence tells the origin of the Belmont clan and the King of Vampires, and at least explains why the same battle keeps recurring every few generations or so...

Spoiler

But in Aria of Sorrow, Soma Cruz is both the "hero" and the reincarnation of Mathias (aka King of Vampires). He also defeats Julius Belmont in the process, and Julius lets him live to go face Chaos -- which is apparently the ultimate evil. The ending is a completely happy one. Soma lives, his girly friend remains safe, and Julius sods off someplace. But, Soma is still the reincarnation of Mathias, which means somehow Mathias' soul atoned for its sins... I guess.

Basically, the way Aria's plot went, Konami didn't leave much room for the Vampire / Belmont fued to exist beyond 2053 (or whenever the game took place). So... an 11th century beginning and a 21st century end. I guess that's not so bad. A thousand years makes the Hatfield-McCoy fued seem like chickenfeed.