The biggest mistake Mecurysteam made with Castlevania: Lords of Shadow was allowing Konami to brand their half-finished project as a Castlevania game. Without the expectations packaged with such a legendary series, the game could have easily survived on its own and potentially achieved higher regard with the reviewers that continue to shamelessly yearn for another Symphony of the Night¹. Instead, it is viewed as an attempt to reinvigorate an aging series by capitalizing on recent trends in third person action games². Indeed, Lords of Shadow borrowed liberally from its immediate peers only to be received as another Dante’s Inferno: a pretender to God of War‘s gratuitous throne. Yet the meaningless spectacle of the recent God of War III only confirmed the series as caricature of the third-person action game.

So Lords of Shadow has something to prove, as Mercurysteam isn’t in the same fortunate position of coasting on the success of past efforts. Lords of Shadow borrows the right parts of the action games that inspired it, and assembles a remarkable genre blend that can be appreciated on its own merits. The game provides an engaging variation on third-person melee combat requiring the development of player skill over the course of the game. Even the positive reviews that laud the reimagining of such an iconic series do a poor job of conveying what makes this video game such an accomplishment. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow will appear as an attractive also-ran, but it is a game that demands examination to fully appreciate its competency within the genre. And those who are willing to submit to its initial allure will play one of the best releases of 2010.

The “reboot” is a common phrase in the modern media franchise. Inspired by comic books that wiped the slate clean of a decades-old convoluted storyline, it allows creators to start anew and re-establish their bankable characters without having to worry about continuity. Why Castlevania even required a reboot is anyone’s guess; it has been happily chugging along for years re-framing the eternal struggle between the Belmonts and Dracula. While past critics of the series may complain about the overuse of the castle setting, the more astute observer would understand that the castle wasn’t changing – the way the player character interacts with the castle was changing. Contrary to popular opinion, the series is far from stagnant; there has been enough variety in this series over the course of four generations of consoles to show that it was always in a state of flux. The series moved uncomfortably into three dimensions with the N64 version of Castlevania³ and then began a parallel lineage on Nintendo’s portable platforms that continued the design legacy of Sympony of the Night. This included the addition of weapons beyond Vampire Killer, new ways of outfitting the player character, and new combat and magic systems that complemented the Metroid-style upgrade-to-proceed formula.

So when Castlevania: Lords of Shadow was announced and associated with Kojima Productions, the responses ranged from “This game will have beautiful movies” to “will you even be able to play this game?” Once the videos of the game in action started to appear, the predictable refrain of “God of War rip-off” grew to a low rumble right up until the release of the demo, where these condemnations were all but proven in the court of public opinion⁴. At the same time, the early positive reviews claimed Lords of Shadow was a “bold new direction” for the conservative Castlevania, a series that had been retracing its steps in recent years. Yet these assessments did not elaborate on what made it such an achievement for the series. Evidence to support either claim was not present in the demo, and in the end was a poor choice for introducing players to Mecurysteam’s updated vision for the franchise.

The fiction of the Castlevania universe was never especially complex, so to overwrite it is not the catastrophe it would seem. The internal mythology that is constructed is sure to pay homage to the games in the series that came before it, but is founded in a more conservative interpretation of horror fantasy. Not all tall spires and evil forests, it takes a more tempered approach to the medieval Eastern Europe that provides the setting for Lords of Shadow. The mythical creatures presented abandon the caricatures of games past, grounded in an alternate reality inspired by Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. This balanced approach doesn’t convey that Mercurysteam had a strong sense for themes from the previous installments of Castlevania, but this is their world now.

The game takes place in the year 1047. The Earth has been cut off from the Heavens, and the Lords of Shadow reign in the absence of God. It is up to Gabriel Belmont, figurehead for the “Order of Light”, to restore balance to the world. In the process, Gabriel Belmont must also search for an artifact called the God Mask to resurrect his recently deceased wife. Lords of Shadow tries to weave this insufferably ponderous story around the action to justify the player’s need to move forward, but it comes across as too desperate to be taken seriously. Furthermore, the “surprise” ending is overflowing with the same desperation to tie things together that it damages the delicate relationship between player and Mercurysteam’s new vision for the series. This is a video game about stabbing vampires in the chest and wrapping a chain around the necks of werewolves. No one should expect depth of any significance in a story from a video game in this genre, as long as the “video game” part provides motivation enough to continue.

To lend further weight to this tenuous story arc Mercurysteam used celebrities to provide voices for the main characters. When Patrick Stewart and Robert Carlyle were attached to the project, the presumption was that Lords of Shadow was going to be A Big Deal. Nobody mentioned that Jason Isaacs – better known as Lucius Malfoy from the Harry Potter film adaptations – would be playing the part of Satan. Maybe that would give away the unconventional ending, because everyone knows that in Castlevania you fight Dracula at the end. Always⁵. All three actors mean nothing in the context of the game; they simply offer a recognizable voice. Stewart gets bored of his script after the second chapter, having been forced to read the unnecessarily lengthy introductions to each sub-chapter. Carlyle’s voice is too hard for the soft-faced Gabriel Belmont⁶. There is no expression in his plight; only the reading of lines. These inclusions were intended to cultivate credibility with video game culture, but are wasted efforts. I didn’t care that Jason Isaacs was trying to seduce Gabriel Belmont in the Underworld. What I cared about was being able to give Satan the beating I wish I could have at the end of Dante’s Inferno⁷

Lords of Shadow begins at the gates to some rustic village under attack by werewolves. It’s an unremarkable encounter aside from a small flourish at the end where Gabriel must stab a giant warg in the heart with a sharpened log. Gabriel is then forced to ride on a horse with glowing tattoos through a pack of more werewolves, and there is an unsettling feeling that maybe Mercurysteam is operating out of their depth. Or perhaps Kojima, who had never worked with Castlevania before, gave some unnecessary creative direction. The scope of the game’s ambitions could not possibly be gleaned from this tiny skirmish. And yet this sequence was included in the game’s official demo.

And so after this very brief encounter – the quality of which would not be repeated for the rest of the game – the player is properly immersed in a gorgeously crafted world. And it is not all brown and grey; moving from the washed-out tones of a foggy swampland to the bright jungle of Pan’s Temple to the derelict walls of an abbey in the middle of a winter wasteland, the exceptional art direction of Lords of Shadow ensures that it does not fall within the territory of a dismissible reproduction. Mecurysteam has wrought their own dark and mysterious landscape, with a progression of themes accented by Óscar Araujo’s equally majestic score that suitably conveys the journey of the player through this new world.

Nevertheless, there is no Castlevania flair to any of these meticulously crafted landscapes. In the past, the Castlevania series drags out old standbys: the walls of stained glass, the disused cathedral, the clock tower, the evil laboratory. And while elements of these settings are certainly used in Lords of Shadow‘s series of locations, they are assembled in such a way that it could be any dark fantasy setting. The artists at Mercurysteam have put together a world that is internally consistent, and distances itself from the visual references that have become creative crutches for the series. Lords of Shadow is the new Castlevania, despite the belief that this new vision would effuse more influence from its progenitors.

An unfortunate trend among games that have such elaborately designed environments is that they are merely decorative. Very little of the game world is accessible by the player: prescribed pathways are opened by puzzles or brief platforming sections, with open spaces and hallways reserved for combat. The fixed camera is at odds with the game; these manufactured angles iterate the importance of the scenery, and not play. As a result, the platforming in Lords of Shadow is no more than a compulsory distraction in order to return to combat. Taking cues from a combination of the Uncharted and God of War series, particular parts of the environment must be sought out to be jumped on, shimmied along and swung from. And instead of scratch marks or other environmental cues to navigate the terrain, the path forward is paved with glowing ledges and grapple points. Death by falling only provides a modest penalty – like Link in the Legend of Zelda series, a portion of Gabriel’s health bar is taken and he returns to the ledge or grapple point he fell from.

Lords of Shadow awkwardly takes renewed interest in platforming once the Seraph Shoulders are obtained. At this juncture over two thirds of the game has been played through, and the player has resigned themselves to mediocre-to-poor platforming breaks between the more satisfying combat. And these new platforming sections are good: from simple jump/double-jump/swing sequences to “Aperture Magic.” Lords of Shadow may be the latest game to take inspiration from Valve’s Portal, but there is no clumsily integrated tool to be manipulated in such a disparate setting. Rather, these portals are already in the world, and Gabriel must navigate them using the Seraph Shoulders to double-jump and float through a moderately challenging sequence. Apart from calling these spatial anomalies “Aperture Magic”, it is no different than the typical “magic mirror” mazes that were in video games long before Portal.

To call Mercurysteam’s ideas for breaking up the action “puzzles” would be generous, though that is by no means disparaging their contribution to Lords of Shadow. Instead, these are simply further manifestations of what has afflicted the third person action game, where the genre has developed a parallel definition of “puzzle” that has polluted the video game forever. These “puzzles” are useless distractions thrown into the game to extend it, and perhaps alleviate some of the monotony that combat has caused. However, in most cases the designers lack pacing in the flow of their game, and so insert these activities to slow down the action while still maintaining the player’s attention.

“Puzzle” is such a loose term in the case of Lords of Shadow, as what are set up as tests of logic have one obvious solution, or a solution that can be brute forced without much thought. There is an equal amount of lever turning and switch activating, sometimes while under assault. There are switch panels that will do damage if they are selected in the wrong order. There is a game of battle chess⁸. Lords of Shadow is already a game of substantial length, so these activities do more to sidetrack the player than searching for a glowing ledge to leap over a wall. Well, all except one.

The Music Box is a brilliant segment of Lords of Shadow where Gabriel is miniaturized inside a music box and must traverse a series of trap rooms to escape. While the segment was completely ridiculous in the context of the game, it was the setting for one of its most enjoyable environmental challenges. Gabriel must wander around the music box finding sections of sheet music for it to play, each section modifying the behavior of the traps inside the box depending on what order they are played in. The music that plays is a variation on the “Vampire Killer” theme, and the appearance of the box is reminiscent of the clock tower and church organ rooms from the Castlevania maps of old. Fan service, perhaps, but the best kind.

Lords of Shadow is oddly distracting in the way it deliberately holds back in its first few hours, intently focused on showing off its environments through sub-chapters that sometimes amount to little more than walking through a forest. Had the platforming been more elaborate at the start, the coyness surrounding the combat system would have likely gone unnoticed.

Then perhaps two mistakes were made by Mercurysteam. The second is withholding a fully functional combat system until the player has spent four hours with the game. For some players, this will seem like the natural order of things. They start off with a limited selection of abilities, and gain rewards such as magic items or new weapon upgrades. This is a familiar design for the Castlevania series, and others of its exploring and item-hoarding ilk. However, this method of delivery is more appropriate for items auxiliary to the whip-based combat system, which is the centerpiece of Lords of Shadow. Instead, the full complement of abilities for the Combat Cross is frustratingly delivered in pieces over the course of the first nine levels.

The Combat Cross is a redesign of the legendary Vampire Killer: a large metal crucifix where the top extends into a chain whip. Although reference is made to the weapon’s more recognizable name, it is more in-game folklore than new canon. Its construction is still associated with Rinaldo Gandolfi, the creator of the original Vampire Killer established by Lament of Innocence. Initial impressions might classify the Combat Cross as an uninspired recreation of the Blades of Chaos. However, even in the setting of a video game a knife on a chain teaches nothing of swordplay – only that melee attacks are transformed into distance attacks and danger is less immediate for the player. In truth, the Combat Cross is the Blades of Chaos reduced to first principles: a chain whip that behaves as one would expect. The Combat Cross feels agile, yet substantial in issuing light and heavy attacks. It writhes and snaps like the head of an iron snake. It facilitates aerial combat as much as ground combat with a grappling move that resembles Nero from Devil May Cry 4 more than Kratos. It is a satisfying weapon to yield.

The Focus Meter is the first addition to the combat system beyond the basic whip attacks, though it isn’t immediately useful until the Magic system is handed over. The Focus Meter is similar to the combo systems in Devil May Cry and Bayonetta, in that the player is judged on how well they can avoid attacks. Completing successive combos and executing a “perfect block” – blocking at the exact moment of an incoming attack – increases the Focus meter more quickly. Once it is full, each successive hit of an enemy will produce a neutral magic orb, which are in turn used to fuel the Magic system.

The whip is eventually used in conjunction with Light and Shadow Magic to enhance attacks, but these are not offensive spells. Rather, they are more like the whip upgrade systems in Harmony of Dissonance and Lament of Innocence. Equipping Light Magic attacks will sap health from enemies with each hit, while Shadow Magic will increase damage output. All whip combinations can be enhanced with magic, or new combinations specific to each branch of magic can be purchased. The player can switch between Light and Shadow magic on-the-fly using the shoulder buttons of the controller to maintain the flow of combat. Coupled with the Focus meter, the skilled player will theoretically have a steady supply of magic in most fights.

All magic orbs released by enemies are neutral, and can be used to fill the Light or Shadow magic meters by converting them to the desired type. In this manner, the player controls their supply of magic to suit their style of play. The act of collecting the orbs breaks up the action, and is similar to the balance of offense with orb acquisition in Ninja Gaiden.

Unlike Dante’s Inferno, in which the act of “Absolving” or “Punishing” souls determines the type of orb released, orbs in Lords of Shadow are released for consumption no matter the choice of attacks. The player can assign it accordingly without having to endure a clumsy animation or mini-game that stops the flow of combat just because they want to follow a particular upgrade path.

Combat isn’t entirely free from flow-breaking distractions, however. Lords of Shadow is also sure to carry over one-button finishing moves from its contemporaries. Do enough damage to an enemy and they will be weakened, where they can be finished off in a more dramatic fashion. The difference in Lords of Shadow‘s approach to quick time events is that any button can be pressed after waiting for a glowing circle to focus on-screen. To this end, the button pattern is replaced wholesale with the act of waiting, which is at odds with Lords of Shadow‘s well-paced combat.

There are only three available armor upgrades, but instead of simply providing accessories for traversing the game’s environments they are well-integrated into the combat system. They are also spread out in the game, as each item is awarded after a major battle. The player remains in command of their fighting style, as there isn’t suddenly a batch of new monsters that can only be defeated using Gabriel’s latest acquisition. And the Combat Cross remains as the centerpiece.

The available Secondary Weapons are more like the traditional alternate attacks in a Castlevania game, such as daggers or holy water. They are further enhanced by using them with Light and Shadow magic. At first, the secondary weapons only seem useful when a distance attack is required. Though once the Holy Water is obtained, it becomes an essential component for any crowd control strategy to keep groups of enemies at bay so that individuals can be engaged with the whip. When enemy toughness increases in the second half of the game, the secondary weapons become a bridge between whip attacks to ensure that whip combos are not broken and the focus meter is sustained.

Dark Crystals are introduced at the end of the second act as items that serve two purposes: they can power some of the old technology that is encountered (usually part of a puzzle), or they can be broken to summon a demon that will exact a substantial amount of area damage. It is the closest thing to a spell in Lords of Shadow, and a strange addition to Gabriel’s arsenal given its structure around the whip. This spell does not merge with the regular flow of combat, as each use starts a brief cutscene showing the demon’s summoning. The designers likely included this attack to allow an escape hatch for unskilled or struggling players, though four shards must be fused together to make one, and Gabriel can only carry one full crystal at a time. In fact, the limited inventory supply of secondary weapons overall deters player dependency on these items during combat, bringing focus back to the whip.

The currency of Lords of Shadow is experience points gained with each kill, which can be used to purchase new combinations for base whip attacks, or Light and Shadow magic-enhanced ones. The amount of choice here in comparison to Ninja Gaiden, Bayonetta and even God of War is limited, but it makes Gabriel’s overall repertoire more manageable for those that want to learn and make the most of the combat system. Some combinations can be upgraded more than once, and the experience hoarding approach doesn’t work well with this system. When the game indicates “More skills Available” it doesn’t mean they are immediately visible. It just means the upgrade pathway to that skill is unlocked, requiring some mandatory investment of experience points to see what is available. However, due to the limited set of skills, the risk is low for players that worry about optimization of their character build. The Chapters in the game are structured in such a way that they can be revisited upon completion to gather more experience, so it is perfectly reasonable to expect that every skill can be purchased by the end of the game.

When the Magic system is introduced, the player is given a meager supply to work with. Light and Shadow must be used in bursts integrated with regular whip attacks. There is no one skill that bypasses everything without penalty. The player must still block and dodge in equal measure with attacks or they will take damage. Hitting buttons quickly will not work, and arming magic buffs at random will only drain the supply of magic faster. The player is therefore forced to learn the application of each whip attack to maximize the benefit to the Focus meter. This encourages depth in combat strategies so that by the time the magic supply increases in capacity there is no dependency on it, which ultimately creates a more balanced system.

For most players, dodging will be a reflex instead of blocking. This will allow a comfort level to be developed for offensive attacks prior to learning to block properly as the Focus meter becomes more important. Unfortunately, in Lords of Shadow the dodge action was mapped to a button chord – the Left Stick and the Left Trigger.

Maybe there were three mistakes, after all. Mapping the dodge/roll function to a button chord is difficult to perform while under heavy assault, and occasionally mutates into an offensive combination by mistake. This leaves the player open and interrupts the flow of their attacks. While acting like a natural extension of the block (the Left Trigger), it is still awkward compared with the convention established by God of War. Even stranger is the lack of function mapped to the right stick in the game. The dodge button mapping wouldn’t be as noticeable if it wasn’t so essential to any combat strategy.

To accommodate the acquisition of player skill, combat is more forgiving in allowing time to execute combinations, and through natural pauses from the game’s use of the “press any button” quick-time events. This is not a punishing technique-based beat ‘em up like Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden, though the influences of these games are more recognizable in Lords of Shadow than in God of War and its imitators. Dante’s Inferno did not allow for player reaction time. While there are plenty of offensive attacks to choose from in Dante’s Inferno, it was not necessary to learn them to succeed – the player could always fall back to the infinite supply of overpowered Beatrice Cross projectiles. Similarly, the generous magic system in God of War does not explicitly encourage exploration of melee combat, though it is not as obtrusive.

The combat in Lords of Shadow is the centerpiece of the game. It has been balanced between blocks and counters, dodging and offensive strikes. At first, enemies will appear scarce in number to the quick learner. The tempered difficulty curve obliges with stronger enemies in similarly sized groups with greater variation between unblockable and blockable attacks to explore the full depth of available combat strategies, allowing the player to fully grasp the system and appreciate its dynamics.

Of course, players are free to attempt button mashing in Lords of Shadow. It might even work for the first few hours of play, but certainly not for the duration of the game. This approach is a mistake, and a waste of the player’s time – a hard lesson that the game provides early enough so this strategy can be corrected. The player is directed into building combinations, blocks and counters, and to predict enemy movements and “tells”. Successfully landing combinations of attacks will also assist in filling the Focus meter to replenish magic during a fight. Combat in Lords of Shadow encourages active thought, not passive muscle memory, and provides immediate reward for this behavior.

Once the main features of the combat system are earned by the player in Lords of Shadow, the system asserts itself. Over the course of the first four chapters of the game, the player has grown accustomed to relying on the Focus meter and balancing Light and Shadow magic with whip attacks. Techniques and combinations have been built up around these abilities.

And then the Chupacabras comes.

Far more devastating than the wandering blobs that would steal Link’s shield, the Chupacabras takes all of Gabriel’s abilities and he must be captured to get this equipment back. The Chupacabras appears three times in the game, but one instance in particular stands out.

At the beginning of the fifth Chapter, Gabriel chases the Chupacabras into a Goblin encampment, complete with a rampaging giant warthog. These enemies have been encountered many times already. Except this time, Light magic is not available to restore health, and Shadow magic cannot be used to deal more damage faster. The player must adapt quickly.

Though “adapting” really means returning to the character’s state at beginning of the game. It feels incredibly unwieldy – unfair even. Except this is the game’s way of reminding players of the importance of the combat system that has been built up to that point. If the player has developed enough of the whip’s advanced non-magic attacks, there is no reason why this sequence should be a problem. Once the relics are regained, there is a renewed appreciation for what Mercurysteam has created in Lords of Shadow‘s combat system.

The design of the boss encounters is one of the best features of Lords of Shadow. The exceptions are the massive Titans: clearly inspired by Shadow of the Colossus they are outliers, and a very awkward addition to the game. Even when taking the story at face value, their existence in the world that has been established is of little importance. Furthermore, after fighting two Titans in the first third of Lords of Shadow they aren’t seen until again until the end of the game when Gabriel visits a Titan graveyard and fights a final battle with what could easily pass as a giant dragon skeleton. These encounters attribute some half-hearted legendary status to the Titans, but instead they manifest as a series of very clumsy homages to Team Ico.

In stark contrast with these indulgent departures, every single fight with a boss character in Lords of Shadow is logical, fair, and reinforces the combat system with Gabriel’s growing repertoire of combinations and special attacks. The fights are all structured so that combat can be approached as it was in regular encounters. That is, hinging on the player’s skill at reading the tells for unblockable attacks, and interpreting the responses to Light and Shadow magic⁹. The boss characters are neither damage sponges like the obnoxious setpieces of Dante’s Inferno, nor are they “puzzles” to be solved by using a specific attack or prescribed button sequence like in Darksiders and the God of War series. Some of the fights are multi-stage, but still allow the full breadth of skill use for any play style to overcome each new form of the boss. The increase in difficulty for each encounter comes from stronger, faster or more complex attack patterns – such as unblockable or magic attacks – but they can all be avoided, blocked or countered with the same complement of abilities as regular encounters.

It is essential that the Focus meter is used in these fights to maximize the use of the Magic system. Landed strikes increase the Focus meter as in normal encounters, but to accelerate this process it is better to do a perfect block at every opportunity. Maxing out the Focus meter in these fights provides a dependable reserve of Magic, allowing more flexibility in attack and health recovery strategies.

Despite the freedom encouraged by the structure of these encounters, all of the fights have checkpoints. This significantly diminishes any sort of tension built up in the fight, and is an indicator of the lack of confidence in player skill by the designers. It shows that they did not feel their encounter was balanced enough to allow the player to survive it without dying, even though the tools have been handed over to survive these encounters indefinitely. There is no special attack that must be performed to win. The “any button” quick time events are used at the end of the fight, but this is more to display an involved cinematic showing the defeat of the boss. The contest has already been won.

It is during the fights with the boss characters that the combat system galvanizes itself. After surmounting the normal encounters leading up to these battles, forming a successful attack and defensive strategy should be second-nature; gauging the enemy’s reaction to each whip strike should provide adequate information to develop a suitable combination to counter them and emerge victorious. The rewards for capitalizing on the combat system are sensed immediately. It is a devastating disappointment to learn that the fight with Satan isn’t so much about combat, as it is navigating a bunch of Light and Shadow magic concentric circles. While immensely satisfying to bombard him with the whip while weakened, it wasn’t a very challenging fight for the climax of the game.

Lords of Shadow is the new Castlevania for as long as Konami resists returning to the old canon. As was the case of Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia, a reimagining is only successful if sales are able to support the loss of the old character and themes. The release of The Forgotten Sands earlier this year shows how quickly these ventures into new territory can double back¹⁰.

Lords of Shadow distinguishes itself not through the rewriting of Castlevania‘s history, but its restoration of melee combat as a central theme. Besides the obvious influence from their contemporaries, Mercurysteam went back to a Castlevania before the character leveling, item hoarding and exploration styled after Metroid. Recent Castlevania games may have drifted away from the whip and the original focus on action, but Lords of Shadow defiantly asserts itself in the lineage of video games to bear the Castlevania name.

With the fervent praise surrounding God of War III, Sony Santa Monica are so confident with their position in the third-person action genre they assume that spectacle alone is an acceptable improvement to a series that has remained mostly unchanged since its first installment. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow shows that when a developer’s fate as an imitator has been decided, they have nothing to lose except the unfounded criticisms from those that have fashioned God of War into an unassailable representative of the genre.

Rather than relying on empty posturing, Mercurysteam has created a video game that brandishes its combat with purpose. Despite their attempts to deepen the experience with familiar voice actors, well-tread plot points and trivial interactions with the game’s environments, the combat in Lords of Shadow emerges as its most remarkable element. Lords of Shadow exploits the use of the whip, creating a combat system that allows players to develop their own approach to each encounter. Most importantly, the combat system does not suddenly disappear when confronted with the boss challenges at the end of each chapter. Combat in Lords of Shadow is substantial and engaging enough to carry the burden of the rebirth of a well-known series, undeterred by the distractions that have been built up around it.

Lords of Shadow delivers a combat system that provides depth for the skilled, and enough easy flourishes to keep novice players entertained without feeling like they are hammering buttons reflexively. The challenge of Lords of Shadow is in the constant struggle against muscle memory; realizing there is a combat system that does not conflate accessibility with a lack of challenge. And so when Satan falls and the closing movie reveals Mercurysteam’s uncomfortable plans for the newly established Castlevania timeline they may not have the mindshare of the faithful, but they have certainly earned the right to lay proper claim to the bloody throne of Kratos.

I took advantage of the Boxing Day shopping frenzy over the weekend and picked up an XBox 360 Pro Holiday Bundle at a discount that was hard to ignore. This is a purchase I had been deeply considering since my life-altering experience with Gears of War 2‘s Horde mode. My familiarity with the console was mostly limited to some time with it shortly after launch, so I’ve been relatively out of touch with what has been released for the console since then. I was also a bit disappointed at the lack of hardware upgrades: the Elite is still hoarding the 120 GB hard drive, and there is still no Wi-Fi out of the box even after three years. Though I guess I should be thankful that the power supply hasn’t burst into flame yet.

Since getting back into gaming this past summer, I’ve tried to keep myself aware of the titles capturing the most buzz on all of the next generation consoles. Over the past few days I familiarized myself with the new XBox dashboard and downloaded a grab-bag of demos: the critically acclaimed and a few others that I was interested in. I’m still looking for a good RPG other than the obvious selections of Mass Effect, Fable 2, or Fallout 3. Feel free to add any other recommendations in the comments; this is my second leap into the console world since the Gamecube in 2003.

Braid (demo)

I went to this game immediately. Not only was it the most talked about title on XBox LIVE Arcade for 2008, it was the most talked about game, period. Fiery debates raged between those that thought it was overwrought twaddle and those that believed it would change your life. Skeptical as always, I went in expecting twaddle.

After being available for four months and topping many year-end lists, Braid carries with it the burden of enormous expectations. This isn’t usually how I like to approach a game, but I just couldn’t wait to try it for myself to have some snide comments for my own year-end wrap up to fuel the continuing debate. But after completing the meager demo levels, my initial reaction was a feeling of emptiness. That’s it? Super Mario Bros. meets Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time?

The loosely strung together story, which amounts to a bunch of text that can optionally be read at the beginning of each level, is a collection of the most purple prose I have ever read in a game. If this is the reason reviews like Dan Whitehead’s famous wank-session at Eurogamer are produced, I want no part of the future of games criticism.

When the Barney look-alike says “I’m sorry, but the Princess is in another castle”, the reference might have actually been funny if Braid wasn’t so busy taking itself too seriously. And I don’t want to hear another drone telling me I’m “missing the point entirely” or “don’t get it”. The point of any game is to be entertaining, and if a player must peel back the disguises of obscure cultural references behind some interchangable protagonist’s life story to “get it”, I think the game’s designers are the ones missing the point (the atomic bomb? Seriously?). The in-game art is exceptional, but the game itself is not art. It is a platformer.

Dead Rising (demo)

Dead Rising is one of the games I regretted missing in 2006. It certainly feels like a Resident Evil game in the way it over-dramatizes the laughable storyline, but it does away with things like atmosphere and contrived suspense in favour of what people really want to do in a Resident Evil game: kill lots and lots of zombies.

The slow moving zombies practically allow themselves to be destroyed with all manner of weapons provided by the game’s environment. This is a definite change of pace from the chaotic action of Left 4 Dead as the massive, undulating crowds are rarely overwhelming. Weapons are also breakable, and this provides a bit of tension when that bat you were swinging has suddenly turned to splinters in your hands.

Based on what I was able to play in the demo, the action in Dead Rising seems pretty superficial, but I’ve read that there’s a lot more to do in the game than just kill zombies. I’m trying to track down a copy of the full version so I can make a better assessment.

Mirror’s Edge (demo)

If I could get every minute back spent reading self-appointed game criticism pundits fiddling with this game…Oh, forget it. The aesthetic of Mirror’s Edge is breathtakingly original, and I have to give DICE credit for creating something that isn’t another war-themed first-person shooter. These sterile environments are host to what is essentially an expansive jumping puzzle in a first person shooter. Except I can’t see my feet. It’s been a thorn in the side of any first person shooter player (even for Metroid Prime!) So why are these complaints absent from every review? Easy. They are too busy praising its originality.

I don’t care about the trend of “parkour” or “freerunning” or whatever the hell they are calling it now, but I will certainly give DICE their due for attempting such a game. But let’s be totally honest here: if you’re going to focus on jumping, let the player see their environment from a reasonable perspective. You know, like Brad Borne did with Mirror’s Edge 2D. Hopefully this is being created for XBox Live Arcade, because I will be getting it. As it stands, for washed out parkour fun I’d rather be playing Assassin’s Creed.

Castle Crashers (demo)

This shameless throwback to medieval beat ‘em ups like Golden Axe is a fucking revelation, brought to you by the creators of Alien Hominid. The visual comedy and overt references to its influences are hilarious to behold. After playing this game it becomes perfectly clear why XBox LIVE Arcade succeeds on the backs of these no-frills action games. I will be getting the full version.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Since its release on XBox LIVE Arcade last year, there have been a lot of people waxing poetic about its greatness in the pantheon of 2D platformers. But does anyone really know why this game is a 2D classic, and one of the best games of all time? Or do game reviewers and journalists just keep citing it because they know that’s what they’re supposed to say? (I also see this a lot with Gunstar Heroes – note to Microsoft, toss this one on XBL Arcade, too!).

The game is a curiosity for the Playstation generation, bravely released in an era that advanced 3D graphics for non-computer users. It is also difficult in an old-school platformer kind of way, from the days where it actually took patience and skill to run through a sequence instead of relying on auto-saves or save points that pop up like weeds all over a level. It was a refreshingly original take on the Castlevania universe by not giving you a whip, but arming you with other weapons, allowing the use of armour and providing a set of unique spells. It was before the series got unnecessarily complicated with 3D iterations and the convoluted magic systems of the portable series. This was the last great Castlevania, and for a while, the last great 2D platformer. I’m going to have to a write a full god damned review, aren’t I?

Though it is labelled as HD I probably could have played this on my PC with a decent emulator, as the sprites and animations feel like they were just bumped up to 1080i. Otherwise, the game plays like I remember it.

Kung Fu Panda

The first of the bundled titles that came with the console. Incredibly, this is a licensed game that doesn’t make me want to jump out of a window. Kung Fu Panda smartly focuses on straightforward action, fluid controls, and (thankfully) professional voice acting including Jack Black himself. It integrates well with the storyline of the movie, without veering too far off to make it seem that missions were thrown in to make the whole thing a game. My daughter also enjoys the cartoon violence and sound effects. This might actually be worth finishing.

Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures

The second of the bundled titles that came with the console. This is the first I’ve played of the Lego series of games that seem to be all the rage lately. Its cute factor is frequently nauseating, but it is fun to play. I can’t see myself spending too much time with it, though. Well, except when the little one asks for it by name (Indiana Jones bricks?)

Ninja Gaiden II (demo)

After playing the family-friendly Kung Fu Panda for close to two hours while my daughter watched in excitement, this was a welcome bloodbath. Atrocious cutscenes and polished spandex abound in the sequel to one of the original XBox’s premier titles, a game I always wanted to play for myself. The new Ninja Gaiden may be set in the same universe as Tecmo’s Dead or Alive, but do we really have to continue to watch Ryu hopping around in plastic pants through carefully constructed environments almost entirely devoid of character and substance? Is that really the best Team Ninja can do with the 360?

However, pushing graphical boundaries is not what this game is about. The combat is fast and merciless and aggressive. The mutated ninja sent to kill Ryu have no tactics, except to close in and repeatedly cut him with swords and beat with fists and throw shuriken.

With only the first level included in the demo, it’s tough to make a call on the difficulty. It’s challenging, but not impossible. It also doesn’t lend itself well to button mashing as some might have us believe. It’s no Assassin’s Creed, but the combat requires a bit of timing and proper use of blocking techniques. There is a new regenerative health system that rewards the calculated assault. There is also Ninja Magic.

There is so much blood in this game, I actually wondered if I was getting sensitive to the violence. But then I realized that the people who I was cutting up were actually coming back for more without any arms, or hopping on one leg, to finish the job. It was both ridiculous and satisfying to put the sad bastards out of their misery. I miss Shinobi, and for twenty minutes this game filled that void. I want to play more.

Devil May Cry 4 (demo)

This list is getting long, so I’ll mix it up with a Haiku to express my feelings for Devil May Cry 4.

Fancy pants wields sword
and glowing devil gauntlet
wind sighs through white hair

Wow, even writing that poem makes me want to go back and slice off bulging mutant limbs in Ninja Gaiden II.

Fracture (demo)

Maybe I’ve been too much into Gears of War lately, but Fracture seems like such a poseur in the latest deluge of third person shooters set in an embattled future.The big problem with this game is wasted potential. The ability to harness the earth itself to create cover and move through obstacles seems like a great concept gone to shit in the designers’ efforts to capitalize on the angry, futuristic shooter market. I don’t care that there’s a civil war – make a game that is fun to play!

The controls are passable, but the combat is not nearly as satisfying as Gears. And the earth shaping dynamic seems limited to certain areas of each level, which makes it completely useless as player advantage. If I can only use the ability when the game tells me to, what’s the point of introducing it in the first place? Also, game reviewers: please stop using the word “romp” when reviewing this type of game. It undermines their grittiness.

Gears of War 2

Now that I’m over how great the controls are and how enjoyable this series is to play, I can pay attention to the reasons why I’m supposed to be killing things. I had no idea it would be so disappointing. The story is a crippled mess of wartime cliché and forced emotion, and the dialogue seems less snappy and immediate this time around. Maybe it was bad in Gears of War and I just didn’t notice.

There are many notable additions to the game’s combat dynamic, and they only serve to further substantiate a solid formula. It is action all the time; it is shameless bravado; it is endlessly appealing. The Gears of War games are slowly becoming some of the greatest I have ever played. It continues to amaze me.

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin feels like desperation. It is Konami’s attempt at reinventing the portable Castlevania series and expand it beyond the walls of Dracula’s castle. Where Dawn of Sorrow was more of a refinement of Aria of Sorrow with the features of the DS clumsily added in, Portrait of Ruin is content to step backwards into what could be considered a more traditional Castlevania experience. For someone who prefers the shift towards the fighter/mage character class that Soma has become, playing Portrait of Ruin is like reverting to Harmony of Dissonance. The Metroidvania formula and item collect-a-thon established by Symphony of the Night is untouched, and the addition of another playable character creates an unnecessary dimension to the game that can mostly be ignored. Instead of creating a fighter/mage character, you use two characters – one for brute force, the other for fireballs. Except that for the most part, this only serves to benefit the player in solving the occasional puzzle or overpowering a boss monster with horribly unbalanced combo attacks. Upon close inspection, Portrait of Ruin turns into a mediocre action game, an unfinished experiment in trying to make this series more interesting.

In the game’s introduction, you learn that the game takes place during World War 2, but aside from the vaguely German-sounding “bad guy” that must be defeated at the end of the game there isn’t much of an indication that you are fighting in this time period. This was also true in the introduction to Aria of Sorrow, which was set some time in the future but contained no evidence to support the statement. Which means that either someone not involved with the game is writing these introductions, or Konami figures we won’t notice. In either case it’s a real shame, because if someone was paying attention during the development of this game they could actually use this information to change the game’s appearance, and stop relying on shameless fanboyism to justify the reuse of the same old level design we’ve been living with for the past five years of 2D Castlevania.

Portrait of Ruin gets its name from the collection of paintings that can be found around the castle, which must be entered to gain the requisite powers to proceed through the remainder of the castle. In theory, this allowed the level designers a hell of a lot more freedom in the way they can present each few area instead of relying on the limited tilesets of creepy dungeon, chapel, disused laboratory, gore-soaked dungeon, sewers, etc. Instead, we simply get stand-alone levels that might as well have been designed around this exact collection of artwork. Sandy Grave is an Egyptian-like setting, but that’s as exotic as it gets. And for some reason, the level artists decided to use 3D elements for the backgrounds in these worlds within the paintings. It looks out of place, and doesn’t add anything to the level’s appearance. So what was the point? The Forest of Doom sounds ominous, but as it stands it’s merely a collection of barren trees before you enter some generic building with a lot of pointless, empty rooms. The most inspired design was the Nation of Fools, which is a Circus-like setting in a kind of gravity-defying pinwheel structure that must be navigated around by jumping on walls that become ceilings that become floors. It comes together nicely, though it is the shortest of all the Painting sub-levels.

With these new avenues available to change the game’s settings, Portrait of Ruin tries to distance itself further from the other Castlevania titles by introducing a second playable character that is set up to be an integral part of the adventure to come. Charlotte, the girl spellcaster, tags along with Jonathan “I Hate My Dad” Morris to explore Dracula’s castle and bring down the vampire Brauner. There are puzzles that require the use of both characters, but they are spread too far apart to make it feel like this mechanic is actually necessary for success. Sure, you gain the ability to jump off of the shoulders of your partner early on, but once you get the double-jump the shoulder-jump becomes completely useless. I spent most of my time using Jonathan in the game, dragging Charlotte out whenever I needed to complete one of these tedious puzzles.

Of course, Portrait of Ruin finds another use for this two-character dynamic: combo attacks. These spells are hidden in the Castle and in the Paintings, and can often be obtained after gaining some new special ability like the double jump or the spell that can change you into a frog to work your way through some tiny passage. With both characters on-screen, casting the combo attack spell results in a flashy animation and massive damage output. This turns out to be really handy in a boss fight. So handy, in fact, that the only tactic you need to beat them is to spam Tonics and wait for your mana to recharge to unleash another combo attack.

Portrait of Ruin also offers some minor variations in the subweapons and spell system from its predecessors, though it feels like a mismanaged jumble of Harmony of Dissonanceand the Sorrow games. Monsters will randomly drop special abilities that can be used by Jonathan as a subweapon, which is similar to the way Souls were collected. Levelling up these abilities is through use instead of collecting more instances of it. Charlotte will collect new spells scattered throughout the castle, but they are often more powerful than the subweapons, so your mana pool will almost always be used for those. There isn’t much of an incentive for Jonathan to actively pursue levelling his subweapons – once they are obtained, that’s good enough to do any required ranged damage. When compared with the spells and even some of the base melee weapons, the secondary attacks don’t add much depth or variety to the overall system. Spells will be given to you as long as you can find them in the castle, so acquiring new subweapons can almost be entirely ignored.

Which prompts the essential question: is having the control of two characters really necessary in this game? Both characters share a health and mana pool, and hearts replenish mana – mana does not automaically regenerate. There is no separate heart pool like the Sorrow games. This forces you to conserve spells and combo attacks for boss encounters, because there’s really no point in using Charlotte for melee. So, in effect, you are summoning Charlotte simply to cast a spell or a combo attack, then putting her back in your pocket for future use. In boss fights, Charlotte was often used as a distraction while I pummelled them from behind. If both characters are on screen during a fight, and one of them “dies”, they will simply disappear and can be summoned again. There is no penalty, which makes the disposable nature of this secondary character all the more apparent. Charlotte becomes Jonathan’s special attack.

Castlevania: Bloodlines is a curiosity in the Castlevania canon. It starred two characters that had no immediate relationship to the Belmont family, yet one of them wielded Vampire Killer. How was this possible? Portrait of Ruin‘s storyline explains this anomaly. At the beginning of the game Jonathan has Vampire Killer in his possession but can’t use it’s “full power” right away. Different whips in the game are obtained, but this is no better than the whip add-ons that were available in Harmony of Dissonance. Why not level up Vampire Killer like the subweapons, through use? The “potential” of the whip isn’t actually unlocked until a seemingly arbitrary battle with Richter Belmont at the end of the game. But by then, you will have picked your favorite weapon, and the extra effort hardly seems worth it.

Portrait of Ruin is criminally short, but tries to make up for it by adding in a new Quest system to provide some additional incentive to backtrack through the castle and the Painting worlds. Except you don’t really get to see the game world, because there are enough portal stones scattered around the castle that make it so easy to get around, you won’t want to backtrack. Completed quests will unlock some new ability, but they aren’t needed to finish the game. I completed maybe five of the 1st tier quests, because after that the locations became too vague and there was no indication of the reward I would receive. I doubt any of them could have made the game any easier than it already was. Gold is readily available, so building up a stockpile of health and mana tonics is extremely easy to do. This makes beating the game’s bosses easier than past Castlevania games, which actually took a bit of skill. There is also a surplus of save points. When there’s no worry of dying after acquiring that exciting new ability, it takes away the feeling of urgency in exploration.

Though the ultimate indignity in this game’s design is the endgame sequence. After getting past Brauner’s vampire daughters you enter a room with five paintings – four of them must be completed to unlock the final painting to face Brauner. However, these four paintings simply re-use previous worlds and give them a different color scheme or bad weather. When taken alongside the overall shortness of the game, it just feels incredibly lazy and uninspired. The endgame is hastily compiled, like the designers didn’t know what to do with it. The final boss is some mutant Death/Dracula creature that puts a face to the designer’s lack of creativity in creating something new. It all makes the castle itself – the buildup to this encounter – seem all the more inadequate, as if the designers thought these Portraits to new worlds were perfectly sufficient in making the game world larger than it really is. But they aren’t.

Portrait of Ruin shows no evidence of wasted potential, because in most respects it falls in line with the rest of the portable Castlevania series up to this point: reproductions of past successes decorated in some new gimmick to apparent blind praise from the gaming media. There is just too much going on this game with no real direction and no incentive for the player to continue to play this game apart from some obsessive need to collect everything in sight. The story is laughable, the artwork shows a marked decrease in quality, and the sprite design is suprisingly bad for the fifth game in this portable series. Once you take out all of the unnecessary complications behind the two-player system and inconsequential item acquisition, Portrait of Ruin is actually pretty dull. There is nothing in this game that hasn’t been done before – and better – by its predecessors. For some fans of the series, this may be enough. However, the shortcomings of this game allow the shortcomings of the current state of the series to be readily apparent, and hearken the time for Castlevania to head in a new direction.

Afterword

Even though I’ve had almost two years (!) to write this review, I made sure I was not influenced by my impressions of the recent Order of Ecclesia. Believe me, it was hard – Ecclesia is exactly the new direction I was hoping for, and is shaping up to be one of my favorite releases of 2008.

The Gameboy Advance saw three Castlevania adventures in as many years after its release: Circle of the Moon (2001), Harmony of Dissonance (2002), and Aria of Sorrow (2003). Aria of Sorrow was my first experience with the remodeled portable Castlevania series, and still remains the finest (excluding last year’s fantastic Dawn of Sorrow on the DS, of course). At the time of Harmony of Dissonance‘s release, the step up in visuals combined with a simpler brand of gameplay made it stand out as a worthy successor to the two-dimensional masterpiece Symphony of the Night. The RPG/Castleroid adventure style it adopted and familiar main character made for an easy comparison; whether it deserved the subsequent praise it received is debatable.

Dissonance sees you in the fancy vestments of Juste Belmont, the latest in the famed bloodline to take Vampire Killer in hand and explore Dracula’s castle. The adventure begins when Juste and companion Maxim have stumbled upon a mysterious castle while looking for mutual friend Lydie. Maxim is wounded, and Juste must proceed alone. Such is the life of a vampire hunter.

It’s easy to fault this game in hindsight, because Konami really accelerated the quality of the series with Aria of Sorrow. Though at the time its simple blend of action and upgraded powers was a throwback to the Castlevania games of old. Though this simplicity is the reason why Harmony of Dissonance is the weakest in the portable Castlevania series.

Most of the shortcomings in Dissonance are revealed through comparisons to Aria of Sorrow, and make it stand out as a transition between what the series used to be, and what the portable Castlevania series is today. The last portable adventure before Circle of the Moon � the much maligned Castlevania Legends for the Gameboy in 1998 � was definitely a recipient of the design traditions from the NES and SNES Castlevania adventures. There were no experience points, and no additional weapons � simply a series of power ups to be collected, and a life meter to maintain. The popularity of the gameplay model used by Symphony of the Night made Konami reconsider the direction of the series. Where Circle of the Moon may have confused matters with the innovative card-collecting DSS (Dual Set-Up System), Dissonance went back to being an action game first and foremost.

Special abilities in Dissonance are made up by the traditional sub-weapons (such as the Axe, Holy Water, etc.) and spellbooks that can be found around the castle. The spell book system in Dissonance is an add-on to the sub-weapons that can be picked up. Equipping a Fire spellbook, for example, will create brand new fire attacks that are different for whatever sub-weapon you’re holding at the time. The limitation in this approach is that the spells available are directly related to how many spellbooks you happen to be carrying, since you can never hold more than one sub-weapon. Using these spells depletes your mana pool, not your heart pool. This results in a balancing act between hearts for using the sub-weapon, and mana for using the associated spellbook attack. By including two different systems for special attacks, the game ends up feeling very inconsistent. Was this a traditional Castlevania adventure, or was it pushing the series forward with a complex spell system?

There are a limited number of spellbooks to collect, and it doesn’t approach the same amount of possibilities as Circle of the Moon‘s DSS based on randomly dropped cards or Aria of Sorrow‘s soul collecting system. I found myself listless in most parts of the game, because there was no real overarching goal pushing me forward beyond the token experience points to level up. Knowing that there was always another special ability to obtain, at least made wandering through Dracula’s castle a little more rewarding in Aria of Sorrow.

As a melee weapon, Juste will only be using Vampire Killer. There are a series of whip upgrades to collect that add types of elemental damage or alternate attacks to the whip. It would be tough to expect the same variety as the weapons in Symphony of the Night or Aria of Sorrow because of the weapon limitation, but the whip power ups were disappointing in their lack of variety and uniqueness: elemental damage and some base damage modifiers are all you have to look forward to. Relics are mostly passive abilities, or enhance existing abilities like Double Jump and Slide to gain access to new parts of the castle.

The Boss battles don’t pose much of a challenge, and simply act as roadblocks to new areas of the castle (sometimes literally). Beating a boss will only occasionally yield a Relic, and as such the sense of real reward wasn’t there as it was in Aria of Sorrow. Overall I didn’t find the game very difficult; it was the save points spread far apart that artificially extended the challenge.

I’ve said previously that this is the only portable series that has real, noticeable enhancements to the visuals through each new game. An addition to Dissonance worth mentioning is the ghostly blue trail that Juste leaves behind while jumping and moving. The original Gameboy Advance didn’t have an integral lamp, and Circle of the Moon was a very er�brown game. To alleviate this, the developers enshrouded the hero character of Dissonance in a blue aura, to make him more visible in low light conditions. Because I only ever played this game on a Gameboy Advance SP, I thought the blue aura was some kind of power-up. It’s distracting for the first 3 minutes of playing the game.

Nevertheless, the environments lack variety in colour, and appear to be constructed of overly repetitive tilesets. There are also many rooms that don’t serve any purpose, or are wide open with only a few monsters wandering inside. To its credit, exploration is stressed in Dissonance, as it was a lot less linear in the way the castle unfolded. About a third of the way into the game, you will find a portal that seemingly only transports you to another part of the castle. But this is a mirror image of the castle you were in – with a number of subtle differences that open up more avenues of exploration, while increasing confusion. I’ve never used the automap so much in playing either Metroid or Castlevania. Incidentally, the music gets irritatingly loopy when you’re lost.

Probably the strangest additions to the game are “collectibles”: pieces of furniture scattered around that can be gathered to decorate a room on one of the lower levels of the Castle. I couldn’t figure out the purpose of this exercise; I’d almost consider it a mini-game for the completist. Actually, I think it makes a perfect metaphor for the entire game: wandering Dracula’s castle searching for items of no consequence in an attempt to fill the voids of wasted potential in this adventure.

I see Harmony of Dissonance as more of a turning point for the series than a fully realized Castlevania game. It was clear where Konami wanted the portable series to go, but they had a hard time leaving the traditions established by the previous eight years of similar games. Additionally, Dissonance provides an excellent foil for Aria of Sorrow, entrenching it as one of the best games to be released for the Gameboy Advance. Though it also serves as a reminder of the towering achievements of Symphony of the Night in the Castlevania lineage; it just took Konami a few years to reach a new equilibrium in design.

Dawn of Sorrow‘s “Julius Mode” is unlocked by completing the ending where Soma (the character in the main game) assumes the mantle of Dracula. As Julius Belmont, you must go through the same castle to fulfill the destiny of the Belmonts. Subtracting the details of spell and inventory management, what remains is a veritable tribute to the Castlevania games of old. In fact, this same premise was used for Julius Mode in 2003′s Aria of Sorrow. Only this time you have friends.

Dawn of Sorrow’s Julius Mode gives you a team of three characters. Aside from the whip, Julius comes with a solid collection of traditional Castlevania powers like holy water, axes, and a cross boomerang. Yoko Belnades, who was a character from the main game, adds fire, ice and lightning spells into your repertoire of powers. Last, but certainly not least, as Julius you run into Genya Arikado (a returning character from Aria of Sorrow), who reveals himself to be none other than Alucard. While not having as many powers as the other two, he can change into a bat which allows entrance into some of the castle’s otherwise inaccessible areas. The current character is switched at the press of the “X” button.

As such, balancing the use of these three characters becomes an entirely new game that focuses on the straight ahead side-scrolling action of Castlevania before it had been fused with Metroid. The game even allows you to level up the characters. Aria’s Julius mode simply gave a full powered static character to plow through the game with, which was no easy feat during the last third of the game. My only criticism for this experience system is that the levelled-up life and mana pools are shared among the three characters, so the weaker Yoko will tend to drain the health pool faster than say, Alucard. Yoko’s mana will recharge a lot faster, though. With regard to castle exploration, there are quite a few dead ends such as the “Ice Blocks” area that is extremely time consuming to clear with the whip, only to find that there’s nothing at the other end worth pursuing. Though I’d hardly fault Konami for these shortcomings – they’ve essentially turned a bonus for completing the main game into a completely separate adventure.

I find Castlevania in its current form irresistible.

As much as I love to complain about a lack of exciting new concepts in games, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow continues to refine the formula that makes the portable version of this series so appealing. When you aren’t mentally replacing the main character with one that wears bionic armour, the gameplay remains gripping. The need to collect better armour, weapons and more powerful spells (the souls that first appeared in Aria of Sorrow) drives the game forward. Ever since Symphony of the Night, Castlevania has turned into a kind of “Castleroid”, adopting the exploration to acquire new power to unlock new areas methodology. Though what Castlevania adds is experience points. It gives purpose to repeatedly visiting the same rooms during those long sessions of trying to figure out where to go next. Except this is not really an RPG, because the player has no control over the main character’s stat progression. And yet somehow the entire system manages to work.

Though we are now on the DS, and Dawn of Sorrow upsets the balance by adding some features that are intended to take advantage of the DS’ touch screen. Frankly, these additions are weak and do more to soil the purity of the experience than actually enhance the gameplay. I am of the mindset that if the stylus must be used, it should be directly integrated with the game’s mechanics and not used intermittently – Advance Wars: Dual Strike, Meteos and even Metroid Prime: Hunters do this well.

The first instance of this breach in gameplay are the ice blocks. After killing the second boss in the game, you gain the ability to break these blocks that are either preventing entrance into rooms or require modification to ascend a height before getting the double-jump. Something that I thought would be a lynchpin of the gameworld – this manipulation of the game’s environment using the touch screen – amounts to little more than a parlour trick, as these obstacles are rarely encountered. By the time I reached the endgame sequence, I wondered if it was necessary to include it at all.

The next offender is the Seal system. These are patterns that must be traced on screen in a single stroke once a boss monster has been defeated to banish them forever. With only five seals to learn and roughly 14 bosses over the course of the game, the difficulty ramps up gradually. They can be practiced at any time, but after experiencing this system first-hand I can only describe it as self-sabotage waiting to happen. As if boss battles weren’t already hard enough, they can be undone by a slip of the stylus or simply forgetting part of a stroke. Furthermore, fumbling for the stylus after I’ve just worked my thumbs raw and have only 30 health points to spare tends to build a kind of insurmountable pressure to perform. You will fight bosses multiple times, but not because they are difficult. No. It will be because of these invasive seals, brutally justifying the stylus’ use with this game.

However these intermissions and the brief emotional outbursts that followed seemed to fade into the background of Dawn of Sorrow’s main purpose: to provide a two-dimensional platformer. In this regard the game excels; everything about the gameplay exudes familiarity, and yet the DS’ capabilities for rendering my adventures as Soma Cruz surprised me at every turn, proving once again that a third dimension is not always necessary. Furthermore, what has been impressive about the Castlevania series for Nintendo’s portable platforms is that there has been a noticeable evolution in the game’s visuals. I thought Aria of Sorrow was an incredible advance over Harmony of Dissonance – but l look back now and see a game that looks a lot older than it actually is. Dawn of Sorrow makes me want to see more 2D games on the DS.

Aside from the obvious concessions made for the touch screen, some additions were made to improve on the Castlevania experience last seen in Aria of Sorrow. The Doppelganger ability allows the creation of two sets of armour, weapons and souls to be equipped by Soma, switchable by the press of a single button. This is unbelievably convenient during boss battles, where a heavy weapon and quick weapon would often be required. Also included is a kind of weapon customization feature, which was created with the best of intentions I’m sure. You can fuse souls with weapons, removing them from your inventory of equippable souls. However, this is all limited by the weapons and souls you happen to have – you can only fuse a prescribed soul to a weapon, leaving these “customization” options not very customizable at all.

In a an homage to classic Castlevania, completing one of the three possible endings where Soma becomes Dracula unlocks “Julius Mode”, which allows you to play through the game as Julius Belmont and ultimately take on Soma. There are no souls, no magic seals, weapons or special powers – just Vampire Killer and an amazing remix of the original Castlevania soundtrack.

After finishing the fourth portable iteration of Castlevania The Quasi-RPG, it became clear that the games are directly tapping into the Pokémon subconscious. They are games for the completist: obtain the perfect set of gear, complete 100% of the map, get every soul in the game. I always found it amazing that absolutely every enemy I fought had the potential to give an ability once, or many times over through levelling up an existing soul in my repertoire. It meant when I passed through that corridor for the 20th time, I might get something in return. Killing a lowly skeleton does not encourage an automated response; instead, it maintains interest. I wouldn’t call it infinite replayability, but it comes close. Even after beating the game you can go back to your save game and explore the castle for secret areas and a full set of souls. In the realm of 2D adventures, I get the feeling that Samus Aran has just been overtaken.

i saw them all inside a sheet of flame