Review: Castlevania Judgment for the Wii

The Castlevania series has done much soul-searching in its eleven year history. What was once slow and steady whip-slashing in the NES days evolved into Metroid-styled RPG platforming, followed by 3D action-exploration—and at times, all three in one release cycle. Despite the variety in gameplay (and satisfaction), each game shared basic elements with its preceding and subsequent titles that made it distinctly Castlevania. Though it’s the most drastic deviation from the norm, the latest game in the series, Castlevania Judgment, amazingly maintains these elements that ensure its Castlevaniaty™. As a moderately obsessed fan of the series, I wish it hadn’t.

Simply the best.

Here’s the deal: everyone knows the best Castlevania games are those based off Symphony of the Night’s “Metroidvania” style of gameplay. The original style is now too awkward and stilted for enjoyment, and the 3D variations suffer from poor level design and lacked depth of exploration (despite the whole, you know, extra dimension). But that doesn’t automatically doom Judgment. The core of the series—traipsing about Gothic landscapes while killing ghouls and demons on your way to fight Dracula—is held generally intact here, and as a fighter, its 3D environment is meant to be limited in ways other games in the series were not.

This issue could almost be written off as 'purposeful,' since the game revolves around time.

Of course, some limitations would be welcome. I was initially thrilled to see that players could run about the fighting landscape freely in all directions, instead of the 2D rails that trap us in some games. However, this free movement quickly becomes a deterrent as characters spend more time evading each other than actually fighting. Many battles are determined by the clock and who is better at running in circles. When it does come to blows, the dangerously open movement and spastic camera makes actually landing a hit a matter of luck and guesswork. In most fighters, your character’s attention is always locked on the opponent, so that any swings made are necessarily made toward him. That doesn’t guarantee a connection—but it does mean you’re usually swinging in the right direction. Because Judgment keeps targeting options open in case you want to bash a crate or whack a zombie stage hazard, half the effort expended each match is on just making contact.

Continued on page 2.

Pages: 1 2 3