Castlevania: Curse Of Darkness underrated?

[Player-X]

I just bought this gem and is now playing it, although most reviewers gave this game a low rating I would say that this game is execlent, the pace of this game is just like the classic castlevania games, the weapons are varied allowing you to play diffrently depending on your weapon choice instead of spamming the same combos over and over again if you are stuck with the same weapon like the whip and the ID system adds to the game, the graphics may not be top notch but it keeps with the castlevania theme well enough to, the music is also classic castlevania, Hector is also a welcome break from the Belmonts, the Castlevania games where you don't play as a Belmont tends to be better than the rest of the series like Symphony Of The Night, Aria Of Sorrow and Dawn Of Sorrow, Curse Of Darkness keeps this tradition up

[Zer0Soul]

I've been meaning to pick this up. The most negative comments, i've heard. Were about the repititous look of the levels. It's all about gameplay to me, so no big hurt for me. How does the "monster friend" work? Do they level with you is there still even upgrades and so forth.

I'm very intrigued by it, I'll wait til it hits at least 39.99 first though.

__________________

Currently Playing: Kindgom Hearts 2, Crimson Sea 2, Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires, Baiten Kaitos, & Lunar DS

[Rhombus]

Even though I like the game, I think all the criticism about the game is pretty well-founded. Not every game is an 8 or a 9. I think a 7 or so is fair enough - people tend to inflate (or want to inflate) scores so much these days that they view everything below a 9 as bad. Think about it though, a true rating system is NOT the same as school grading. Whereas in school a 65 is FAILING, in a review, which is purely subjective, the whole 10 point scale should be used. Hence an "average" game is a 5 - a 6 is slightly above average, 7 is good, 8, great and 9-10 is awesome. As such, I think the rating of this game as "good" is fair. I am a HUGE HUGE Castlevania fan, but I'm not blind to the flaws of the game.

Pros: Awesome soundtrack. Cool character design, pretty good voice acting and cinematics. Good character animation. Really well-designed and fun-to-use equipment and Innocent Devil system.

Cons: Besides Hector himself (who looks quite good), the graphics pretty much suck - in fact, I think the game actually looks WORSE than Lament of Innocence. I'm also not usually big into graphics, but alot of the charm of Castlevania games historically has been the variety and cool ambience of the many environments. However in this game in addition to the poor technical aspects of the graphics (low-poly count, fairly dull and undetailed textures) the art DESIGN of the levels is actually very unimpressive. While it's fun playing around with the different weapons and innocent devils, combat is still pretty simplistic and repetitive. The game is way too easy.

__________________

Processor: Athlon 64 3400+ Mobo: MSI K8T Neo-FIS2R RAM: 1 GB Corsair XMS GFX Card: Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro 128 Sound Card: SB Audigy 2 ZS HDD1: Seagate 160MB 8MB 7200 HDD2: Seagate 80MB 8MB 7200 Burner: NEC 16x DVDR Keyboard/Mouse: Logitech Cordless MX Duo USB Gamepad1: PS2 Dual Analog/KiKY X USB Gamepad2: Gravis GamePad Pro OS: Windows XP Pro sp2

Tempus fugit et nos fugimus in illus.

Fiat justitia; ruat coelum.

[Vanit]

I still think the best one was Aria of Sorrows on the GBA .

__________________
Click here to download my Sin and Punishment English translation.

[Player-X]

I still think the best one was Aria of Sorrows on the GBA .

I would say that the best in Symphony Of The Night

[Carmofin]

i dunno, i played (or rather, am still playing, when i find time) the first PS2-Castlevania and all the way through i was thinking, well, its okay, ts their first try... But now that im reading that the new game has the same dull level-architecture i dont know if i still want that game... probably not

[Player-X]

The combat is pretty good and the IDs and item making system keeps the game fresh, the graphics are not that good but the map is not confusing unlike LOI

[cloudvii]

The problem about Castlevania is Repetitive. For example all games before Symphony of the night were all nearly the same. And lacked much story factor, which was very needed. It wasn't untill Rondo (on Turbo duo) that came with more story.

Symphony made a very good change to every thing. You started to feel that your character really has a personality away from whipping his enemies. Alucard's presentation was way better than Castlevania 3 and story element got maximized. And gameplay totally changed which gave you more free control not like the old school Castlevanias. After that CV games branched to 3D and 2D. All 3D games were average cored hack and slash games with Castlevania's atmosphere. While the 2D games tried to mimic Symphony of the night.

For 3D games, I think that they failed miserably in their 2 N64 games. Not innovative at all. Even the 2 games share identical stages. I had my hopes for the dreamcast CV but it was cancelled. Then Capcom destroyed Konami totally with "Devil may cry". This is what 3D castlevanias should have been from the start.

For 2D games, RPG elements were added to gain more fans to the series. And it wasn't untill "Aria of sorrow" when I think they really regained some of Symphony of the night fame.

But come on really. What's the idea behind all that? CV games were all about the same goal every time. Killing Dracula and then he wakes up again, such originality .

You enter the same castle again, with the same whip and a similar character sprite (Even if they tell you he isn't the same guy). And then you go into the same enemies again and some times same stages. And also remixed versions of the same music (Yes, I know it's still very good).

Aria of sorrow was kinda different, but still there wasn't much innovation into the game. What counted in AOS were the amount of abilities. And I Also liked one of the bosses designs.

Spoiler:

You know when I saw the large bat, I said "Oh no, not again". Since it appeared in many games already, plus it's not that great (I prefer Death anytime ) . But then the giant killed the bat, I was confused :S

I love 2D work anytime. And I think CV along some other games (like KOF and Metal Slug) can keep the 2D fans hope for more. But still CV needs more than just new characters.

__________________

Fekra Online magazine

Fekra Magazine

Fekra Magazine readers Facebook group

[Zer0Soul]

Cloud, I have so much <3 for you. Your spoiler made me crack up.

I think with the series, they try to hard to balance, what was and what they want. Symphony of Night was one of them rare gems that will always be very hard to top.

I'm going to pick this up this evening and give my impressions. It's either this or Dawn of Sorrow's.

__________________

Currently Playing: Kindgom Hearts 2, Crimson Sea 2, Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires, Baiten Kaitos, & Lunar DS

[DarknessTear]

Really fun game. It has a lot more to offer than Lament of Innocence, such as Leveling Up and various weapons that change how you fight. I'll probably never use one of those horribly slow swords unless I'm bored or something though. The music is obviously great, we know what to expect from a Castlevania in terms of music. The graphics are kind of bland but you go to plenty of places and see many different kinds of things. Anyway, it's undeserving of it's recieved hate. I've been playing the games in the series since the NES and I hate to see 2D go as well, but don't hate on the 3D versions because they aren't 2D. Face it, we aren't going to see another console 2D Castlevania again. IGA doesn't want to do it, sadly.

__________________
AMD Athlon 64 3400+, 1 GB DDR, Nvidia Geforce 7900 GS, Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZX

[Player-X]

I'll probably never use one of those horribly slow swords unless I'm bored or something though.

Sometimes the slow weapons like axes have thier uses like for

Spoiler:

collecting evo crystals

Face it, we aren't going to see another console 2D Castlevania again.

We could, they could go with the 2.5d like in Contra Shattered Soilder or Gradius 5 or even MegamanX7/8

[_E_]

Bought it today with the official guide for 90 bucks , played it for a good 3 hours and enjoyed 'em all. I see people here screaming "SoTN!!" when this game took the summons gameplay from SoTN , and evolved it to something new & better. Personally, I thought the graphics where nice. The textures ARE detailed , you just don't get to see them proparly due to the dark & gloomy setting. Ofcourse, the graphics COULD have been better, but they aren't lacking as of yet. The story is interesting ( No dracula/dracula-wannabe around this time!) , the character designs and music are breath-taking, + rich gameplay. Everything I want in a castlevania game is right in there..

Yours,
-Elly

[Player-X]

So we all agree that this game is underrated right? from what I have seen lately most game reviewers are giving games with big names a really high score regardless of it's quality and giving games with less publicity or supported by a smaller company lower scores

[Dark Watcher]

They did the same thing with CV: Lament of Innocence...average reviews, but we rented it anyways with hopes that it wasn't like the N64 titles (if we are not sure about a game we rent first). We actually enjoyed LOI...It still felt like Castlevania with a small injection of the Symphony (SOTN) formula (exploration, hidden powers to find other areas, special weapons, enemy item drops, etc). We liked going through with the bonus characters as well, and the prelude story was pretty good as well. Sure the graphics were not super amazing and some levels felt repetitive...but the gameplay was damn good. We went ahead and bought LOI, and will most likely pick up Curse of Darkness.

Of course we we were to review and score the game the outcome would be higher because we enjoy these types of games, but if the reviewer is more of a Devil May Cry (more action less exploration), Sports gamer, or RPG buff the score will be different...just our take on it

__________________

[Exodus]

the overall reviews for the game weren't all that bad. gamerankings scores them an average of 74.8% which in my books is pretty good.

__________________
No, I don't like anime, Street Fighter, Japanese music or download video game music. Yes, I know, I'm weird.