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too judgemental

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: November 05, 2005
Author: Amazon User

the game is taking a hell of a lot of flack when it really isn't that bad! the story is predictable, but it's been established that the game of the bad guys in castlevania is to steal a man's woman and watch him squirm. the music isn't bad, i think of it as being like symphony of the night but with a slight dracula's curse sound. two games in the series with the best music. as far as difficulty goes, it's hard until you realize you should concentrate more on dodging than the offensive. in the fight with trevor, i thought it was impossible to get his life down. i later realized i had to watch for his weak points and move in. so if anything, that's a better point in a game. in the process of that, i wasn't getting angry with it because of the real fact that you're fighting a belmont! so he was kicking the hell out of me, but i thought it was awesome. so yes it's not the best castlevania ever made, because we all know which one that was. but this game really is what castlevania is when thrown into the third dimension. love it or hate it, just give it a chance.

good but not great!!!!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: November 05, 2005
Author: Amazon User

this game is just like any other of the castlevania franchise....the plot is way to simple and not intriging at all...your girlfriend gets killed by the bad guys and you want revenge....WOW!!!!!!!!!! INTERESTING!!!!!!!! it took a genius to figure that one out!! anyways the controls are very confusing, the character just looks like alucard therefore not giving it originality as they said it has......grafics are not too crisp anyways......the soundscore its nice thou, but not as nice as synphony of the night....its not a bad game , but you wouldn't want to pay 50 on this one...wait until it goes down to at least 30.00...save 20 bucks and buy a greatest or platinum hit........thats my honest advice...

An average game in all respects

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: November 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

First off Konami have been very misleading with the info they provided about this release. They said that there were lots of unlockables and extras to compensate for Lament Of Innocences lack of them. There are hardly any, and the ones that are there are very poor.

The game is a far cry from Symphony of the Night on the PS1 which is regarded as the best ever castlevania game. In this there is a very rushed feeling, there is no character portrait you are referred to as "player". The item list is small, and not very exiting. Combat is decent and you can pull of some impressive attacks, especially with the unarmed fighting style. The music is dull and very repetitive.

The game ending though brief is good and satisfying, though there aren't that many cutscenes in the game. Also Konami said there were 150 enemies, that's very misleading most of them are different colour versions of older ones. Thus you might see the same creature take up 3 or 4 spots in the listing. There is also no returning characters/enemies like the Succubus which is a shame.

Trevor Belmont is back and the interaction between you and him is good and interesting. Also the dialogue is decent and instead of bad sounding modern speech they talk as if in the period which is great.

Also the game is far too easy and those whining about it being too hard ought to stick to childrens games, You will rarely lose a fight in this game except against the end boss.

Overall an OK experience but falls way short of expectation, and with Konami lying to customers you have to question their interest in the series anymore as they can do better than this.

Overall 6.5/10

Augh! it happened again.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: November 08, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Why does Konami keep putting out substandard, C- list Castlevania games?
The word 'tedious' doesn't begin to describe the experience of playing this. Imagine moving a character around that can't walk any faster than a small dog, through the most bland, monotonous environments you could imagine, fighting the dullest enemies you could imagine- over, and over, and over, and over.

It has some good cutscenes and decent voice acting, but you can really tell the overall production values were really low for this. That's a shame...Castlevania has always been one of my all-time favorites. They'd never release such a mediocre Zelda or Metal Gear game, for good reason. This deserves to be a top-tier franchise, but Konami refuses to give it the time/money it would take to really do it right.

The Curse of 3D Castlevania Games!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: November 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Castlevania: Curse of Darkness is a game that even the die-hard Castlevania fan might not much get into. Lament of Innocence wasn't a terrible game, but it wasn't great. And Curse of Darkness just goes to show that when a 3D Castlevania game marches forth, it has problems. Sometimes scary problems. Like Lament of Innocence, it had so much potential to be good--this title more so. But it doesn't deliver, and that's a sad revelation to admit to, especially after having so much enjoyment with the DS smash: Dawn of Sorrow.

Ever since the 1997 all time best, Symphony of the Night, so many main characters in the series have to be like Alucard in SOME way. Hector in Curse of Darkness is no exception. He looks a little like Alucard.

But we're not here to discuss that. Hector is a Devil Forgemaster, one who has given up his powers. Dracula is dead, but the land is overun with the curse of monsters on the world of Valachia. Hector, however, isn't concerned about what kind of shape the world is in. He's more concerned about an evil Devil Forgemaster by the name of Issac, who has killed his beloved. If you couldn't guess, it's time for revenge. And so Issac leads Hector into a place full of traps and obstacles he must overcome. And by doing so, Hector will slowly recover his Devil Forgemaster skills and whatnot. The story actually unfolds with excellent voice-acting, but there isn't much story.

Since Symphony of the Night we've been given this Metroid style exploration when it comes to Castlevania. This is marvelous, and once again, makes its way into the 3D world of Castlevania. You explore a large castle riddled with goodies. This includes weapons, subweapons, armor and much more.

Playing the game can be quite fun. Most of the game, as you might have guessed, is spent running through endless hallways of defeating monsters. That isn't as boring as you might think. You can perform some cool looking combos on enemies, but each one must be finished with the circle button. You can also lock onto enemies and perform combos. This makes the camera go crazy, though, but this is forgiveable. Battling without locking on is actually much better, and it isn't too hard to do without. Although, if you want to steal from your enemies, you'll have to lcok on to 'em. Speaking of stealing, it's nice that you can actually do that. Many a time a monster will leave himself open for stealing. This usually occurs while it recovers from taking damage. Again, you must be locked on for it to happen.

Likewise, unlike Lament of Innocence, they actually use the level up system. In other words, there's actually a point to battling through hordes of monsters this time.

You also have little helper monsters. You can compare them to the familiars found in other Castlevania games (like Symphony of the Night and Dawn of Sorror), but the better comparison would be Pokemon. They lend their assistance and gain experience from defeating enemies, just as you do. It's nice not to have to go at it alone, but we Castlevania veterans would prefer to go at it alone. Each enemy also drops evolution crystals. Collect enough of them and your monster will evolve. You won't grow to like them, though. That's the sad part, and they don't really enhance the gameplay. The monsters have special abilities, though. Golem like creatures can open heavy doors, imps let you bury underground. But you can't help but admit it would be nice if your little innocent devils were actually characters. Also, no evolution crystal is the same. You can take advantage of the system by collecting different types of crystals and seeing how your little buddies evolve.

One of the nice things about being a devil forger, you can make your own weapons! And Hector can do it at any time he wants! That's right, no running back to some stupid shop to do it! Monsters often drop raw materials, and you can use them to make new weapons or make your current weapons stronger. You can do this simply by opening the menu. I don't know about you, but that's pretty satisfying to me to be able to do that.

The weapons have their own little downside however. With the exception of the sword, none of them are highly helpful in combat. You start the game off with a short sword, and you'll grow accustomed to its fast speed and easy use. Other weapons just aren't fast enough, and enemies aren't weak to a certain weapon "type". This makes the weapon crafting system a little useless at some points. Unless you're a person who likes to use "cool" looking weapons as opposed to swift and powerful weapons, you won't have THAT much use for the weapon crafting system, except to power up your sword. Thus, experimenting with weapons garners no fun.

It is pretty cool, I must say, to be venturing somewhere that isn't Dracula's castle. Instead you actually venture through the world of Valachia. Meaning you'll trek through swamps, mountains, valleys and a lot more. So if you're tired of Dracula's castle, this is quite a change.

The problem with this "world" is that you don't see enough of it. There's not enough detail to it. You have to follow a beaten path (so it isn't really that different than Dracula's castle in Lament of Innocence), so you can't go off and just explore the places you're at. The game also suffers from what Lament of Innocence suffered from: the lack of detailed enviroments. You'll no doubt run down the same path/hall/corridor several times over. If it weren't for the map you'd find yourself lost, thinking you must be in one of those "looping" ares, or that you took a wrong turn and ended up running in a circle.

The monsters are also not so great. What I love about the 2D Castlevania games (especially in the new Dawn of Sorrow) is how much variety is thrown into the monsters. The attacks they use on you. Even if they're the same looking monster, they throw in some new attack that you don't expect. Curse of Darkness (like Lament of Innocence) has no variety. You'll run into the same batch of monsters constantly, and they'll never do something new. Later in the game you'll find yourself fighting nothing but reincarnates of different colored monsters that do nothing new. Likewise, all the monsters you'll ever see are encountered pretty early on. The moment you run into an Axe Armor, you've run into 'em all! They'll never change.

I sound like I'm being picky about the enemies thing, but I'm not. It takes away from the challenge of the game. The fact that reincarnates don't do anything new makes it more true. And that's not the worst part: the game overall just isn't a challenge. The bosses can be, at times, but if you've been playing 3D action games, I think you'll find even the more challenging bosses to be no challenge at all. The early boss battles in the game are fairly easy. Later on, however, they get start to get hard, and that's when battling them actually becomes fun. Again, though, if you're an action/adventure pro, you'll probably beat most of them on your first try.

I wish I could say the graphics are great. Hey, Hector looks great in combat. But the enviroments don't have enough detail. Too many of them are simple everyday enviroments we've been seeing for a long time now. Where's the detail? You know... like... maybe the leaves on a tree moving? We're at that point where there could be some kind of interation with the enviroment, instead of it seeming like we're running through a still-life painting. Visually, it doesn't look half bad. It's just that there could be so much more. The bosses look cool, and the framerate doesn't slow down at all, but there isn't enough variety, or detail.

However, I must say this: the music sounds AWESEOME! As usual, the Castlevania games have some of the best music there is to be heard in gaming! Is it better than Symphony of the Night? No, it's not. It isn't better than Lament of Innocence either (which also had steller music), but it is still among the best you'll ever hear in a video game. Likewise, the voice acting is actually really really GOOD! I just wish I could've heard more of it!

Curse of Darkness had the potential to be a good game. But there are a lot of things that keep it down. It's a fairly fun game to play, but it lacks innovation. You won't be able to separate it from the other action/adventure 3D games. It's got nothing that makes it stick out.

If you MUST have this game, however, I'd say wait for a price drop. If you're really looking for a good Castlevania game, I'd suggest getting a hold of "Dawn of Sorrow". It's a much better game.

The Good:
+Great Music! Some of the best in gaming!
+Good weapon system
+It's pretty fun to play
+You can steal from enemies!
+Great Voice acting!

The Bad
-Little innovation
-Lack of cutscenes to advance the story
-Too much of the game gets recycled too fast
-Too easy
-The game doesn't look bad, but there's little imagination in the environments
-Not a whole lot of different enemies
-It's too easy
-Boring level designs (not enough of them)
-You just can't help that the game has almost no innovation! It's no different than your average action/adventure 3D game

Get Dawn of Sorrow, or one of the other 2D versions of the game. They seem to fare so much better than this one does. Even the die-hard fan of Castlevania has to admit this one is rather bland.

castlevania- curse of bad design

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 5
Date: November 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

3.5 out of 5
I'm not much of a gamer, but I have followed the castlevania series, and think the current benchmarks reside in Devil May Cry 3 and God of War, so if you havent checked them out, an adventure is waiting for you.

The Pros of game
-Innocent Devils feature is interesting, yet can be
timely because you have to collect items, and I wish you had more control over creating them.

-Forging weapons is different, offering new fighting methods.

-3-d--something new

Cons
-The graphics are not up to par, laments are better.
-The fighting combinations were not interesting to me
-Castlevania has been around for almost 20 years you think
Konami could think up a better structure and plot to the
story. There could have been more of a story line with the different bosses, you just go in a room and fight a creature half the time.

-The 3-D issues weren't fully worked out
-The worst is the levels and different environments. Same hallways and virtually the same creatures as Lament.
-The game is not overly challenging, its almost the same formula for every boss, screen, hallway and level.

Another average 3D entry in the Castlevania series

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 46 / 51
Date: November 14, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Castlevania: Curse Of Darkness (2005.)

INTRODUCTION:
Ever since its conception in the latter half of the eighties, the Castlevania series has been my all-time favorite video gaming series. Vampire hunting had never been so cool before this, and it never will be again. All through the years, a number of excellent games in the series have been released. There have been a few games, though, that fell below the mark. The treks the series took into a three-dimensional environment were often among the most questionable. The Nintendo 64 games, while excellent platform-style games that stayed true to the gameplay of earlier games in the series, were far too linear and short. Likewise, the first Playstation 2 entry in the series, Lament Of Innocence, featured beautiful graphics but little else. Now, Konami has taken a second crack at the whole three dimensional thing. The second entry for the Playstation 2, Curse Of Darkness, has finally arrived (the game is also available for the X Box.) Read on for my review, and see how it fares.

OVERVIEW:
Konami released Castlevania: Curse Of Darkness in early November of 2005 in America. The game features single-player combat that fuses elements of action, adventure, and RPGs. At its time of release, the game retails for fifty dollars. It is available for Playstation 2 and the X Box.

REVIEW:
There's not much to say, really. This game is the best three-dimensional Castlevania released so far. Unfortunately, though, that really isn't saying much. While an excellent game, it seems rushed. Keep reading for a look at the game, what it's about, what it does right, what it does wrong, and how it fares overall.

-THE STORY:

It is three years after the conclusion of Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (released on the NES in 1990 in America.) Trevor Belmont and his cohorts have defeated Dracula, at least for now. However, in his death, Dracula put a curse on the land. One that corrupted people and plagued all of Europe. And one individual who is seeking to gain power and conquer is an old pupil of Dracula's. You play the role of another of Dracula's pupils who gave up serving the dark lord. Your former ally had your lover murdered, and now you're out for revenge. To stop him, though, you'll have to regain abilities you renounced when you initially gave up serving evil.

-THE GOOD:

-GRAPHICALLY, THIS IS THE BEST CASTLEVANIA TO DATE! Just one look at these graphics, and you'll definitely agree with me here. The Castlevania series has never looked so good in three dimensions. The graphics in gameplay and cutscenes alike are awesome.

-YOU CAN FIND ELEMENTS AND USE THEM TO CREATE NEW EQUIPMENT! This is one of the more innovative features of the game, and one of my personal favorites. By finding enough of a certain element or two, you can combine the elements to create new weapons, armor, or accessories. There are different elements everywhere, so this feature stays fresh all the way through.

-THE GAME USES THE RPG LEVEL-UP SYSTEM. This was something Lament Of Innocence lacked, and I'm glad to see it made an appearance here. Now, there's actually a purpose to fighting through legions of bad guys. The RPG elements are one of my favorite things that some games in this series offer - I just wish more of them had them.

-DEVIL FORGERY IS ONE OF THE GAME'S UNIQUE FEATURES. You can find demons in the castle, and summon them to assist you. Every one has different abilities, and like you, they level up when enemies are killed. As you collect crystals, they can evolve and become stronger. A very nice feature.

-THE GAME CLEARS UP MANY OF THE MAJOR FLAWS THAT LAMENT OF INNOCENCE HAD. For one thing, the combo system is gone. This thing was totally out of place in the Castlevania universe, and was one of the major things that caused Lament to be branded a Devil May Cry rip-off. Alternatively, many of the complex and annoying things the earlier game had are done away with here. This makes the experience more enjoyable.

-THE BAD:

-THE GAME, AS A WHOLE, SEEMS RUSHED. I'm guessing that this game could have been something more elaborate, if only Konami would have taken their time with it.
However, I'm guessing that they rushed to get it out as quickly as possible, both so that it would be readily available for the 2005 Holiday Season, and so that they could cash in on the success of the excellent Dawn Of Sorrow for the Nintendo DS. Seriously, couldn't they just have delayed the game and worked on it longer? Nintendo has no problem delaying games to fine-tune them (just looked at how many times they delayed The Legend Of Zelda - Ocarina Of Time for the Nintendo 64!) Come on, Konami! I'd rather have games delayed and made excellent rather than rushed and made mediocre - and I'm sure other gamers feel the same.

-TOO SHORT! More likely than not, if you're a devoted gamer, you'll cruise through this game in less than a week. As such, the game definitely comes of seeming more like a rental title than something you should shell out fifty bucks for.

-TOO EASY! Looking for the same challenge games that came earlier in the series offered? If you're looking for a challenge, you're not going to find it here. Sorry.

-I FIND THE MATURE RATING QUESTIONABLE. Quite honestly, this game is no more violent than any Teen-rated Castlevania game - the only difference is that the violence is in three dimensions. Granted, this is the ESRB's fault, not Konami's.

-RELEASES LIKE THIS MAKE ME QUESTION WHETHER OR NOT THERE WILL EVER BE A GOOD THREE-DIMENSIONAL CASTLEVANIA. Yes, this is a good game, but it's not a great one. All the great Castlevania games are two-dimensional. This is Konami's FOURTH attempt at making a great three-dimensional Castlevania game, and once again, they have fallen flat on their backs. Maybe they ought to stick to making the series consist of side-scrollers.

OVERALL:
Overall, I think I've made my final opinion of this game pretty clear. It's a good game, but it's certainly not a great one. It's the best three-dimensional Castlevania so far, but even that isn't saying much. I strongly recommend the game as a weekend rental, but not as something you should go down to the store and lay down the fifty bucks for. Even if you're a die-hard Castlevania fan like myself, rent this one. Don't buy it. You can get through this game in a single rental, and it will put you out six dollars rather than fifty. Just trust me on this one.

EDITION NOTES:
Not a whole lot to say here. The game is a recent release, and as such, it is readily available in most major stores that carry video games. It's also readily available as a rental title in most video stores and on most online video game rental services.

A step down from Lament of Innocence? Sad but true...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: November 16, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I was really looking forward to this game. Lament of Innocence was fun, but just, well, lacking in several departments. CoD appeared to have the same graphics engine, but they added back in more of the role playing elements, and it appeared to have more Symphony of the Night type attributes, so I thought it would be a step up (if a small one) from LoI.

Alas, I was wrong. I almost bought this game at full price, but decided to rent it instead. I'm very glad I did. This game is, in my opinion, worse than LoI and not fun to play at all. Everything comes off as dull and uninspired. Yeah, you power up with experience, but that alone doesn't make it much more interesting. The Innocent Devils are a novel idea but just don't come off as being that fun (even developing them isn't interesting), and the ability to create your own weapons and armor from items you find, which seemed very cool when I heard about it...just isn't that interesting I'm afraid. Sure, there are a ton of weapons, but most of them are useless, and rarely do you get a weapon that makes you feel like you've really gained an advantage. The stealing ability is just tedious.

And the camera...oi, I hate it. It is hard to control and poorly positioned almost always when you let it go on its own. At first I was excited to hear you could control the camera (the static one in LoI got on my nerves) but it actually made it worse. It is very detrimental to combat and gets confused very easily when action really heats up. Plus, you can't look up, only side to side. This really annoyed me as well. If I'm given camera control, I want to be able to look in ALL DIRECTIONS!

Overall, I'm sad to say I think this is a VERY poorly designed game, and the worst part of all is the level design. Huge, expansive, flat, and boring as hell. Uninteresting tunnels stretch on and on as you slowly have to run down them and maybe 'yaawn' occasionally battle a few skeletons and 'yaaaaawn' and then you walk through a door to another tunnel exactly 'yaaaaaaawn' like the last. How can they even call this Castlevania!? There is NO platforming (even less than what meager bit there was in LoI), Hector runs infuriatingly slow, monsters are sparse, a pain to battle in most cases, repetitive, and just plain uninteresting, and the environments are just so bland and generic! The environments are even less interesting than LoI. And I don't care what anyone says, the music in this game ISN'T THAT GOOD!

I didn't even feel like I was playing a Castlevania game. Indeed, it is Castlevania in name only. Beyond the name, it's just an inferior Devil May Cry clone. As a hardcore Castlevania fan, I hate to bash it this way, but it's sadly true. There are hardly any ties to or trademarks of the series. It was cool seeing Trevor, but that's about it. I have finally given up on this series, unless they release a true 2D Castlevania for a console again (why, oh why can't you just do it!? With modern graphics a 2D Castlevania would be a smash, and I don't understand why they can't see this).

Yeah, I know, I'm just wishing on stars. Castlevania fan or not, rent this one, don't buy it.

Still a Great Game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: December 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

After playing this game for more than a year, it is still one of the best for the PS2 in my opinion. The price has now dropped quite a bit, also.

Many people tagged this game as being "mediocre" or "boring". That would be true for the average gamer who runs through a game expecting cut-scenes every 5 minutes. That isn't the case with this game. If you ask me, Castlevania has never really been about story. It's about awesome soundtracks, killing monsters, and finding hidden items in unexpected places. This game follows the traditional nature of its series.

If you're a person who hungers for variety with each sequel, you won't get it with Castlevania. Each game is fairly similar, and the monsters and weapons are usually the same. This game gives you a lot to find and experiment with: items, weapons, IDs, attacks, etc. You can create new weapons and armor by combining items you find, which adds to the overall interest of the game.

In my opinion, this game was made for the typical Castlevania fan; it isn't really a game for everyone. Depending on what kind of person you are, you will either love this game, or you'll hate it to death.

To me, it's a work of art--> Some people get it, some people don't. If you're not really sure, rent it first, then buy it if you like it.

The best 3D Castlevania, ever!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 7
Date: December 10, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Castlevania is a vampire hunting game series that has spanned over 20 games in almost as many years on over a dozen game systems. It is the longest running action/adventure series neck and neck with The Legend of Zelda. Through the years the games have had their ups and downs but it's mostly been up, and considering that the series has traveled thru half a dozen developers that's quite an exceptional record. One of the most highly acclaimed "ups" was for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for the original Playstation. So highly regarded was that game (and even some others in the series) people tend forget the flaws in the game, thusly expecting it's highlights to be the general standard at which future Castlevania games should be all the way through. This was never more evident than when the director of Symphony Koji "IGA" Igarashi was promoted to Castlevania series producer in 2001. Expectations were impossibly high for the future of the series, and there was no way fans (including myself) would ever be appeased.

Two years ago Lament of Innocence made it's PS2 debut to mixed reactions. While most praised the music and atmosphere, the extremely repeditive level designs and lack of gameplay depth were blemishes that could not be ignored. Many fans still hail Lament as a bold and important step for Castlevania, but since the overall feel of the game screamed unfinished, those fans reside in the minority... enter Curse of Darkness.

Curse of Darkness like Lament begins with a seemingly simple and familiar story, but with an important twist or two in the middle that keeps the narrative fresh. It may not have the heart wrenching turn of the tide that Lament did, but the dialogue is exceptional in both Japanese and English.

The story goes, three years after Trevor and his friends defeated Dracula, (see Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse for the NES) a former devil forgemaster of Dracula (named Hector) whom had turned against his leader when Dracula began to harm humans, is lead back to the Castlevania ruins after another devil forgemaster named Issac, whom had Hector's finacee' burned at the stake for suspicion of witchcraft. Supposedly Issac blames Hector for Dracula's destruction, so in the most dire act of revenge he helped kill Hector's woman much in the same way that Dracula's love Lisa was killed some years prior. But nothing is as it seems, and the various characters whom should be your ally are enemies and allies may not be friends at all. The Curse of Darkness is clouding the truth.

The first thing you'll notice when you begin playing is how large the game is... the areas are huge! Normally this wouldn't be a problem for most developers with an enormous budget, but Konami seems to hold the reigns in on their classic series like Castlevania and Contra. As a result the level design seems to have a rushed feeling to them. There is certainly much more variety than there was in the previous game thankfully, just not enough in the way of enemies and landscape variety (whatever happened to bottomless pits?). Even with the somewhat helpful directional arrows and map, you WILL get lost many times. In this day and age when levels are designed huge with minimal loading time, the rooms of Curse of Darkness (PS2) have to load on an average of every other door for 2-3 seconds. This could have been eliminated by either the shinking and consolidating of the more interesting areas, or by a major reduction of the number of doors and doorways so that the levels continue without fading to black. Luckily the Xbox version has virtually no load time at all.

Fortunately, that is the only major criticism I have for this game. Everything else has been largely enhanced from when we last left Dracula. Much of this game has that nostalgic Castlevania feel. When running through hallways you will recognise the backgrounds, there is a waterway straight out of Castlevania 3, a highly impressive cathedral hints back to several games, a town full of zombies brings fond memories of Simon's Quest, and of course the all but required clock tower and Dracula's dwelling after a long staircase. Also the camera is less problematic with full control being at your fingers. And of course many enemies from previous games rear their head to cause more trouble. This is important because there is no video game series around that even comes close to the ambiance that Castlevania delivers. Truly gothic in the architectural sense and in a class of it's own. With brilliant characters by Ayami Kojima and exceptional music by Michiru Yamane, the mood of Castlevania is largely what draws so many fans to it (and what lead so many developers to copy it for games like Ninja Gaiden, Ghosts and Goblins and Devil May Cry).

While Lament had an interesting but often overpowered combo system, Curse introduces a new combat system that both draws in new players as well as challenges veterans. So instead of ridiculous button mashing and memorizing of lengthy combos there is but one attack button, however the brilliance of this system is that depending on how many times the attack button is pressed a second finisher button will create a different effect. So if you're weilding a spear and the enemies are surrounding you, press attack three times and then the finisher and you will spin the spear around you knocking most enemies away. However if you feel the need to launch one enemy in the air press attack twice and then finish once and the enemy will pop up and be open for arial attacks. With such an easy yet strategic interface, it is difficult to see why other games did not incorporate such a handy control scheme before. And since you have several different kinds of weapons to choose from, the gameplay variety has opened up tremendously.

Speaking of weapons, no longer will you need to scour the entire castle to find that special weapon, armor or item. Now with items that baddies drop (and other that you can steal) you will be allowed to create your own, with dozens and dozens to choose from. Some are hand weapons for up close and fast martial arts, some are swords for the more traditional player, and still others are powerful but heavy axes. And depending on what weapons you use, will determine how your familiar evolves.

Returning from Symphony are familiar side-kicks, (helpful monster friends always by your side) but now known as innocent devils (or IDs) they can now grown and change into more powerful creatures with different abilites. Some will carry you over chasms yet shoot a barrage of needles at foes, others will open new doors yet offer you strong protection from enemy attacks. As you play thru the game the IDs will lay even more powerful ID "eggs" that can be stored with a shopkeeper until you wish to use them to become even stronger as both you and your ID level up.

With recent 2D incarnations still borrowing heavily from Symphony and Aria of Sorrow for Gameboy Advance, the series 3D outings like Curse of Darkness are a breath of fresh air to this veteran. I've been fighting Dracula and his minions ever since I first put a quarter into Vs. Castlevania the arcade game almost 20 years ago, and to see major improvements and enhancements in the series does my heart good. I know I'm in the minority, but to me Dawn of Sorrow for Nintendo DS doesn't really add a lot to the Castlevania table. And while I have nothing against 2D... I strongly reccomend to producer IGA and his team to revisit and re-release the classic, out of print and never released in the USA games to rediscover what made them so great before their 2D games start showing their age!!!

But until we see a Castlevania Collection, (or perhaps even the long sought after Chi no Rondo from the Japanese PC Engine console) the greatest strides in Castlevania are definately made in 3-Dimensions. If you think Devil May Cry is a bit trendy and are looking for something that doesn't insist that you slam a Mountain Dew while skydiving to sub-standard "extreme" Nu-rock music... Castlevania Curse of Darkness has all of the action you need with none of the post-Matrix BS. Zombies and skeletons should never be kung-fu masters that take several minutes to outwit, and Castlevania needs weak enemies as much as strong ones.

Concept: 10
Graphics and Art Design: 9
Gameplay and Control: 9.5
Music and Sound: 10
Fun: 10
Replay Value: 10

Total Score (not an average): 10/10 (5 stars = DON'T MISS THIS!)

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