User Reviews (1 - 7 of 7)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Another three-dimensional Castlevania that falls flat

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 16 / 19
Date: November 15, 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. Here's something this series has never seen before. 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.

One of the best Xbox games

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: December 20, 2005
Author: Amazon User

As someone who enjoyed previous Castleavania games going back to the early Nintendo systems, I did find this new incarnation to be somewhat different than the 2D games of old. But I still liked it a lot. Basically this game has been my main preoccupation for the last 2 weeks or so. I'd rank it as one of the top 5 Xbox games I've ever played (out of 50 or so) in terms of sheer fun level. Primarily I liked the fact that as you gain new items & skills, you can go back to previously explored areas and new areas will open up. This "expanding universe" aspect makes it similar to the Super Metroid games and a little like some of the Zelda titles for Gamecube. I also found the "Combine" system (of seeking out materials to create new weapons and armor) to be very engrossing, and I liked the various ways to obtain those materials - steal from monsters, seek out hidden rooms, etc.

The graphics and sound FX are well below the "all-time great" level of games like Halo 1 or 2, but they're perfectly servicable, ranging from very good to excellent. I thought the spooky ambiance of the various castle hallways, dungeons, etc., was actually captured rather well.

Although I did completely get into the process of exploring the various worlds of this game (especially with the help of some online FAQ references!), I will concede a few drawbacks. The currency's uses are fairly limited. There's only one shop, and the things you most want or need cannot be bought there. And in the later stages of the game, you accumulate a lot of excess cash that can't be used for anything. Also, the process of levelling-up your character and his "I.D." (innocent devil) companions definitely got rather repetitive and a little boring after awhile. Those are minor drawbacks, however. Overall, this is a great game!

The Curse of 3D Castlevania games!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 4
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 B 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 Darkness(Who needs Belmont?)

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: October 22, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Castlevania as a whole started with one thing in mind. . . kill the vampire plaquing the land. The same can be said about Castlevania: Curse of Darkness. You play as Hector, a devilforge master. What's a Devil Forge master you ask? A person with the ablity to create monsters/and or weapons. Devil forge masters in this game have the same amount of power as Dracula's right hand man, Death. Huge 3D like invorments(like from LOI), wild monsters, gorgeous graphics, and a suporior sound track help Hector along the way to get revenge for the love of his life Rosaly. As far as story line time, this happens a little after Castlevania 3: Dracula's curse. So in other words, you old school guys(like me) will enjoy seeing what happeded after Castlevania 3. Pick it up today, you will NOT BE SORRY. Oh yea did I mention, that you get to play as Trevor Belmont? Oh I didn't, good luck, and make Dracula pay!!!

True To Your Dreams

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: January 18, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Castlevania Curse of Darkness is a true gem, among xbox games. I think, it was more designed to be a bridge for a game that's coming out in the future, that be two player (Probably xbox360 or Play station 3). So they have get you (the gamers) used to someone other Trevor Belmont. One Dracula Is NOT DEAD. He get's reborn, he needs one of the devil forger masters to get reborn. So its either Hector or Isaac who has to die to bring forth Dracula. So since your Hector and that leaves only Isaac who becomes Dracula. (Dracula is mad at Hector for running off during the big battle, thus blaming him for his down fall to Trevor Belmont.) But here only point in the whole game that gets me Hector is way up in the army of evil and he has a change of heart just because Dracula wants to kill every human who wants them destroyed. That part brothers me but who cares its fun game anyway hacking and slashing all the creatures of the dark. So its like a complexed stories line. But along the way you don't know what's what's. It come to you in the movies and not all what you see is what is. Like in the beginning you meet Zead and Saint Germain. Now Zead wants to help you on your quest and Saint Germain wants to try and stop you. They both hate each other, Zead seems so nice and Germain like a total pain. Why not any help that helps you average the death of your wife to the town people who bur her as a witch sounds good. You have to fight Saint Germain latter, and to tell you the truth he is hard, he pulls out a gun try's to shoot you, when he near death. Latter you find out Zead is Death "the Grimm Reaper"., after you fight Isaac and Zead takes Isaac and turns him into Lord Dracula, for the final fight. When you beat Dracula you seen the ending. Now everyone says this game is to short. When actual its two games you can play as Trevor Belmont and its totally different then playing as Hector, as game play is concern more classical Castlevania from the NES and SNES days. So if you don't like the devils and want a more classical game try beating it once and play as Trevor. But you also find out in the ending from Saint Germain there will be another finial battle (hint another game of Castlevania in the works). So honestly the game play is cool, the battles are fun and if you play long enough you can truly enjoy this game and its plot twists. It took me 30 hours to beat it, with hector and I'm finish play it with Trevor Belmont, but can say its good. I cant campare this to the play station games my last Castlevania was Castlevania X for SNES. It reminds me a lot of that game the stages do, but these are more in detail and more fun 3d. One more then there is a love stories at the end, yes I know not what you where expecting, between Hector and Julia Laforeze. Doesn't it melt your heart. Yes Isaac sister and the hero. How ironic. There hidden stages more bosses after you beat it and its truly a gem among xbox games. Some will be mad cause I wrote this but the cheesy plot line about Dracula being death and fighting for so long to beat this game figure ill just go ahead and tell it. Its great game.

Great game.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: March 14, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is great fun but why has one of the moronic reviewers decided to tell everyone the plot of the game.
IDIOT!!!!!!

Freaking Amazing

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 02, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game's combat system makes the Castlevania series worth playing again. Since Symphony of the Night I've been yearning for something and this game was my answer. It is simply incredible. A must have for all Castlevania fans!

Review Page: 1 

Actions