Castlevania: Lament of Innocence

This is probably the weirdest misstep I've ever seen in a franchise... Like I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that IGA was heading this game. What the fuck happened here?

First of all I'm kinda glad they switched it up after 3 Metroidvania titles in a row. Aria of Sorrow was already kinda saying goodbye to the original aesthetic of the franchise so I was surprised they leaned into it a 100% here. This is as goth is it can get and it sometimes rivals Bloodborne in how much "religious" imagery they can fit into the environments. Like this game looks amazing. t's eerie it's wet t's gothic it's just sick and feels like Castlevania again. But then we get to the gameplay...

I'm not gonna go into the story as it isn't really that important to the whole game but I'm just gonna say it's fine and doesn't really bother you. Some of the cutscenes feel overly long but it's ok. Once you fucking start playing this game you slowly realize what this is. And it creeps up to you slowly. At first this game introduces this really elaborate map and all these different item slots and such and such. So you end up believing they are going to do something with that but no. It's just there left alone like a dead skeleton of a system. There's more Item slots than items you can find in this dumbass game lol. Obviously I'm exaggerating but it's a weird tease.

So there are all these crazy looking systems and then there is the combat which falls flat beyond human comprehension. There's light and heavy attacks... I guess? And all you have to do is mash those buttons to kill the enemies. So it plays like the dumbest spectacle fighter imaginable. Devil May Cry - Ret'rded Edition. You stunlock every enemy to death anyways and your block effortlessly blocks every attack lol. This is so mind-numbingly pointless that it hurts. The only thing causing a slight trouble are the bosses which are just a matter of dodging and attacking at the right time. So to keep this short... You're basically just spending your time in order to advance there's no challenge there are barely any rewards as all you find are some boring stat upgrades and worthless items which are rare to begin with.

You navigate the map and there's little to no thinking involved in finishing the 5 levels. You can tackle them in any order but this system makes all of the levels have the same difficulty which is insanely disappointing. And here's the biggest flaw of the game... You gain nothing (!!!) from killing the enemies. So you could potentially just walk past all of them if they wouldn't' block the doors until the room is cleared. Once you cleared a room the enemies respawn but the block doesn't soooo... you just end up ignoring all the enemies when backtracking and trust me you backtrack a lot. The level design is horrendous.

Ok so let's wrap this up here... This game has potential. The system could be made nteresting. Improve combat by making the block more viable. and necessary. Make klling enemies level up your character and just sequence the levels... Make me collect more varied items. Design levels that aren't mindless hallways of despair. All of these things should've been noticed when testing the game. Seems like it was rushed or IGA didn't give a single shit. Unbelievable how a veteran like him can make such a depressing little grind of a game. Btw the last boss was actually kinda fun so at least it didn't leave a sour taste on my mouth but I'll never recommend this heap of trash to anyone... Let's see what the next game brings-

So this was the first Castlevania game on the 6th generation (PS2 exclusive) and for this one the Konami developers decided to re-invent the series again, this time trying to expand more on the formula that Castlevania 64 introduced to the series (just way less awful) while retaining the essence adopted in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night [悪魔城ドラキュラX 月下の夜想曲]. At the same time, it could also be labeled as the predecessor to the 2010 entry Castlevania: Lords of Shadow due to it being in 3-D and that it took influences from another more "action-based" franchise: Devil May Cry [デビル メイ クライ].

The game can be labelled as a hack and slash, meaning that there is a big emphasis on using combo attacks like in DMC though in a way less complex manner; as a whole I'd say the combat is fun and fluid enough, though the lack of a lock-on system can make things a tad more difficult than they should.

There's a total of 7 maps, all of them much more linear in comparison to the prior metroidvania-style entries, but still including exploration to a lesser degree so you can get a hold of upgrades, accessories and keys. The thing is that the level design ends up becoming repetitive after a while: a big room followed by a corridor that leads to another big room that leads to another corridor and so on. All 7 maps finish in a boss fight; none of them were great but none struck me as being particularly bad, though the last ones are definitely quite difficult (you'll see why).

The story isn't bad, just kinda cliché. We play as Leon Belmont, the first Belmont to declare war against the creatures of the night. Surprisingly, this time we don't have our boy Dracula as the antagonist; instead it's some redhead vampire named Walter (who?). Anyway, this guy kidnapped your girl and now you gotta save her, u know, classic stuff. The character models are well made for 2003 though Leon's model looks kinda weird, his face is a little to smooth, he looks like a child with the body of a 25 year old man. The voice acting is mostly serviceable though some actors overact a little and the dialogue is quite unintentionally funny sometimes (very japanese).

The atmosphere is great; it feels like a Castlevania game through and through, the artistic design and the music (although a little darker in tone) exude that epic gothic aesthetic that has become a staple of the series by now.

The overall lenght of the game is pretty average. It took me about 6 hours to complete which, after spending about like 10+ hours on SOTN and Aria of Sorrow, feels short in comparison.

I was personally satisfied with Castlevania: Lament of Innocense and, though I didn't fell in love with it, I can say for certain that I had a good time playing through it. It's rough around the edges but, overall, serves for a quite enjoyable -if somewhat unmemorable- experience.