The greatest challenge facing the reviewer of Castlevania: Lament of Innocence is not to compare it too closely to Devil May Cry or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Although Konami makes sure to state on the box that the makers of LAMENT are the same as those who made the “critically acclaimed” SYMPHONY, all games deserve to be judged on their own merit. So, let’s see how well we do.
The name of “Castlevania” represents one of the most prestigious franchises in gaming. Konami’s crown jewel, the series of games always has something to do with some Belmont or another’s everlasting fight against the ever-resurrecting king of vampires. The appeal of LAMENT, besides the fact that it is the series’ first debut in the next-generation, is that faithful gamers of the series will get to see how it all started.
Perhaps the first point against this game is the fact that such a great historical franchise doesn’t really have a grand opening story. Old-school gamers surely remember that the conflict of almost every early videogame had to do with the bad guy stealing the hero’s girl. Despite Konami’s attempt to beautify the cliché by adding useless medieval details, it’s something that we’ve all seen before. Sadly, the story never does get original.
Nevertheless, we all like to see a Belmont running furiously into the evil castle, and so the game begins. And at that very beginning, the first and most persistently annoying problem of the game strikes: the horrible camera. Oh no, it’s nothing so bad as zooming into walls, unsteady shaking, or getting stuck in corners. The bottom line is that one simply cannot see what Leon Belmont most obviously sees.
If the developers of a game won’t allow the player to control the camera, then at least have the camera show where one is going. Capcom seems to have reduced the curse of the locked camera to the point where it can be forgotten; in LAMENT, this problem resurfaces over and over. There are too many instances where Leon has to walk blindly into a room and right into an attack. Leon has to jump INTO a trap to figure out what it is, and such blindness doesn’t help when one has to change directions when the camera suddenly decides to turn an angle.
The gripe concerning the camera can’t be over emphasized; the game would have been so much better if one can either control the camera or if it was simply more user friendly. This reviewer always tries to find the reasons behind why developers do what they do; the only two that come to mind are 1. that the developers got a bit lazy or 2. this is an attempt to make the game more difficult. If it is the second, then developers should know by now that a game’s difficulty should come from obstacles that can be overcome with skill and practice, not uncontrollable factors that simply make a game unfair.
There is another LAMENT difficulty that is arguably in the category of something that can be overcome with practice, so it’s fair game. It has to do with the game’s odd rules for item usage. One MUST equip, use, switch, and combine items in real time. The fact that the items are viewable after pausing the game with the START button means nothing. Almost every other game on the planet allows the player to use items after pressing start, but not this one. This fact is a major difficulty point when engaged with tough foes and one has to use items or get slaughtered. Perhaps if one button on the PS2 controller led to healing items, one to relics, and one to something else, then it might have been easier. However, opening up the “real time window” leads to categories of items that quite often have to be flipped like pages to access. This is while blood-red skeletons, ogres with eye-beams, and hell dogs are all chasing and attacking.
“Hey, it’s realistic,” say some. “In a real fight, you can’t press a universal start button to freeze time and adjust yourself.” Well then, are vampires realistic? Are there potions that instantly heal wounds for sale in your local pharmacy? Can a man double jump in the air? Can someone be turned to stone and just shake out of it after a while? It’s a videogame; allow the gamer to pause and use items, or at least make a item usage system that doesn’t fumble around like a junior high school running back.
Now, besides the poor camera and the flipping items, LAMENT is actually a decent game. Leon’s attacks are very fun to pull off, even if his control isn’t the tightest (there are times when he’ll be attacking and just won’t stop when desired). He’ll eventually pick up more moves along the way, though plenty of them just don’t seem to have the effect that one might wish for. For instance, Leon can used his whip to sometimes knock an enemy into the air; too bad there happen to be few enemies that can actually be sent into the air without dying first. The really tough ones that might have been fun for an air combo are either already floating in the air or are too heavy.
Yet Leon has other effective ways to attack, focusing around his use of sub-weapons. Sub-weapons in Castlevania are no new thing, but they are deepened this time around by interesting moderation one can make with certain orbs that can be picked up as the game advances. At first, it seems like all 5 of the sub-weapons will have 7 new, original variations a piece. However, all five of the sub-weapons seem to moderate and advance in ways that eventually make them identical to one another. In an area where true innovation and deepness could have been shown, all we’re left with is 5 sub-weapons that end up attacking the enemies in the same way.
The enemies themselves don’t represent the most interesting of bestiaries, either. While they are clear and well drawn, nothing comes along that might create excitement. Even the bosses seem to be borrowed from other videogames, especially the dismantled rock-ogre that had an identical intro in Vagrant Story. Players of SYMPHONY might enjoy the 3D translation of Alucard’s old punching bags, like the ever annoying flea-man, however.
Leon will meet these foes in a rather huge, depressing looking castle. Sure, evil castles aren’t supposed to be cheery, but there are too many rooms that just look the same. It’s like Konami made 90% of the rooms from one base model and just changed the trimmings. The Castlevania tradition of destructible lamp posts continue, yet no matter where you go in the castle, the same exact ugly gray model pops up.
In a game that has “only above average” written all over it, this statement holds true for the overall graphics. Leon’s hair looks like a solid ceramic plaster; even the developers of an early game like Kessen took the time to blow a few strands around. There is nothing horrible with what the camera allows one to see, yet there is also nothing spectacular. Leon’s special attacks won’t make any experienced gamer say “WOW! Did you see that?” The movie sequences could have been tidied up a bit, and no offense to Leon’s beloved, but her face looks boxy and ugly.
At least the voice acting is an improvement upon past Castlevania performances. Both the Japanese and English voice-overs are nice, and Leon sounds very cool when screaming his attacks. The music, while not as originally beautiful or authentic sounding as the tracks in SYMPHONY, is most certainly of good quality.
This game is dedicated to those who love Devil May Cry and the Castlevania franchises. Heck, there are plenty of such people out there, so the game will sell well. However, it isn’t “the most enriching Castlevania experience ever” as Konami brags. Castlevania: Lament of Innocence is most certainly not the franchise installment that beats the legend of Symphony of the Night.
