Castlevania: Curse of Darkness, Curse of 3D Castlevania
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, you can get it for about 8 to 10 bucks. 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.