Since the only console i own myself is a NDSL (if not counting the laptop), I would mainly review DS games. If i write articles about games in other systems without saying in prior of me obtaining a new console it would mostly suggests i did not play the game and only get the impression of the game itself via lots of hours watching others play it (most likely be either Dusk/Horhe or via 4pp). Okay that's not the main point.
In this article the game i will review is the new castlevania game. Now, i'd never played any other castlevania game before so i could not possible compare it with the previous ones in the series, and will only judge it on the sole basis of an independent game. However i would make several references to the franchise in this article.
Since this game adopts the name castlevania, one word comes to mind: Dracula. Yes. The story continues the same trail of story of a warrior destined to kill dracula the biggest baddass of them all. What's different about this game than the previous ones is that, instead of a whip-welding mullet, you control a witch, and a very moe one she is. (Silly me, that's my anime side creeping out). But i had to mention that she does have sexy thighs and a beautiful back.
At the start of the game, the conversation sequence brings out the main story backbone. You are a witch, with special powers to absorb those Glyph which can bring out magical abilities to help you when dealing with monsters. Those can be in the form of a sword, rapier, lightning, or even help you become magnetic to move around places unreachable by jump along. Though apparently your friend Albus doesn't like it, and decided to be the pain in the ass by taking away the ultimate weapons that you were supposed to used to fight Dracula. After that you chase him down, got the weapons back, discover a major conspiracy, and go on to fight the boss in his castle. The story is very standard and simple, kind of expected from a hand held action game. It allows you to focus on the gameplay even more, which is a good thing since this game has got a lot of interesting gameplay elements.
In this game, Shanoa can utilise the Glyph when in combat. There are approximately 80 different weapons that you can use, and the system allows you to allocate two weapons (whether same or different) to enable rapid fire action between the two buttons. It would be stupid to just having one button assigned as there's always a cool down time for each weapon. Every usage of the Glyph requires magic power, however since magic replenishes at a reasonable speed it would only take a 3 second break before the whole meter fills up again, and most people I know pretty much don't have a problem with running out of mana. Each Glyph has its own attribute, and different enemy got its own weaknesses and resistances. The game is kind enough to give you a pokedex-like device upon the encounter of the enemy to give you a basic information to the enemy like its health, the amount of exp you can gain and its weaknesses and resistances. This mechanism helped me a lot during the game, and i can always change the Glyph whenever i want. You absorb new Glyphs from enemies and some set locations. All the absorption takes time, and could leave you vulnerable to forced character movements and enemy attacks.
The graphic in this game is pretty decent for a NDS game. It still got the vibe of the old castlevania games with its bleakness on the background. Having said that, the visual is quite colourful with each different dungeons got it's own theme colour, and i quite like the art style of the characters. The overall impression is above decent, but not entirely breathe taking. One small problem i had with it is that Shanoa got that ugly back outline surrounded her. I know it helps with identifying the whereabout of the character on the screen, but since none of the enemy had that problem I wonders why didn't the design team put in more effort on anti-aliasing........
In term of music, I can't really comment much as I normally don't notice what's coming through my earphone much. Each dungeons got a looping background theme, but some of it got reused in other dungeons. Shanoa got it's voice overs when using Glyph (and when getting hit and when dying), same with other two human characters. The sound effects in general is pretty alright as i don't have problem with it throughout gameplay, the same can be said about the background music in general.
All the dungeons and the monster locations are fixed, along with the pokedex thingy i'd said earlier, makes this game very easy to find maps online. Some of the enemy can be quite a pain in the ass the first time you meet them. At few stages i find myself grinding a bit just to get over a new type of enemy, but that's before i realise their weakness. The map is generally not difficult to navigate, bar one instance where you would have to land on the very edge of the slope to maximise the absorption time of a particular Glyph. The top screen of the DS gives you the map of the dungeon as you progress, which is a very great help. There are save points and portals in the dungeon. You can refill health bar at the save point, and there's usually a portal at the beginning of the dungeon for easier transportation once you found other portal points in the dungeon itself.
The villager system is also very interesting. You saved the kidnapped villagers at the first part of the game. Everyone you saved either gives you shop systems, quests, or even the ability to buy new items. Some of the quests just want you to collect drop items from the monsters, while some others require you to take snapshot pictures of some particular locations. The number of villagers you saves also determines the ending of the game. I wasn't aware of this mechanism and got into the bad end on my first go. Therefore it requires you to explore every corner of the map carefully, and this can be done with the mapping system on the top screen.
After you finish the game once, several modes were unlocked. There's the music mode which is like the jukebox. It enables you to listen to all the audio tracks in the game, including the voice overs (both English and the Japanese version) of the characters. I had to admit that I had a bit of fun listening to shanoa's voices.....There's also the hard mode, and Albus mode. In Albus mode it allows you to control Albus instead of Shanoa. If Shanoa is an defensive player than Albus is all out attack sort of character. There's no menu when controlling Albus, which also means no potion and get-out-of-jail card if health bar is too low. To compensate that Albus got a variety of powerful attacks at his disposal. Boss fight is normally easier when controlling Albus as not many opposition can withstand a shower of bombardment from him. And in the hard mode you continue the Shanoa you controlled, you keep all your items and Glyphs except some scenario ones.
One thing i particularly did not like about this game is the farming system. Like I'd said, some of the quests want you to collect drop items, however some of the items are so far to harvest it's pretty much non-existance to me. Seriously, I'd been killing the same kind of enemy more than 500 times with all my luck-boosting, and drop rate boosting items on, and still got no result. Another thing that it needs to improve on is the amount of game time for 1 round of play. Some of the dungeon are just way too short. Though with the hard-mode and the albus mode, this game still feel a bit incomplete.
Overall I am satisfied with this game. Though not as epic as i would've liked it to be, but it's still a good 2D action adventure RPG game. A good way to kill off some time, and could be a major investment in game. Definitely on my list of must-have for a DS.
8.5/10
