Topic: An Extremely Detailed Review of Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

[Ridureyu]

I intend to ultimately discuss all of the Metroidvanias.  More realistically, I intend to look at the three DS titles.  If I fizzle I'm sorry. I'll try not to fail, though. but ANYWAY - this is a detailed examination of Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, and specific ways in which it succeeds or fails.  Understand that, overall, I like the game.  In fact, I really liked all three DS Castlevanias.  I will be harsh about certain details in all three of them, loikely moreso because I enjoy the three games, and their failures stand out a lot in contrast with their successes.  I also might compliment a few things that people would not expect, but that;s the nature of an opinion.  And now, onward!

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is a direct sequel to Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow.  Slightly moreso than other direct sequels in this series (Simon's Quest, Belmont's Revenge, Symphony of the Night), Dawn really needs the context of its previous game, Aria of Sorrow.  Much of Aria's plot revolved around a specific twist (Spoilers: Soma is Dracula), and Dawn builds on some of the ramifications of that.  The game more-or-less stands on its own right, but a lot of the dramatic impact of Soma's character is lost without the context of the first game in this sub-series.  I will describe this game under the assumption that the reader/player is familiar with Aria of Sorrow.  This gives Dawn a little more slack, and besides, keeping Soma's identity a secret would have hurt the narrative a bit.


PLOT AND THEMES

As previously mentioned, the basic storyline of Dawn of Sorrow builds directly off Aria of Sorrow - Soma has learned that he's Dracula's reincarnation, defeated the forces of Chaos, and sealed the old castle away for (probably) eternity.  he then lost his power of dominance, and is living a completely normal life as a high school student.  You know, with no parents and a group of friends that kill zombies for a living.  And then one day he runs afoul of a strange Dracula-worshipping cult.  The basic ethos of said cult is "For God to be good, there needs to be evil," with "evil" defined as Dracula.  And thus, they want to either awaken Soma's latent evil power, or find another Dark Lord candidate to become the new Dracula.  Just as Graham Jones had the potential of becoming the new Dark Lord, therefore so do these other candidates.  To mkae a long story short, the cult has a gigantic Castlevania-esque fortress, there are a lot of fights, Soma trounces the two candidates, and one of them overreaches, accidentally creating a gigantic amalgamated demon to fight.  Character relationships are, for the most part, the same as at the end of Aria - Yoko and Julius are pretty close but not a couple, Hammer crushes on Yoko, Mina exists only as a plot point, and Soma is a pretty nice kid who can turn evil and violent in a flash.  Genya "Alucard" Arikado's identity is made a lot more explicit, in case players didn't pick up on it the first time.  That was the overview, now let's look at its themes.

The first theme I would like to point out is the whole "For God to be good, there needs to be a devil" business.  This is so overused that it's really become a joke.  It's actually kind of a corruption of a more-or-less Christian philosophy of, "Creation exists to glorify God.  God is glorified when His attributes are demonstrated.  In order for His attributes of forgiveness, wrath, justice, and mercy to be demonstrated, there must be evil."  But that's a mouthful and forces people to confront ethically complex ideas.  It's a lot easier to condense it to a single sentence, although that raises another question:

Which is the original "default" state of the universe? Good or evil?  If "Good" is the default, thene vil is not needed to produce good, as evil is now defined as a corruption of good, and thus evil cannot exist without good.  But if "Evil" is the natural state, then good is the perversion, and thus defines itself according to evil.  Therefore, one way to interpret "For God to be good, there must be evil" is, "The universe is by default evil, and good defines itself as something different from that."  That's surprisingly pessimistic, even for Castlevania.

Of course, it could mean a third option - "The universe in its default state is not moral, possessing neither good nor evil.  Good and evil thus define themselves purely by their opposites."  This is likely what the game is getting at, but even THEN, it runs into plenty of problems.  If good defines evil and evil defines good, which definition came first?  What concrete set of ethics defines good or evil so that it can define the other?  If "neutral" is the natural state, then how do we make the jump to good or evil?

But you know, they really didn't intend for people to look at it that deeply.  It's meant to be a throwaway justification, not a deep philosophical treatise.  In fact, the cult's motivation could have been anything - "They worship Dracula" or, if you want to keep their "trying to be good/knight templar" idea, then make it "In order for good to stop being lazy, they need Dracula to stir shit up."  There you go.  You're not basing your game on a heavily-cliche overdone piece of pop philosophy!  Yes, they tried to portray Celia as an essentially moral person who thought what she was doing was necessary for the greater good, but the game really doesn't explore this at all outside of maybe two sentences.  Celia Fortner as a character is flat enough that really, her plans could have been anything.  [Shaft feels better-developed than Celia, and his motivations are entirely "I like being bad, tee hee!"  But we'll return to individual characters soon.  Right now we're still pretending to be intellectual.

Castlevania is not a heavily-philosophical series (usually), and that's kind of okay.  When it does touch on things, it's usually more of a basic "how should you respond to grief?" or "Would you be willing to sacrifice your life for the greater good," "Should you continue to be a good person even when there are zombies?" Although this does bring up another odd issue about Dawn of Sorrow's themes - the near-complete absence of Christianity.

Castlevania has alwyas latched onto (vaguely) Christian themes.  Now, I need to make this clear.  I do not mean that it's thoroughly Christian, or specifically Roman Catholic(although "the church" gets plenty of nods), or Southern Baptist, or Eastern Orthodox, or whatever.  It keeps things very vague and general and non-offensive, but has always maintained that basic religious tie.  Crosses hurt vampires because they are holy.  Crosses are holy because of Jesus.  Cursing God will turn you into a vampire.  The "Church" is a force of good (although we nevger see specifically-Catholic theology apart from "oh look, a statue of Mary!").  Kali and Agni, ancient Hindu gods, are actually monstrous demons.  You know, things like that.  Now of course, we get plenty of reference to "good" non-Christian gods, which is kinda silly, but Castlevania is not trying to be deep as a general rule.  When it comes to loosely identifying itself with Christianity, take a look at Lament of Innocence.  The hero is a crusader (conveniently of the "defend God's people from evil" type, not the "kill Saracens for their land" type) who throws giant exploding crosses to defeat the villain, who cursed God and became a monster.  Leon and Mathias's final conversation is full of "I hate God!" "No, I trust God!" "Rarrrrgh!" "I have a holy whip!"  Sure, we won't see any debates over the nature of baptism, predestination vs. free will (all those prophecies imply predestination, anyway), or even specific Bible references (Dracula's Matthew quote notwithstanding).  But basically, when you think of Castlevania, you need to think of it this way:

Castlevania is "Christian" in the same way that most martial arts movies are "Buddhist."  The religion is generically and inoffensively promoted, although with zero grasp of its actual tenets.  Just as how most kung-fu movies present Buddhism as "Stay calm when cracking skulls," Castlevania presents Christianity as "God is good. Now go set a zombie on fire."  It's not the religious right at all, but the series is tied to a western religion.  Loosely, sure, but it's there.

Dawn (and Aria) of Sorrow pretty much forgets this.  I understand that Soma probably won't be tossing crosses around if they hurt him, but what about everything else?  The setting seems to have been tossed thoroughly into Generic Animeland, and this is kind of odd.  Plenty of Castlevania games have had anime stylings before (Rondo of Blood even had some loli bits!), but the Sorrow games are the first ones to really transplant the whole thing over.  Mina Hakuba (are you SURE that's not Harker?) is a teenage Shinto priestess.  Because, y'know, the Catholic Church turned to Shinto priests to help defeat Satan's big general. The Belnades is named Yoko.  Because her parents were Beatles fans, I guess.  Soma Cruz is a generic Japanese high school student despite not really being Japanese at all.  Alucard apparently passes for far east Asian despite being Romanian.  Or maybe it doesn't matter, because this is animeland, and all Japanese people are really white.

Actually, it says a lot that Celia Fortner, a German lady, dresses like a Miko.  or there's Dario Bosso, who's Italian and looks like a Japanese punk.  Stylistically, this is a very odd choice.  It clashes a little with other Castlevanias (yes, even Rondo of Blood and Portrait of Ruin), and even manages to raise some weird thematic questions.  I'll talk about the art later.

Now, the story isn't bad, per se, it just has those flaws in it.  There are a few other problems, such as Mina's non-role.  Would it have hurt them to stick her in a random room like in Aria?  she does so little in this plot that her doppelganger's appearance at the end rings pretty hollow.  Actually, that whole plot point is kind of amusing.  If the Bad Ending really does happen, then what about five minutes later when Mina walks in going, "Oh hey, Soma. The guys told me there was something weird going on with Celia and a - WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING HANGING ON THE WALL?"

But anyway.  Yoko has a pretty good presence, Julius seems all right, Genya is just there, and Hammer is his usual AWOL self. Soma is Soma, and his characterization is also all right even if his sudden shift into evil is really abrupt.  The big deal in this game is what the villains are like.  In fact, they technically drive the plot more than in many Castlevanias - instead of "There's an evil bad guy. Let's go get 'em!" as the plot, or even "Elizabeth Batho-I mean, Bartley is on the loose!" it's "A bunch of silly-philosophical bad guys are trying to make a new Dracula.  Aw crap, Dmitri stopped breathing."  The bad guys play a fairly large role in this, and their personalities are actually fleshed out.  It feels a little more like Rondo of Blood's "Shaft's got all the women! Somebody stop him!"

Celia is kind of flat.  This is too bad, as they keep tossing in ideas for depth, but nothing is explored.  Instead, she just says a few smug things, does that "OH-ho-ho-ho!" laugh, and wanders around.  Her eventual death isextraordinarily anticlimactic, but it shows the problems with her character.  She's just not that important or necessary, and the game could have been about Dario and Dmitrii without her presence at all.

This brings up another issue: The cult.  Where is the cult?  Why do we see no cultists at all?  Would it have hurt Konami to stick a few generic cultist enemies in the Village, just for flavor?  Maybe they're all hiding in their houses, under the bed.  Maybe they all got turned into zombies.  Or maybe Celia is REALLY delusional, and there is no cult.  We never learn.

Now, let's look at the candidates.  I'm going to take a step back to Aria and include Graham Jones in this just for the sake of contrast.

Graham Jones is a religious leader (Billy Graham? Jim Jones?) of one of those "It's probably a cult, but maybe it's a denomination" groups.  There are lots of them, of which the Church of Christ is probably the best example.  CoC really looks like bog-standard Protestant Christianity, but they disagree on just enough that there are still public debates over "denomination or cult?"  Graham's specialty was end-times preaching on the apocalypse.  Now, as it turns out, he inherited part of Dracula's power.  More specifically, Graham could teleport, throw balls of fire, control demons, and change into a gigantic evil (extremely freudian) form.  Pretty much, he was Dracula-Lite, only to be beaten when it turned out that Soma inherited a lot more of Drac's power.  Graham Jones even had a complex personality - charismatic and nice as a general rule, but with an extremely brutal, cruel side that surfaced if somebody was in his way.  Without supernatural power, he would have just been a tyrant minister.  He's actually an interesting character, and maintains this even as he steadily goes crazier and crazier over the course of Aria.

Dario Bossi is an idiot.

No, really, that's a sufficient description.  Dario's qualities are:  He's an idiot.  He's hot-headed.  He's hot-blooded.  That's it, relaly.  He's an infamous criminal who inherited part of Dracula's power, that of hellfire.  OR IS HE?  Apparently he only had power given to him by Agni, a demon-god of fire.  So wait, is it Dracula's power, or the demon?  Or maybe he tied himself too much to the demon?  or maybe the demon was the source of Dracula's power?  You know what?  it doesn't matter.  He had supernatural power, and destroying Agni cut him off from it.  Now, Dario does get a little bit of almost-depth as you steadily learn a few thigns about him, such as how much of an idiot he is.  He's not a cartoonish Elmer Fudd, he's just kind oif slow and completely incapable of grasping subtlety.  Although he wants to fry Dmitrii and Soma both, he's capable of holding a civil conversation with them.  And what's more, he IS smart enough to know when he's beaten.  Dario is pretty much the only Castlevania villain not to die - when the gig was up, he ran for the hills.

Dmitrii Blinov was the "smart" member of the pair, but he really wasn't that bright.  He had intelligence and a basic form of logic, but Dmitrii never really thought things through.  Sure, he talked the way I write (stuffy and intellectual), but his behavior never really suggests that much intelligence.  He takes a gigantic gamble early in the game that turns out to work, but had a very big chance of failing.  Immediately after that he takes another, similar gamble, only this time amidst a chorus of "Don't! You're being stupid!"  It fails, and Dmitrii dies.  He's also kind of bland and confusing.  If he's interested in exploring the full extent of his power, why try to become Dracula II?  Why not just buddy-buddy with Soma and study things for a while, then reevaluate if becoming the Dark Lord would further your studies?

The problem with these two candidates is that they are supposed to be intimidating threats, but really are just goofy henchmen.  Graham Jones had a lot of intimidation factor, but Dario and Dmitrii do not.  They're pathetic.  They a ren't bad as characters, but they don't work as major antagonists.  This puts undue responsibility on Celia to be the main villain, but she just sort of fizzles.  The biggest problem with Dawn of Sorrow's plot is how weak its villains are.  They might as well be the Three stooges for all it matters.


Anyway. This does give the story an opportunity to focus on Soma, but... the game doesn't.  not relaly.  We learn nothing new about him.  he doesn't develop.  He just reacts to everything with "Golly gee whiz, bad guys!" "Ow, that burns!" "I'm not a bad guy, Celia!" and "DON'T DIE ON ME, DMITRII! I NEED YOU!"

Well, maybe those are exagerrations.

The plot as a whole feels like an episode.  It's not big or climactic.  Stuff happens and it's cool and Dario is funny, but... what?  If they made more Sorrow games, I'd like it more, as it would just be an episode in the middle of the narrative of Soma's life.  But right now, it stands as THE GRAND CONCLUSION of Castlevania, and that just rings a little hollow.

But other than all that stuff I complained about?  The story's fun.  I like seeing julius as julius, since you get a good window to his personality.;  Dmitrii and Dario are morons, but they're kind of interesting.  Even though Dmitrii's plot wasn't really that bright, it was interesting seeing it work out.  I do not hate this game at all - the story's kind of fun - I just found it pretty disappointing when compared to what it should have been (or even what the previous one was).  It's got irksome pop philosophy that fails with five minutes of thought, weak villains, and such a complete and clean break from Castlevania's basic themes that it's kind of confusing.

[Ridureyu]

AESTHETIC DESIGN

Anime designs fit the Sorrow games really well.  In fact, Aria of Sorrow could have benefited from straight-up anime artwork.  The games are thematically VERY much like "generic anime."  Not Shonen, really, not horror anime (well, somewhat, yeah, but not dark enough), but they are far more anime-influenced than other games.  So the art shift in Dawn of Sorrow didn't make me angry.  I love the series' general elegant, gothic art, but anime fits Dawn of Sorrow.  I mean, it's not like it's ugly or poorly-drawn, right?



...dammit.

Okay, so the anime art isn't actually that good.  Mostly.  I will compliment it on a few things, though - Julius looks pretty good drawn this way, since his old art had random fenimine/bishie bits that clashed with the rest of his design (look at his eyelashes).  Yoko benefits alot, too, since her old art was just plain bad.  Hammer is exactly the same.  Dario and Dmitrii would look TERRIBLE if put in older art styles, so we can be grateful for that.  But that's it, really.  The anime art is fairly low-quality, but ultimately servicable, and good in a few cases.

Metroidvanias in general get a lot of flak for reusing Symphony of the Night's sprites, but it's not really the way people usually portrays it.  To begin with, SotN reused so much from Rondo of Blood that it's completely insane.  The GBA Metroidvanias often used similar designs, but were not able to replicate old graphics exactly.  Dawn of Sorrow is the first game to really just copy-paste from SotN.  It does it a lot (can we have a new skeleton, please?), but also creates quite a few new enemies.  Many of the old ones even have some changes, such as Malachis (different wing color, and they now wear belts).  There are plenty of new graphics, as well.  This does raise a slight issue, as the SotN sprites clash a tiny bit with the new stuff - newer monster designs are often somewhat brighter and with smoother srfaces. The pigs, new Creature, spin and guillotine demons, and manticore seem like they contrast a little bit.  It's not enough to be terrible, but the clash is there.  However, overall I have to say that it's not that much of a problem.

As for the new graphics, they are honestly good. Agni and Gergoth, for example, are just excellent.  Death even looks great, although he has no dialogue or story significance.  Menace is densely detailed, and not "cartoonish" at all - he'd fit right at home in SotN, to be honest.  Much of the game's non-gothic look is because of the terrain.  But with this, it's important to remember that Aria of Sorrow wasn't really all that dark, either.  yes, it had ruined castle sections all over the place, but it also had something like three whole sections of "GUEST CHAMBERS/MAID'S ROOM/PLUSH LIBRARY," and that got really annoying after a while. The Guest House here contrasts with Aria's in that it's actually interesting.  Metroidvania games are known for attention to background detail (Well, except for Circle of the Moon), and Dawn is no surprise.  There are all sorts of little things going on, from blood stains on some traps (but not on others) to that really awesome thing Gergoth does in the Condemned Tower.  The Abyss is also greatly superior to Aria's Chaotic Realm.  Instead of a mere rehash, it's a highly-atmospheric "Layers of Hell"  zone.  And you have to admit, the first time you realized that those were ears in the sand area, you felt a littleunsettled.

And then we have the music.  While the music is good, it's really this game's weakest point.  I'm not talking about its general lack of reused tunes (it reuses enough, anyway. More in Julius mode, even), but most of its music is just weak and empty.  The greenhouse (or whatever it was called) has a pretty hollow theme, and even the chapel and condemned tower are easy to completely forget.  The Abyss's music is actively bad, and just irritating to listen to when there are so many other ideas they could have gone with.  I was pleasantly surprised by a few tracks, but overall?  This Castlevania just doesn't really have that good a soundtrack.  For example, take its boss themes - the first is generic and forgettable, the second is great, the Dario/Dmitrii one is "okay," the next theme is good-but-easily-overused, and the final one is good, although a tiny bit generic.  That's not the best record in the world.


GAMEPLAY

The gameplay is where Aria of Sorrow shines, although again there are some slipups.  I'm going to start with the negatives and get those out of the way.

Grinding.  This game is very grind-heavy for a Castlevania (although it's still got nothing on an RPG).  In a way, the grinding is much like Circle of the Moon.  To progress in CotM, you NEEDED those cards.  The game then turned into "rush through areas until you hit a grind spot. Then grind."  Dawn of Sorrow is not as bad, but if you want a halfway decent weapon, you will be stopping to grind all the time (more on that in a minute).  This is very odd, as the difficulty and level progression are actually PERFECT if you... don't grind at all.  But that assumes you'll have decent equipment and souls, whcih is odd.  As far as useful souls go,  you do receive Mandragora far too early, as it's pretty much the only one you will ever need.  Portrait of Ruin had a similar problem with shurikens.  "You have a lot of variety," says the game, "but just use this."

Speaking of souls, there is the Soul Fusion systemegahrgehaghrgaghrgh.  I hate it.  It is the most annoying Castlevania mechanic since Haunted Castle's "No continuing in an arcade game."  What's funny is that it would have been tolerable if it didn't require boss souls.  Sure, you can get them all if you play through twice, but I play games to have fun, and I am very irritated when a video game springs "You have to make a difficult decision. Do you want thius game to be fun, or do you want to win?" on you.  And no, this is not the same as most character optimization in other games - in Dawn of Sorrow, you have to actively give up irreplacable and fun souls in order to get a weapon that does not suck. And to even reach that point, you must grind for rare souls just to upgrade your weapons past "halfway mediocre."  That's terrible.  Removing this mechanic would have increased the game's overall quality quite a bit.  or hey, go ahead and keep it, just don't force players to sacrifice what makes the game fun.  "This game has an awful soul system, but we encourage you to dump your souls."

On the good side, this really is a fun Castlevania.  You never get completely lost, but the game doens't really hold your hand on where to go next.  It's not terribly difficult, but it's also not brainlessly easy, and there are a few "sweet spots" where the difficulty becomes palpable (Gergoth, clock tower, Bat Company, Paranoia, the pinnacle, underground prison, Abaddon, and so on).  It could have afforded to be tougher, but it's certainly more challenging than Aria of Sorrow.  I'd still prefer more difficulty, but Metroidvania games tend to have real problems with this.

Want to know what would boost the difficulty in all Metroidvanias?  Just make enemies responsive.  Currently, they are way too slow to start attacking, and a decently-equipped character can kill potentially dangerous monsters before they do anything.  Just make them come out swinging, and the challenge will return!

The souls are pretty good, and honestly more creative than Aria's "I throw something in a low arc" pattern.  Yes, Mandragora comes way too early, but that doesn't discount all of the fun souls like the Warg, Bomber Armor, or screwing around with the discus.  Dawn of Sorrow really succeeds in soul selection, and the fact that you can now level souls means that you have the OPTION to grind, not the necessity.  Thank you, game.



Overall?  Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow plays pretty well, although with one awful mechanic that can be overlooked.  The story really isn't the best in this series, although it's nice that they gave it a try.  The art style has a few pluses as well as the minuses, and most of the sprite reuse really isn't that bad (come on, I've always wanted to fight Cthulhu again).  It's a good game even if it thematically breaks way too far from "Castlevania."  I would probably like it a lot more if we had ore episodes in Soma's life, as it really isn't a good "final" story for the timeline, instead being kind of an amusing episode.really isn't a good "final" story for the timeline, instead being kind of an amusing episode.  It's only real problems come from the fact that it's very weird in the context of the series as a whole.

[Flame]

I wholeheartedly agree on the villains. In fact, its the reason i dislike Dawn. I did not like the Anime look, but the plot was no better to make up for it. It did not center around the main character at all, In fact, he just seems like an afterthought. And the villains are generic Saturday morning villaness and her two goons. It's painful hearing that "ooh ho ho hoo!" laugh and seeing Celia TELEPORT. they were terribly bland and not in the least imposing.

In fact, probably the reason why Julius mode is even better than the MAIN game, is simply because of the characters. It uses characters that are already fleshed out well. We know Julius and his crew from Aria, which established them and what they are like. And the villain? well its Soma. A character who was established in aria, and who the story revolved on. He is Dracula's rebirth, and we actually "FEEL" the character. We can feel his fall to darkness. While Celia... Um... laughs and teleports. yeah. in fact,m you dont even get to FIGHT Celia. She is supposedly this high and mighty priestess of some cult, but who do we fight? her goons. Not even the mastermind herself. She just gets blown off like nothing.

personally, i feel that as the "conclusion to Castlevania", Aria was MUCH better.  I mean, Aria never even needed a sequel. Julius regained his memory, Mathias was able to get a second chance at humanity, and Castlevania was destroyed at its very source. The viscous cycle of Dracula returns, dies, returns again, rinse repeat, was prevented from coming back, and the source of his powers and very domain, was vanquished.  What more was there to tell?

[Ahasverus]

It's like 5 years late but great review! You sum up almost my whole thoughts about this game, it's incredible how bad it had aged (it was da bomb at its time) Great writing man!

[Ridureyu]

Well, I'm going to follow up with PoR and OoE, at least.

The thing is, I do like the game a lot, but I think it's by far the weakest of the three DS titles.  You'll probably be surprised, but I actually have reasons for liking Portrait of Ruin's story.

[Flame]

hey, if you ever get around to it, could you possibly do an analysis of Aria itself? I alwasy felt it was the superior of the Sorrow games, in atmosphere and just about everything else, but Id love to hear what you have to say bout it

[Ahasverus]

The thing is, I do like the game a lot, but I think it's by far the weakest of the three DS titles.  You'll probably be surprised, but I actually have reasons for liking Portrait of Ruin's story.

POR story was a waste of great ideas, terrible characterization (Because Cv just can't go worse after they gave Charlotte the infamous anime "rage vein" on her forehead) but yeah DoS is the worst of the bunch, it's just.. unnecessary, hollow and silly. Great gameplay though.

[Ridureyu]

Hah. Well, Charlotte is pretty much just Hermione Granger.

Witch?

Genius?

Know-It-All?

Insufferable Know-It-All?

Has a few nice qualities?

Is right about 70% of the time, glaringly wrong 30%?




...yeah.




(Of course, if I get all the way around to Symphony of the Night and discuss its flaws, I might be tarred and feathered. I LOVE SotN, but it's not perfect)

[thernz]

With the added benefit of horrible writing.

[Joachim]

i think you should focus less on tooting your own horn and more on actually living up to that tooting, tbph

[X]

Good review man! I still can't get over IGA's plot point of "for god to be good" thing. It just doesn't make sense and kills quite a bit of the story by introducing a type of logic that is as convoluted and contradictory as many of the things written in the bible (No offense to the Christians on this forum). I personally don't mind the anime look. It was an art style that was a part of CV long before Ayami Kojima's style came into play. While she's good at what she does, CV is just not the right type of environment for pretty boys IMHO. Alucard was able to get away with it but it was generic with everybody else. The villains were very weak and could not compare to Graham Jones' 'Dark Entity' characterization. And I have to wonder why we couldn't fight Celia. She was the cult leader therefore she should see some form of combat against the heroes of light, don't you think? One last thing Ridureyu. You forgot to mention about how needless the stylus seals were (At least in my mind they were useless).

-X

[Ridureyu]

You know, I forgot that the seals even existed.  Speaks volumes on how useful they were.

[crisis]

(Because Cv just can't go worse after they gave Charlotte the infamous anime "rage vein" on her forehead)

e-excuse me?

[Flame]

Portrait of Ruin was such a waste of potential. It was the sequel to Bloodlines, one of the great Vanias, and really didnt live up to it.

[Ridureyu]

Aeon's face scares me.


And I love how people complain about Portrait of Ruin when most of its mechanics were specifically designed to fix problems from SOTN (example: The subweapons vs. SOTN's duplicator mess, or Charlotte's spells versus Alucard's weirdass spell system).