Topic: Castlevania Judgment, pros & cons

[darklordcandidate]

How do you feel about the Castlevania Judgement game?

[justin312]

I know this has been beaten to death many times before, but this is a pros-cons list, so...

Con: character designs were awful.  If you are making a "fanservice" game, its very important that you go with a look that is familiar, in order to hit that nostalgia nerve as much as possible.  See the Super Smash Bros games as an example of how to do it right.  By redesigning the characters so drastically that most of them are totally unrecognizable, you lose much of that nostalgia factor, which is one of the major draws of a fanservice game such as this.  Terrible decision.

[shelverton.]

In Reply To #2

I didn't hate the new character designs, but I wish they'd put the original designs as unlockable costumes or something. Or rather; Have the redesigns as unlockables so you wouldn't even have to look at them if you didn't want to. Or better yet; Have BOTH options available from the get go.

Other than that, Judgment wasn't nearly as terrible as some reviewers would have you believe, but it fell short when compared to other fighting games. The idea was much better than the actual game. I had plenty of fun with it though, and would probably give it a solid 3 out of 5. 

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

I generally like the game, and still play it occassionally (and I've a few friends I play online with, too).

The Pros are the following:

-The music is amazing.  Noisycroak, Co. did an awesome job at remastering the tunes and updating them into power mode for battle music.  Mad Forest and An Empty Tome are top notch.  Hell, they even took ambient pieces like "The Wolf Revealed" from Castlevania64 and souped them up.

-The stage designs are actually pretty unique.  Playing in the Chapel Tower and in the ClockTower is pretty neat.  Getting 10-second ring-outs in the Moat Bridge is hilariously wrong, though.  There's a touch of classic nods to the series throughout the stages.  For example:  The Chapel has a giant Minotaur Statue (and there's  Minotaur minion as well a giant ogre that resembles Balore), the Crystal Caverns have sections that resemble something out of Symphony of the Night (the water drops) and Harmony of Dissonance (the gigantic crystal formation).  The Clocktower has killer gears if you break the regular gears and manage so double-jump back to safety after almost falling off.  The Torture Chamber screams "Castlevania64" with the protruding spike traps and poison water.

-Controls (warning: Opinion).  I normally don't like 3D fighting games.  You are usually restricted to facing your opponent all the time, have stiff fighting controls, or have some crazy button config that is difficult to learn (Tekken, SoulCalibur, VirtuaFighter).  With Judgment's Power Stone scheme (Free movement like in the Dreamcast/Arcade game), you can use the items scattered throughout the stage, as well as stage hazards, to your advantage (or sometimes, disadvantage).  Different characters can use these in different ways.  You can also just break the items and get a power-up, but there's a variety of options on what to do.  I love it when an opponent thinks I'm gonna break a Candle with Carmilla, only to eat it because I had her fling it at him instead.  Or you can put bombs/traps on 'em with Grant or Sypha.  Or use the candle to power yourself up, like Alucard and Maria.

Having a free reign scheme has its disadvantages, though; you will find yourself attacking 'the air' or attacking an incorrect target if you're facing the wrong way.  Thankfully, when you're close enough to your opponent, the game is smart and realizes that you're trying to hit them.  However, I've found myself hitting an opponent when I really wanted to hit the candle near them, etc.

The controls are easy to figure out.  Subweapon, regular attack, special attack, block, dodge, and Let's-take-out-half-your-life "Guilty Gear"-ish supers (thankfully they can be blocked, but it's fun to catch someone with those... they're good at turning the tide of battle).

You can also charge the subweapon, or the special, in the air or on the ground.

Here's the negative stuff:

-The designs make the character seem out-of-place.  It seems only Trevor, Aeon, and Cornell look correct (and Cornell can be argued, since his original form wasn't heavy-armored).  Other characters look completely different than their original costumes.  Others seem to have been toned down from their grandiose Ayami Kojima artwork seemingly because the programming team could not get free-flowing objects to work correctly (so Alucard's curly platinum-blonde locks and cape are absent from this game, as would be Sypha's robes, or Shanoa's long hair).  While this is disappointing, you get used to it after a while.  The pumping character music and the moves remind you of who you're playing as.

-As I mentioned before, there's some quirks with the targeting system, but there's bit of an issue also with the Free Movement system, since having it also makes the camera act weird sometimes (like if you move very far away into the horizon in the Throne Room stage, or if your opponent CPU happens to be Dracula since the Camera seems to focus on his back all the time, making it tough for you to see yourself).  This is absent from the 2player VS game, it seems, but in the 1player Story/Arcade/Castle mode, it seems to happen more.

-Sometimes the CPU is cheap.  If you play Arcade Mode, sometimes it feels like you're playing the older Mortal Kombat games, because you will defeat two opponents, and then the third opponent will mercilessly wipe the floor with you.

The game is still very fun to play.  If you've EVER played the Power Stone games, you will feel at home, here.  Of course, if you haven't, and are used to the three fighting series mentioned above (Tekken, VirtuaFighter, or SoulCalibur), you will HATE this game.  Do not think of this as a fighting game.  Consider it more in the genres of Super Smash Bros. or Power Stone and you will find it more palatable.

BTW Trevor and Carmilla FTW, bitch.

[Ahasverus]

The good: It had an end.
The bad: IGA still thinks that people liked Obata's art.

BTW, that means that IGA is still in the series!!!