Topic: Curse of Darkness

[Belmont Stakes]

Ok, from top to bottom I will give good and bad on this game (IMO).

Graphics. Slightly better than LOI but terribly redundant. Some parts like walking up to the mountain top to fight the dragon are pretty cool but some are just blah. Character art is Jeckyll and Hyde. I.E. Slogra and Gaibon are very well done where as the ID's are lackluster and thrown together and the one eyed one horned Orge/Cyclops just isnt as impressive to me as the orges with the masks or the ones in LOI. I will say though for the most part the characters were more positive than negative. Music is once again 50/50. Abandoned Castle, Inifinite Corridor, Ghirabaldi Temple, Insane Aristocrat all good and with a some of them Castlevania precise. Other songs,  Baljhet Mountain, Forest of Jigramunt and the Man Who Killed Dracula were ok but not really Castlevania esque. Story line. It directs itself away from Dracula and the Belmont conflict to Hector and Isaac which is not where the story and lineage strength of the series is found.  Hector is a decent character, dark, angry a bit childish and other times soft spoken. The devil forgemaster device is interesting but the fact that a lot of the IDs are not that impressive and for that matter some are geared towards kids makes it a bit lame and immature. Gameplay, whoooaho!!! Big problems. I am a platform fan and the battle format with no pitfalls and slow battle sequences leave me a little bit pissed. Also it was well mentioned that walking through this expansive and non threatening game area is not endearing to players who want to get into the game a little bit quicker. If it weren't the fact that I am such a staunch fan of the series I would not tolerate the way I did.