Topic: The Great Reviewer: Reviews of latest Castlevania games

[The Great Reviewer]

Here I upload recent reviews of my Castlevania games, before current vision of MercurySteam.
Soon, I will post Lords of Shadow and Mirror of Fate separately, if it is not a burden.
I hope these gets better receptions.
Best regards.

[The Great Reviewer]

Castlevania: Judgment: 3 stars out of 5 stars:

A great fighting game in its own right, which coincidentally is named Castlevania.

With the failure at the expense of their two previous games for home consoles, Igarashi had to make a new way to give your saga. The budget given by Konami was finally necessary to make things right, and not knowing what exactly was the safe way, his team chose the most radical and illogical changes: Castlevania make a fighting game.
Everyone expected another failure on the part of Konami with this installment of Castlevania, which appeared to end the series definitivamenre 3D Castlevania.
However, again prevailed at least thought, and Judgment ended up being really a game at the height of its competitors. Tekken, Soul Calibur, and other major franchises of the genre, nothing to envy to fight big titles of Judgment.
On the gameplay, the game has everything you need to have a fighting game. Combos excellent, the full range of what you expect, and much more, plus special powers and masterful handling, turning Judgment ultimately one of the best fighting games of its generation of consoles.
It is worth mentioning that it is not always necessary to use the Nintendo Wii Remote uncomfortable. We can get rid of it, as in every game we've played in this console, and use the old GameCube controller to play as God intended: with pad and buttons.
The graphic was conducted by a renowned Japanese anime artist, and it shows from afar. However, the characters, though different from their earlier counterparts Castlevania, look beautiful, like the scenarios and funds that adorn this beautifully matched.
The story, well thought out indeed weft convencial used time travel to explain the meeting of disparate characters in the history of the franchise.
That's why the personal stories of each of the fighters are never ridiculous, and make sense. He even added a touch of humor, often as necessary in the saga that it suffers from excessive seriousness and takes itself too much ego.
The only section on a complaint I can have is the soundtrack as Michiru Yamane, with laziness that came to characterize in some periods of his career, was beginning to show fatigue Castlevania would end up being his final departure from Konami to get out walking your cat on a leash, in his own words.
Only a new theme, the theme of Aeon, plus a remix of it. The rest are just a few inspired remixes of themes that had already been seen on other occasions.
Just to add some defect present and justify a score of 3 stars, it could make clear that the graphics, but glamorous look bad on an LCD screen, due to the poor ability of the Nintendo Wii to HD graphics porcesar , which led Konami to make the game on 480, since that is the limit of resolution of the console.
I recommend this game? Yes, but with some caveats. You must be played on a tube TV with a resolution of 480p, otherwise graphics will be poor and huge estates. Do not expect much from the soundtrack. And the goal should be to know each of the stories of the wonderful characters of Castlevania universe, as we walk, with excellent handling and movements, the stage adorned eximiamente high quality product.
A great fighting game, but not what is usually Castlevania.
But Castlevania was never much in their deliveries in 3D. Right?

[The Great Reviewer]

Castlevania The Adventure Rebirth: 3 stars out of 5 stars:

A vain attempt to relive the glory days of Sega Genesis.

I can almost imagine Konami, cornered, with no trace of MercurySteam still on the horizon, and not knowing which way to go to give your beloved Castlevania series. Igarashi Failures accumulated, KCET lost the confidence of their own fans, and the available budget was declining. Send the confidence of a new title to Koji was quite risky, and go for a foreign developer was a movement at that time had not ever experienced. So: what was the wise decision to Konami? Redo one of the worst games ever. Yes, gentlemen. In its boundless stupidity, Konami decided to bring to life, out of his tomb, eternal rest to Castlevania Adventure, a terrible game from every point of view.
Sure, it was a remake, and this enabled him to Konami to correct errors in this game timeless. Since the game was just mistake after mistake, after aberration aberration, of course the fact of wanting to do it again by removing all its faults, was to make a completely new game.
Yes, The Adventure Rebirth has only the title in common with its counterpart of the forgotten and very poor consolita Game Boy. Do not misunderstand: Rebirth is not a good game. But it's much better than the original Adventure Game Boy.
What Konami decided then, to have the opportunity to make a new game, downloadable, low budget and not out of Igarashi and company? Try to take all possible 16-bit better title: Castlevania Bloodlines. Thus we find in Rebirth with beloved classics Bloodlines issues, remixed with some sound sources that sound very similar to the Sega console. But: is this a good thing? Well, actually, no.
The music, sound effects and graphics, sound and look too similar to Sega Genesis. And that, in the digital age, high definition, is completely unacceptable.
With a soundtrack and then a little graphics worthy of their year of exit, what I can say in favor of this title? For something so many times I could say Castlevania games: the difficulty. Yes, for the first time in history, Konami decided to take pity on us and gives us the option to disable the irritating action infinitely throw us back every time we're stuck. Do not choose classic mode, go to the modern way, which is what God commands! And not only that. We are also in a sample so far unpublished developers piety, the option to choose difficulty. Yes, after years, Easy mode is available! Now we can enjoy the gothic environments, spectacular soundtrack and enemies of all life, without having to think about stupid precipices, pinches, hard traps or end of level bosses. In the easy mode, then! And do not even think to choose the most difficult, which is impossible to do that, man!
In short, a poor graphics game, mediocre sound, visual beauty but if we ignore those gaps, and with difficulty allows us to choose a way to finally enjoy the game without destroying a knob.
That's why, despite having a history almost nonexistent, I give it 3 stars to this title, which, despite its many shortcomings, be fun for all players and will delight all those who, for many years, we saw infuriated by the relentless difficulty of a saga that today, though in agony, it shows that you still have to take some product life tolerable.

[The Great Reviewer]

Castlevania: Harmony of Despair: 1 star out of 5 stars:

The ultimate insult of Koji Igarashi.

Ahh, Konami ... how lazy you can become over the years, dear videojueguil company?
With Igarashi having one foot in and one out of our beloved Japanese company unfortunately executives decided to give one last chance. Loading Konami and the Castlevania brand to piggyback with the failure of the latest 3D game, good fighting game but with poor sales, downloadable game failure that left much to be desired, and Castlevania controls and in charge of imposing MercurySteam , Koji poor did not have much to choose from. And knowing they may never return to Castlevania, wanted to try to try their luck in an area in which I had never tried their luck, and which perhaps would never again, at least not under the tutelage of Konami and their beloved saga Castlevania, which was once theirs but perhaps never again: the realm of online multiplayer.
With little confidence as part of Konami Igarashi products, and on a budget delivered to your vision, not too much you could do.
Igarashi and his team made last displayed his lack of common sense, and decided to take, for HD consoles (XBOX360 and Playstation 3) a game that recycled infinitely better sprites of Nintendo DS games, console low definition .
The result was a visual disaster that mixed some new backgrounds, textures and arts in high definition with Super pixelated sprites that a long, long time, had seen better days glory in Castlevania.
The story is zero, since, again being lazy, Iga and company decided to include all the characters could not use again the plot of time travel, and then, instead of repeating, decided that there is no plot. Bad choice, if you ask me.
We then, without rhyme or reason, no rationale, varied characters as Soma, Jonathan, Charlotte, Simon, Maria, etc.., Covering levels, collecting items and defeating bosses with horrible design of levels, especially for the mode multiplayer, and you can not see anything if we move the camera, and if approached, only the player number one will see what you are doing. On the other hand, if the camera away sprites look better, but do not understand anything, and if you approach, you see what happens but the graphics look horribly pixelated.
Management and general objectives of the game are boring. Each character is a poor shadow of its original counterpart, the items in the levels are the same, and every time we go to a mission we have a shop, we sell exactly the same items throughout the game. Then, if never updated inventory why include a shop?
There is no map completion percentage that characterized both Igarashi games in its heyday, when it fell a good idea from time to time. There is nothing that made it so interesting when these games came out for Nintendo DS, where the graphics were the same for a very small screen.
The difficulty is very high. Two players play makes the game even harder, but more plausible, since it is possible to revive sometimes with help from an ally. But, however, Win the game playing alone and with a weak character is a task all but utopian. It is very slow to improve our character and get something of value for our travels through the levels. Received, over and over again, infinitely useless items that will not help us at all. So, prepare yourselves for the Game Over screen is the most irritating to see during your experience with this product of very poor quality.
So if we have a no history with lousy graphics and generally poor management where did score star out if everything is so bad?
As the music. Yes, remixes again, is true. But a great sound. Forget classicism and baroque. Here we have before us the best Castlevania brand themes, played by a real rock band that sounds good, very heavy. A soundtrack pinturita.
As last, I want to comment on the DLC. Konami, in its infinite stupidity, decided that the best downloadable themes and characters are included instead of coming into the game. This greatly affected the quality of the product, which already was shocking. And if we add that some DLC is pure fan service without any logic (ie, an entire chapter of Symphony of the Night, one of the forgotten and gray first Castlevania for NES, and one of some unknown NES game that Konami know from which he took, and that has nothing to do with Castlevania), well, the game is a disaster from every point of view, and only lose internet recommend the soundtrack and listen to loud in the car, but no bother never try this game, that game has nothing, and much has aberration.