Castlevania: Judgement (Wii)

...option to link up with Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia on the DS, to unlock bonus content in both games, although I've not tested this.


Graphically, it's pretty good with the Castlevania theme strong throughout. The animation is top notch with some beautifully done finishing moves. Manga artist Takeshi Obata, contributes the character designs giving them a distinctive look. Regulars from the series will be pleased to see the likes ...
...are also some suitably gothic backdrops to set the scene for those brief moments where there's a lull in the action for you to look at them.


Controls are by the Wii-mote and the nunchuk, although you can use the classic or GameCube controllers if you prefer. Movement with the analogue stick on the nunchuk is highly responsive, but some of the gestured moves are a bit hit and miss, which seems a pretty common theme with Wii games.
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Castlevania is another of those long running series that dates back to the 80s on the, now long forgotten, Famicom Disk System, although more people are likely to remember it from the NES adaptation and its many sequels over the years. Developer Koji Igarashi is still calling the shots, after two decades for this latest entry for the Nintendo Wii.

In a move that's bound to infuriate fans, it's something of a departure from the platforming formula characteristic of the series so far and is more along the lines of a beat 'em up; essentially a gothic Street Fighter. Whilst it's easy to criticize companies when they're just churning out what seems like an endless stream of sequels with only minor incremental improvements, it might seem a bit unfair to criticize this turnabout, but it's more a case of popping from one safe genre into another than a radical move to innovate.

Anyway, onto the game itself. There are a good variety of play modes including the obligatory story. It's without cutscenes, which can sometimes be a mixed blessing as they often intrude on the gameplay, but instead you get some rather static dialogues that are every bit as cringeworthy and you'll be itching to just get on with the next scrap. Continue you must though, as completing this is necessary to unlock all the fighters and their alternate costumes. Once that's out of the way though, you can be done with it and stick to the fighting action.

The arcade and versus modes are much more to the point, as is the survivor mode that sends a continuous stream of opponents at you until you drop from exhaustion. There's also a pretty good online service that, the usual issues of lag aside, lets you challenge your friends or search globally for opponents. There's even an option to link up with Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia on the DS, to unlock bonus content in both games, although I've not tested this.

Graphically, it's pretty good with the Castlevania theme strong throughout. The animation is top notch with some beautifully done finishing moves. Manga artist Takeshi Obata, contributes the character designs giving them a distinctive look. Regulars from the series will be pleased to see the likes of Simon Belmont, Alucard and, of course, Dracula himself. There are also some suitably gothic backdrops to set the scene for those brief moments where there's a lull in the action for you to look at them.

Controls are by the Wii-mote and the nunchuk, although you can use the classic or GameCube controllers if you prefer. Movement with the analogue stick on the nunchuk is highly responsive, but some of the gestured moves are a bit hit and miss, which seems a pretty common theme with Wii games.

For a beat 'em up on the Wii, a comparison with Super Smash Brothers Brawl is unavoidable, and Castlevania Judgement comes off somewhat bruised and battered. Although the online play holds up, Nintendo's game is bigger, faster, harder, stronger and longer. In Castlevania, the characters also have wildly differing abilities making fights between some of them rather unbalanced and invariably resorting to their one best move time and time again. There are also those issues with Wii-mote gestures failing to register. The Computer AI is basic and doesn't seem to adapt much; before too long you'll only get much satisfaction out of mutliplayer games.

Ultimately, it's a hard game to recommend. Castlevania completists will want it, but it's definitely a sidestep from the mainstream of the series. I can't help but feel that this would have gone down better after a more conventional game; the Wii isn't short of good beat 'em ups and this gets lost in the crowd somewhat.

(Also posted on ciao.com by Phantom_Wombat) 

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