Cheap Castlevania: Lament of Innocence (Video Games) (PlayStation2) Price

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Customer Reviews of Castlevania: Lament of Innocence

A Whip for All Seasons
In a sense this game is old hat. The beautiful fiancée of Leon Belmont, a knight crusader, is captured by Walter Bernhard, a master vampire. Leon deserts the crusades and flies off to the castle of the aforementioned vampire. There, after being handed a mystical whip, he penetrates layer after layer of horrible badness until he faces, and hopefully destroys, his true enemy. Which is about all the plot a good third person hack-and-slash really needs.

However, to create such a game with sufficient workmanship to make it compelling visually and challenging mentally and physically is no small feat. And that is what sets Lament of Innocence apart from many of its competitors. For one thing, developers are always tempted to substitute extreme difficulty for interesting challenges. Lament, on the other hand, is just doable enough to keep the player from throwing the controller at the monitor in disgust. And its puzzles can be resolved by keeping in mind that anything can be a tool.

Castlevania isn't perfect. I found that motion control and camera angle are both a little too loose. To some degree this is intentional, but I prefer controls that send objects where they are suppose to go. Especially when you are leaping from stone to stone in a frantic effort to scale a wall and there is one, and only one, spot from which to leap.

One of the problems in rating a game like Lament of Innocence is that it is very good, but falls slightly short of some other, very similar games. In this case I'm thinking of Devil May Cry. This is a case where 5 stars are too many, but 4 are too few. I would recommend both as great examples of their genre that can be played repeatedly.

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In the Beginning...
Castlevania is finally back. After years of GBA titles that continued to draw upon those SoTN fans by "re-vamping" the 2D side-scrolling action the series is famous for, finally we get to experience the Belmonts on a next-gen platform. To be honest, I've played every Castlevania game the US has ever seen. All in all, each title has it's own merits and flaws, (as the N64 crowd found out the hard way), but finally Konami has seen fit to get back to the basics that made Castlevania games great.

The first thing you'll notice about Lament of Innocence is what a lush environment you've been abandoned in. The graphics and sound, while all still comparable to Rygar and DMC in their similarities, are tweaked to a gothic perfection. The hallways bask in candle light and dark corners hide even darker enemies this time around. While it's true that the level design is pretty simplistic, fans of the series will appreciate the new vision of enemies and fast action. The Castlevania games have always, I've felt, needed to sell you on the atmosphere first, that you're in Dracula's castle, and that the fun is slashing your way through it. LoI certainly has the ambience you've hoped for, but it has it's definite flaws. The game has old-school flair and some great throwbacks like the Red Skeleton and Floating Eyes, but the problems that plagued this PS2 title have already been seen in others before.

Let's get to gameplay. First of all-hallways. Like them? Great. Want to spend most of your time running through empty ones whipping candles for hearts all day? Me either. The set-up is this: Hall, room of enemies, hall, room of enemies, hall w/ a couple enemies, repeat. Combos are cool, but really it amounts to a lot of button-smashing, though the in-game toggle for Items/Equip. is a nice touch. Saving the game is a must, but after running through count-less halls the need to save gets old. Leaping and whipping-hold of things can be a pain sometimes, but overall the camera just kinda hovers around Leon. The camera could have added to the cinematic experience, but while not as bad as DMC2, it doesn't add to the sweeping and legendary views it could have.

Now let's get to cutscenes and plot. A game as grand and long-awaited as LoI, touting the "Beginning" of the Belmont saga needs better than this. Put this way, Super Castlevania 4 for SNES had a better, creepier intro. I don't want to read about Castlevania, and lords and crusades...I want to see them, and LoI makes ya read text. Cutscenes here are usually very polygon-ish. After seeing the beautifully rendered Rygar and how deftly those worlds were created, well, Castlevania needed that 4-star treatment too. The storyline is OK, and certainly there are twists, etc. that will leave true fans wanting more, but not for this story, just more Castlevanias that can really nail it the way SoTN or Castlevania 3 did it.

In the end, Lament is a fun game to play, and fans will love what they see on the surface here. The depth isn't there, however, and the game ultimately is another "the next time they should do it this way..." sort of games. Gone is the GBA/SoTN style of RPG, it's a 3D incarnation of the 2D soul of the series. Great graphics, better sound, and cool bosses, enemies, and attention to detail. Bottom line: if you're a Castlevania fan at all, you'll love what they got right for this installment, but will still be plagued with the nightmares of what it could have become.

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Excellence despite flaws . . .
Who wouldn't like the idea of exploring a haunted castle and killing a few monsters? Personally, the idea has appealed to me since the first entry to the series back in the 80s. (Although that first game literally had me screaming in frustration when the Grim Reaper killed me AGAIN! That little b*****d was harder than Dracula, in my humble opinion.)

But then, this isn't supposed to be a review of the whole series, is it? My apologies.

All the elements that made those 2-D games so great are back in "Lament of Innocence", with a few added elements and a few drawbacks, too. And they are ... ("Drumroll, please.")

--I was disappointed that the whip is not upgradeable to a chain whip. Sure, you can get fire and ice and that cool purple glow for the "Vampire Killer", but I wanted a big-@$$ chain to wave around. I mean, how much damage can a leather whip (I don't care how much "alchemy" was involved) do against a creature made of stone? Oh, well.

--The ability to combine the spheres with the sub-weapons was really cool. Holy Water was always my favorite, and it still is.

--I'm glad that the platforming aspect of this game was toned down. 3-D games are notoriously hard when it comes to leaping about and landing on small platforms. The fact that Leon will not automatically walk off edges helps a lot, too.

--Why can't I destroy the Skull Pillars in this game? That bites.

--Visually, this game is at once beautiful and disturbing. All the lighting effects are nice, but zombies with venomous vomit? What mind thought that up? . . . The juvenile still in residence in my mind just says "Uh, that was cool," and chuckles.

--Yes, the cut-scenes and voice-acting are cheesy. But it's a video game, for cryin' out loud! Don't expect a fine work of art, here. Just something to waste a few hours on.

--OK, this is important. If this is a prequel, how did some guy named Walter somehow become Dracula? What happened to Vlad? The Castlevania games have always, ALWAYS been about hunting down Dracula. The fact that he's missing from this game draws a little away from the tradition. And yet I find myself thinking that this is probably the best game in the series. The only thing that would make it cooler would be if there was an upside-down castle waiting for you when you THINK you've beaten the game. (That was one of the best gaming surprises ever, by the way.)

If your gaming skills are really good or if you aren't the hugest fan of the series, just rent this one. But if you like the Castlevania franchise, pick it up. I found mine for relatively cheap. Possible Greatest Hits title?