Castlevania Judgment

[The 1 2 P]

Although the concept seems interesting the box art is horrible.

[Famidrive-16]

More of a "Japan Only" kind of title. Why do they give us this CRAP and deny us things like Policenauts?

Yeah, why do they continually deny us a 14-year old game.

[Sotenga]

Yeah, why do they continually deny us a 14-year old game.

Sorry to jaunt off-topic, but I agree, even if Policenauts is more Kojima's territory. It's my hopes that now the Metal Gear Solid saga is supposedly concluded, he'll focus more on Policenauts and perhaps Snatcher... and if it's fourteen years old and next year would be its fifteenth anniversary, I see that as a good opening for an international re-release!

I digress. To focus: I've yet to play Judgment, but I have heard from many of my pals that it bites hard gravel. I may be tempted to rent it at least out of grim curiosity (and I can't say I've played every CV game to ever exist if I didn't do it, a proud little geeky honor for me), but my expectations are currently sucking the algae off of the ocean floor. After the fattening steak of Order of Ecclesia, I guess I'll have to eat some bitter herbs alongside it.

[Famidrive-16]

Sorry to jaunt off-topic, but I agree, even if Policenauts is more Kojima's territory. It's my hopes that now the Metal Gear Solid saga is supposedly concluded, he'll focus more on Policenauts and perhaps Snatcher... and if it's fourteen years old and next year would be its fifteenth anniversary, I see that as a good opening for an international re-release!

I was probably rushing that reply a bit. It just seemed a bit random to say though. Like "Ugh, why are we getting this game? You know what great game we were denied? Nuts and Milk."

[Richter Belmount]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYTPWAavALg

(BUYS)

[Famidrive-16]

I hate the Time Reaper. So much.

[Gabriel]

I picked it up. I kinda like it.

I have issues with the graphics. This does not stem from the character designs. I find the character designs well done and the overall visual design of the game to be very good. No, the problem is the graphics suffer from extreme pixelization and pixel shimmer. Stages also tend to be very dark and hard to see anything in, so all that character and stage design detail is lost for lack of enough light to see it. There's a smoothing option, but it just makes the game look like you've put wax paper over the screen and turned the brightness all the way down. Otherwise, it's more or less in the same visual range as Soul Calibur II for the GameCube.

The camera is just as bad as the professional reviews say. It tends to set itself on views which obscure the proceedings. The AI seems to be programmed to take advantage of this too, because it seems to go to great lengths to move to a camera obscured position before launching an offensive. It's also extremely difficult to judge your position on the battlefield as well as your relative spacing between your opponent. Add in the pixel shimmer and some of the poor camera angles and it becomes difficult to even tell which direction you're facing.

I expected a very light fighter with a Soul Caliburesque sheen, and that's what I got. I expected the "anime neo-gothic" look and that's what I got. I expected a fighting game, and that's not really what I got. For me, C:J has proven itself more as a single player experience. It's fun for a few button mash sessions against a friend, but It's more unfulfilling than satisfying in that role, more frustrating than fun. However, against the AI, it's just kind of cool to kick back and soak up the pseudo-horror style world for a while. And thanks to the hardcore fighting game fans who complain everything is "too easy" unless they have AIs which block and counter perfectly when they're not whipping off 100% damage 97 hit combos on you, any fighting style game where the AI doesn't have these traits is welcome.

Since I got the game because I'm a closet Castlevania fan and wanted to bask in the Castlevania aura for a while, I chalked that up as a win.