When it was revealed just prior to E3 that Castlevania Judgment would be a 3D fighting game, the news was met with equal parts disdain and disbelief. How could classic 2D platforming possibly translate to 3D fighting? How could Konami — master of platformers, shooters and music games — even create a competent fighter? You’re kidding, right?
They weren’t kidding — but the other two questions still stand, because even though I got considerable hands-on time with the title, I still don’t quite know whether Castlevania Judgment has what it takes to succeed.
“I’d like to consider it a 3D versus action game,” said series producer Koji Igarashi at Konami’s E3 2008 press conference, attempting to dispel notions that Castlevania Judgment is a fighter. “As you can see, it’s an action game where you can run around in 360 degree space, utilizing that space to fight.” With a lengthy bullwhip at his side, we didn’t dare disagree with the veteran vampire hunter, and in fact registered that he had a valid point — Castlevania Judgment isn’t like most other fighting games we’ve played.
But that may or may not be a good thing.
The E3 demo was fairly limited — out of a full 14 characters Igarashi confirmed for the final game, only three (Simon, Alucard and Maria) were playable, and there was no chance to try out either single-player AI or the game’s as-yet-unseen Wi-Fi mode — but what Konami had on display was visually fairly impressive.
Despite what you might think of guest artist Takeshi Obata transplanting his Misa (from Japanese phenomenon Death Note) into Castlevania’s new Maria, the game looks fairly pretty for a Wii title, with convincing anime-style characters and dark, majestic environments worthy of the series’ epic boss battles. Two such stages were available, the first an ornate throne room bathed in a fiery orange and no doubt belonging to one of Dracula’s many manifestations…
…and the second a cold, moonlit graveyard where zombies roam freely. The objective, of course, is to knock the opponent’s health bar down to nothing, but as Igarashi suggested, these arena-like stages play at least a minor role in how players go about doing that.
With nothing rubberbanding our Simon to a rival’s menacing Alucard, we were free to roam about the stage using the left analog stick, bash conspicuously destructible parts of the environment, collect hearts for our subweapon (we tried out knives, axes, holy water and the boomerang cross) and — in the graveyard at least — dodge those pesky zombies. There was no exploration per se, just a glorified ring for the pair of fighters; but the interactivity is a nice touch.
When it comes to combat, Judgment’s controls are responsive and fairly well thought out, with defensive actions mapped to the Nunchuk (Z blocks, C jumps, and a quick shake performs a useful evasive roll) and offensive on the Wiimote. Sadly, there’s no 1:1 whip-cracking action here; but a few quick midair swipes brings out each character’s standard martial combo; special attacks can be performed while holding down B; and subweapons thrown with A.
Depending on whether they’re running or standing still, characters bust out different attacks; and if they deal enough damage to fill a blue gauge on the bottom of the screen, performing a super move is as easy as pressing down on the D-pad.
Where the game’s problems start cropping up is when you try to get this array of whip, sword and staff strikes to actually hit your opponent. A pair of PS2 titles notwithstanding, Castlevania is decidedly a 2D franchise — and even as the wide-open spaces work wonders for defense by providing all manner of vectors along which to escape enemy blows, the offense hasn’t quite caught up.
With few exceptions, the game’s attacks fall short of hitting a moving target; and some subweapons, like the knife and cross, actually still operate in a 2D plane, lancing directly away from their user. These wouldn’t be such a problem if:
A.) the player could lock onto their foe (we were told this was not an option)
B.) there was a decent way of immobilizing players long enough to manually draw a bead and/or get within range for melee strikes (we couldn’t find one)
or C.) the “few exceptions” I’d mentioned — like Alucard’s Sword Familiar above — weren’t themselves auto-tracking, spammable and fairly deadly against fighters who aren’t constantly dodging themselves.
But what this adds up to, at least in this early demo, is a game that encourages either hit and run tactics (followed by a game of ‘keep away,’ as the player with fewer wounds waits for the game timer to toll the others’ defeat) or clumsy no-holds-barred faceoffs agreed upon by the players in hopes of dishing out actual damage. As you’d expect, neither are much fun.
It’s a little rough around the edges, and certainly not what you’d expect from Castlevania, but there are some neat ideas here. We just hope their implementation improves significantly before the game releases this fall.
Update: Perhaps we’re being too harsh? Recent comments by producer Koji Igarashi suggest that Judgment may be a casual game.
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July 23rd, 2008 at 1:21 pm
[...] pull any punches — when compared to modern 3-D fighters, or even action games, the build of Castlevania Judgment we saw at E3 sucks like the series’ trademark vampires. But if Igarashi’s own words are any [...]
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