When I first started playing Castlevania Judgment, I was actually enjoying it. Hell, I even told people it was “surprisingly fun.” The more time I spent with it, though, the more I began to loathe the game. “This is what’s keeping me from playing other, better games?” became a constant complaint heard from my office. (That and the sound of a Wii remote smacking against my left hand when it failed to recognize a move.)
So where did the game go wrong? Asking a question like that is like asking “Why is it a bad idea to set your friend on fire?” There are multiple reasons, and while some are more important than others, all contribute to the overall response.
Perhaps the biggest misstep taken with Judgment is the fact that it exists. (Existential, I know.) Castlevania has never succeeded in a 3D environment, no matter what Nintendo 64 fans claim. More importantly, Castlevania has never tackled the fighting genre before. When a company goes completely out of its way to try breaking ground in two areas simultaneously, bad things are likely going to happen – especially when the game isn’t their main focus at the time of development.
I admit, the idea behind Judgment made sense; the series does have a wide variety of characters throughout its canon, after all. Many of the important and favorite characters – from Simon and Dracula to Shanoa and the Judgment exclusive Aeon – make their appearance in this game, as sort of an ultimate ode to Castlevania fans.
Or at least, I believe that was its intention. Oddly enough, many of the characters’ costumes and appearance are nothing like they were originally portrayed. Simon, Grant, and Eric are probably the best examples of the new character designs, and none of them work particularly well. (Especially when you remember what time period and area they’re from…) There’s really no way to describe how poorly they treated some of the most important characters in Castlevania with their new redesigns.
Thankfully, the environments aren’t nearly as flamboyant and ridiculous as the costumes, and actually do bring some familiar series hot spots to life in 3D glory. Lavish mosaic stained glass windows, full moons, mist, bats, and other similar imagery bring traditional Castlevania aesthetics to life in Judgment. As you see many of the areas for the first time, if you’re a longtime Castlevania player chances are you’re going to be sidetracked looking at the background and the landscape, and going “I remember the part that looked like this!” Sadly, these backgrounds and level designs are by far the high point of the game, not only for their visual integrity but also for the unique and fun features each area possesses.
In past interviews about the game, Koji Igarashi stated that he was more interested in making a hybrid fighting-action game, not specifically a straight-up fighting one. Much of what makes Judgment (attempt to) fit this mold takes place in the environments. For starters, each environment has unique challenges specific to that locale. Some feature NPC bad guys who wander around and attack anyone who gets close, and all contain a myriad of interactive objects and power-ups.
Interactive objects can be activated with all characters, and the actions taken (and objects utilized) depend on the stage and character being used. From the Belmonts whipping torches at foes to Grant placing knife traps, each character’s interactive object special attack adds another layer of strategy on top of the game. Power-ups are also plentiful, and are found within breakable objects. They range from random character subweapons to hearts, which act as subweapon ammo. What are subweapons? Basically, another way to attack your opponent with special attacks that consume the heart ammo. Sadly, the attacks range from “Why is this so special?” to “OMGWTF THAT’S NO FAIR!”
Unfortunately, that’s the point where the good and sort-of-good comes to a screeching halt and collides with the wall of awfulness. The game may look nice, and the people behind it may have meant well, but the finished project is a clusterfuck of motion controls and imbalance, and completely, irreversibly ruins any and all chances Judgment had at being anything beyond an answer to a future gaming trivia question and a black mark on the franchise.
The primary attack in the game is mapped to the remote; more specifically , you wave the Wiimote to attack. To modify it, you hold down modifier buttons while waving the remote. Originally the idea was to “have a Castlevania game where you controlled the whip,” but somewhere along the line they completely lost track of what the goal was and the result is nothing less than abysmal – especially since most characters’ attacks make no sense with the waving. To pull off combos, you need to waggle and button press your way to anime-inspired victory, all slightly ahead of the action being performed on screen. That would be fine, if it wasn’t for the game’s bizarre tendency to completely ignore random commands. Sometimes you’ll wave the remote … and nothing will happen. Other times you’ll wave the remote … and something you didn’t want to, will.
This failing is especially compounded when on defense. Characters are able to pull off super moves with a simple button press after charging up a gauge, and these moves can take upward of half of a fighter’s life. To defend, you need to dodge. Guess how you dodge? Waggling the nunchuck! Of course, if it doesn’t work… It certainly doesn’t help matters that each super move has repeated 10-second long animations. With how often you’re able to activate them, it’s definitely something you’re going to be sick of seeing within five minutes of play
Even if the waggling did work 100% of the time, it wouldn’t always matter thanks to the godawful camera system. Rather than focus on both fighters at a time, Judgment’s invisible cameraman is intent on focusing on one person’s action. This results in constant occasions of the camera swinging in ways that don’t make sense, and frequent blockage of the on-screen action. Against most human players, this is an annoyance at most; against computers, though, once your view is impacted be prepared to get the snot beat out of you, even if you were handily handing them their pixilated, oddly armored behind on a platter. Of course, skilled human players playing overpowered characters like Dracula will be able to lay a trap to one side of you, and then prepare to super move you if you dodge away to the opposite direction catching you in a catch-22 of pain. So it isn’t always just an annoyance.
There’s one more major problem with Judgment aside from the controls, camera, and character designs, and that’s the already-heavily-hinted-at imbalance. As it stands, pretending Judgment is a balanced fighter is like pretending you love that new recipe your friend invented. Sure, you can pretend it was tasty and trick your friends into believing it was, but you can never trick yourself. Selecting Dracula is basically pushing the “I WIN!” button against any but the most skilled opponents, and others range from overpowered to underpowered; very few are at the middle of the pack. I can understand making Dracula and certain characters stronger than others in a single player game, but in a fighter it makes absolutely no sense at all, especially given that they’re selectable as characters.
When you get down to it, Judgment really doesn’t offer anything worthwhile for Castlevania fans or non-fans. The story mode is so lame it would have been better off in Japanese so I could at least think characters had relevant plots, fighters are extremely imbalanced, and the default remote + nunchuck controls are so broken I felt like smashing my coffee table in abject frustration and righteous fury. Sure, you can use the classic controller or GameCube controller instead, but if you go that route just imagine the other, far superior fighting games which also use pads as their default controller. What makes Judgment unique – the Castlevania characters and the Wii motion controls – are also what ultimately make it fail.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at my eventual disliking of Judgment. Earlier this year when I saw the game at E3, the build was buggy, the gameplay was sporadic, and the controls and camera were abysmal. My initial impressions of the retail build were that Konami pulled off a miracle and fixed the game, but after only a couple hours of playtime it became increasingly apparent that they didn’t. Please, Konami, keep the Castlevania series in 2D sidescrolling where it belongs, and God forbid if you try something like this again keep the gimmick controls and features far, far away.
December 1st, 2008 at 10:41 pm
I would like to add that for those who don't PLAY fighting games, this game may not be that bad. You'll probably actually enjoy it. But if you have any experience with any of the halfway-decent fighters from this generation, Judgment just pales in comparison. Even compared to the other Wii fighting games (like Naruto and Bleach).