Castlevania: Lament of Innocence

I love the Castlevania series. There isnt an installment in the series that I don't enjoy playing, just because the series is so unique to itself. Instead of using traditional "Hardcore" themes, or trying stupid overdone themes done by other companies, Castlevania is the series that basically created the platforming adventure. Even a Zelda game was cloned after Castlevania, a good sign that this series is a d*** fine creation.

Castlevania: Lament of Innocence was theoretically 6 or so years in development. Castlevania games came out for the Nintendo 64 and never really hit it off, so Konami decided that the best thing to do would be to re-do it on the Dreamcast. The Castlevania game never came out for the Dreamcast (Because the Dreamcast pretty much died after facing against the PS2), Konami could be said to still have had 3D Castlevania on the brain.

Flash to 2003. Rumors of a Castlevania game for the PS2. Of course, many considered this to be a little late for Konami, and somewhat of a smart move considering how well Devil May Cry did with the PS2 audience.

The thing that set this apart from all of the other 3D Castlevania embarassments was that they had a strong engine behind the whip mechanic. The whip itself has almost a life of its own, and the attacks you can pull off with the main character, Leon Belmont, are much more interesting than any of the attacks in any of the other 3D games, by far.



However, there is one issue with this game that killed it for most fans. I'm such a blowjob-giving fan of Castlevania that I can stand this on principle, but most newbies to the series will consider this shallow (Which, it is)- they completely lost the collecting and exploring concept of this game. Instead of doing what the traditional games did and creating a Castle to explore with multiple pathways, hidden items, and key/item/jump restrictions to keep you from going too far, they came up with this sad "Warp" idea.

Essentially, instead of feeling open, it feels quite akin to a level-based game. This was exactly what broke the more recent Castlevania games away from games like Super Mario Brothers- the expansive exploration ability. They cut this out for a level based system that, while allowing you to still technically explore, feels very limiting.

Another gripe I have with this game is that they seemed to forget another key issue in the Castlevania series: the complex battle systems. Usually, when a new Castlevania is made, it includes a completely new, completely original system for magic, fighting, or general equipment use, to set it apart from the other series. Such examples are DSS cards (Mix and match for abilities both defensive and offensive), absorbing powers from enemies (You gain their power), and your tried-but-true "Find the magic relics" thing.



Instead, Castlevania:LOI likes to use a magic system that essentially revolves around two factors: your orbs, and your item. Your item-in-hand is a weapon of some sort, which does a specific attack (For example, a cross creates a shield, whereas holy water creates a molitov cocktail effect), and the orbs take these abilities and modify them to make them stronger, faster, or in some way update them. Of course, you can only have one orb equipped at a time, so you have to memorize what-does-what.

While this is an interesting idea, I found it to be kind of cheap and useless. Through this game, I guarantee you I used the items less than 10 times, and probably never in a boss battle. The game just feels like this engine is tacked on, and like it doesnt feel powerful enough to match the game.

Other than that, this game is an outstanding game. The story, while having to be simple and (for existing fans of the series) predictable (this game serves as the prequel to all the Castlevania games, so everyone basically knows the story), the story still is somewhat entertaining, and the Big Plot Twist (TM) is really somewhat unexpected and interesting.



Overall, the game is a good installment of the series. However, and its very sad for a fan like me to admit this, the Game Boy Advance games in the series feel much better than this game, and overall trump this game in fun-levels. Pick this game if you're an existing fan of the series- but don't if you don't care for the series in the first place, or are looking for a good entry-level PS2 game.

3 star(s) out of 5

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