Please login to submit a screenshot

THIS GAME ILL NEEDS A SAVIOR

The Castlevania series was known for making games that you have to play stage by stage to play the game. Well if you hated that kind of playing then I would suggest that you play this game because you are not playing stage by stage and you are not a Belmont. You are Alucard (Adrian Fahrenheit Tepes is his real name) whose the son of Dracula, and if you didn't know this it is Alucard's name is Dracula spelled backwards. You adventure Castlevania because Richter fought Dracula 5 years ago and 4 years later he disappeared and Maria went searching for him in Castlevania. And Alucard came was that he woke up from his "Eternal Sleep" that he was in and felt the darkness and evil.

GAMEPLAY

Score 10/10

This game is really fun to play with all the weapons, armor, bombs etc. And you will have fun with the explosions and fighting bosses and screwing around in the castle. If you are wondering how long the learning curve of this game it's about 15-30 minutes to learn.

The difficulty of this game is easy to medium, because the enemies are just right with what level you currently are. But if you find out a way to get to a place earlier the enemies are probably at least the level of you are and will take out a lot of hit points. The bosses aren't hard there are some with lots of hit points so that could make them harder because they have so much hit points.

The controls are really simple use the D-pad to move square and circle for using weapons, X to jump and okay command and triangle to dash backwards. And when you get the wolf, bat and mist you need to do: L1 for mist, R2 for Wolf, R1 for the bat. If you want, you can do spells, you will then have to do some combos in order to successfully do the spell.

And if you like games with a whole bunch of weapons at your disposal then this is a game for you. And you travel over a huge castle and get a good amount of relics to give you a better chance to defeat enemies and bosses.

STORY

10/10

You start out with Richter and you play as Richter when he had defeated Dracula in 1792, and if you are wondering there is absolutely no way of you dying when you are playing as Richter.

This story I think is a very good storyline. It starts out with Richter fighting Dracula in a long battle and pushed Dracula to the brink and then killed Dracula. Then 4 years latter Richter disappeared without a trace and Maria went looking for him and saw Dracula's Castle and fearlessly she entered alone. Then Alucard wakes up from his sleep that he went into 300 years ago when he had defeated Dracula with Trevor Belmont and periodically he meets Maria in some parts of the castle.

If you might not know this was originally for the Sega Saturn which was released at the same time as the Playstation and the Playstation was doing better so they put it on the playstation console instead. Unfortunately they took some of the relics and extra secrets from the playstation one which I was a little mad.

I loved that you get to play as Alucard instead of playing as one of the Belmonts that were in the previous games. And that this time you are saving a Belmont this time from a perilous Villain (Dracula).

GRAPHICS

10/10

The graphics were very very EXCELLENT; they had very clear background and a cool look at 3D even though it was 2D to start out with. The monsters were very clear and very detailed and the scenery was very clear and detailed and was really well done for a somewhat old game.

The explosions and items that you used during the game were detailed too the explosions of fire by some items that you used was clear it wasn't just some orange red color that was forming were you threw the item. When you changed into the bat or wolf they were detailed with the features of what the bat and wolf would have in real life. You would think that the PS wouldn't have much good of graphics since it was released awhile ago around the 1997, but still this has a whole lot better graphics than some other PS games that were released later than this game.

The images were a little blurry and you sometimes didn't get to see what the characters look like because it was a little blurry. But you got to see the characters images when they talked because when they talk they show the picture of the character in the left then in the right you see what they are saying. But they do not act out the speaking they just sit there and talk, what they do is when you leave your character standing for a couple of minutes and they move around. That is what they do they move around but they don't act out too, that would make it a little better if they had some kind of acting.

SOUND

10/10

The sound was awesome as well because there were perfect sound effects and perfect sound coming from the weapons or bombs that you used. The music is the big reason this got a 10. Each song fit perfectly into each area of the castle and got your blood pumping to play this game, and from what I know that all of these songs were played by an orchestra not synthesized or played by a computer.

You can listen to the music after you have beaten the game; they have some awesome music that you can listen to.

PLAY TIME
10/10

You can learn to play this game in about 15 - 30 minutes. Because this game isn't complicated once you learn to play for 15 - 30 minutes you should know how to play with no problems because you don't add anything new once you play it is the same old thing explore castle defeat enemy in the room inside of the castle.

REPLAY ABILITY
10/10

Wow this game has a whole bunch of stuff that you can replay the game. You can go find all of the weapons & items that are dropped by the enemy. You can try to level up Alucard to level 99 which is insanely hard to do. You can level up your muramasa to take out 999 to an enemy; you can get 200.6 % of the game done. You can level up your familiars to level 99 so that they are more helpful when you play around in the castle. If you want you can go accomplish some glitches to make it so you can go past 200.6 %, I did a glitch and I was at 201. 4 %. And if you just want to screw around in the castle then you can do so. And after you have 170% or more you can play as Richter by typing in RICHTER as the name of another file and it will be a challenge when you play as Richter since you don't have as much life as Alucard does. Then you can put in the name AXEARMOR and you can start out with the axearmor which turns Alucard into an axe knight and you can jump about 2 inches and can run really fast. Overall this is a game with a whole bunch of replay ability.

PROS & CONS

PROS
- Sweet graphics
- Cool music to each area of the castle
- Nice voices when the character talks
- Good storyline

CONS
- Same sword strike for most of the swords
- When using the Teleporter you have to keep pressing up to get to your destination

FINAL RECOMMENDATION

I suggest that you buy this game because you cannot find it at a local Wal- Mart or Target. This game is extremely rare, so if find it I salute you because this game is as hard to find as Final Fantasy VII which you can usually find them on EBay, but to get them at a gamestop that is near you is really hard to come by. And like I said you should buy this mainly because it is one of the best games and I do not believe you can rent this at Hollywood or Blockbuster. And if you return it and you got it for a gift you must be brainwashed or something because this is one of the best games and if you are not going to play it then give it to someone who has more use than just returning it. You could just give to a friend for their birthday.

SCORE
10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10
= 60/60
A+
Perfect score

Overall score 10/10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/24/06