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Reviews (2)
28 Jul, 2010
Dawn of Sorrow: Good, Yet Flawed
1 of 1 found this helpful Anyone who has played a recent Castlevania game has experienced the consisted excellence that is the Castlevania series. The games are huge in scale, spanning castles of hundreds of non-linear rooms, enemies, and items, and employing a unique RPG-element Platforming system. They provide a high degree of challenge without being so difficult as to cause you to rip out your hair. Dawn of Sorrow is no exception. It offers up some unique mechanics and twists on the genre. However, some of these cause frustration or otherwise detract from the game.
The Soul System - The Main Character, Soma, has the ability to take the souls of enemies he defeats and use them as weapons. Unlike other CV games, where you have a 6-8 slots for weapons, armor, and accessories, you have only 3 equipment slots. Instead, you have three slots for Souls. One of these slots works like the standard "Subweapon" system in most CV games. One adds an effect that can be toggled or made continuous by holding R. The final slot acts as a second accessory. Additionally, you are able to switch between two sets of equipment/souls. To cap things off, Souls can be melded with weapons to improve upon those weapons. This makes for a great, dynamic system. In theory. In practice, it can be rather frustrating, as the low drop rates on souls means that it's possible to spend an hour or more grinding the same enemy to get a single soul for a weapon upgrade. And if you want to use a Soul as a subweapon or accessory, 9 total are required to reach the maximum power. The weapon upgrade tree is sadly very linear and single-branched, offering very little in the way of options besides just "make this sword/axe do more damage". Additionally, several non-guaranteed Souls are required in order to reach certain points in the castle, including one that is necessary to complete the game with anything but the worst ending, meaning some degree of grinding is absolutely required.
Seals - Dawn of Sorrow makes use of the Stylus system intermittently with Seals that are used to "finish off" bosses by drawing a specific insignia on the screen. This sounds neat, but in reality it is rather obnoxious. Switching from using buttons to using the stylus is an awkward process, and if you fail to draw the seal precisely (and "precisely" is not exactly what they display to draw), the sealing process fails and you have to deal the boss about 20% of his HP again. The system ends up being clunky and frustrating.
Plot - The other weak point, in my opinion, is the plot. Unlike most Castlevania games, you are not in Dracula's Castle (the title namesake, Castlevania), you do not play as a Belmont (or Morris, or even Alucard), and the final boss is not Dracula. No, instead YOU are Dracula, or at least you are his reincarnation, and with the wrong sequence of events you could become him and inflict untold pain upon humanity. So you'd think you'd stay home, out of the way, and not get into trouble. Leave it to Victor Belmont and Alucard to take care of, right? Nope. Instead, you go chasing after a cult intent on bringing about Dracula, either by killing you and having one of the other possible heirs take up your mantle, or by enraging you to the point where you succumb to the darkness inside of you. The entire plot is contingent on you being at the castle this cult has set up, and you go and stay there of your own accord. The final boss you end up facing is created entirely because of your actions there.
21 Aug, 2010
Dragon Quest IV: Nostalgia and Improvements
1 of 1 found this helpful Going to lead off with my single complaint about the game - Much of the original script and many of the original names of items, spells, monsters, towns, and even main characters' names have been reworked. The only real complaint in this is the feeling that some of the treasured characters from my childhood are no longer the same. What do you mean Mara and Nara are now called Maya and Naya?!? Additionally, most regions have their own "dialect", which can be a little hard to decipher sometimes in the written speech (did we really need to spend the entire first chapter trying to decipher Scottish accents?).
However, once the game starts rolling, it is immediately apparent that they've stayed true to the core of the game. The enemy sprite graphics (at least at rest) are nearly identical to the originals, though they now have snazzy attack animations. All of the music and sound effects are true to the originals, simply de-tinnified. And that feeling is great. With the sound on, if you had ever played Dragon Warrior IV on the NES, it's like stepping back in time. Despite cosmetic changes to the script, the plot and series of actions remains almost untouched.
There are, however, some notable improvements to the game over the original. In the final chapter, instead of relying on often-crummy AI to guide your characters apart from the Hero, you now have the option to issue commands (you can still use the AI if you want, but it's generally not worthwhile). Additionally, there is a bunch of added content, including an additional chapter with some new and difficult challenges and a new party member, an optional sidequest chain, and new and exciting bonuses for some completionists.
Originally, I bought the game out of a fit of nostalgia and after hearing that one of the main problems with the original (the AI) had been rectified. After playing the game the entire way through, I find myself more than satisfied with my decision, and strongly recommend the game to anyone who played the original, or even those who haven't.