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32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A triumphant return, November 5, 2003
Let's get a few things clear and out of the way:
- Symphony of the Night is one of my all-time favorite games, and since I've been playing videogames since the old Atari systems, that's saying alot.
-The jump to 3D play, and I mean GOOD 3D play, was just inevitable, so get used to it. All games are going this way. It's much easier to take advantage of the hardware in a 3D environment.Now that that's said and done, let's get to the point. Lament of Innocence is, in my opinion, a well made and very fun game. It helps that the design team from Symphony worked on this game. The controls are easy to learn: 2 buttons to attack, 1 to jump, 1 for special weapons, and 1 to block. As long as you can get those buttons down, you can play for quite a while and not have to worry about the others. The new combo system is great, giving you the ability to chain together an entire series of very devastating attacks. If you can master the combo system, the sub weapons can be moved to a USE-ONLY-IF-NEEDED status. The addition of using the whip as a meathod of swinging off poles and rails was a nice touch. Also, the game requires ALOT of exploring and doubling-back to retreive items you couldn't get before. Also, if you think the voice-overs stink, then you can play the game in Japanese with English subtitles. There are a few caveats, however. The only way to gain magic points is to block a special enemy attack. This can get extremely frustrating, especially if you're surrounded by enemies that are hacking at you, but not performing special attacks. Also, certain areas of the game become inaccessible after the boss is defeated, and you can go back to pick up something you may have missed, some of which can be very hard to find. Also, the real-time window is just plain bad. You could end up getting the snot beaten out of you just for trying to drink some health potion or equipping a different whip. All the flaws aside, the game is magnificent and a very impressive transition to the 3D format. The storyline is decent, and I think it shows some guts to try to create a prequel to a very famous and recognized series of games.
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Whip for All Seasons, December 19, 2003
In a sense this game is old hat. The beautiful fiancée of Leon Belmont, a knight crusader, is captured by Walter Bernhard, a master vampire. Leon deserts the crusades and flies off to the castle of the aforementioned vampire. There, after being handed a mystical whip, he penetrates layer after layer of horrible badness until he faces, and hopefully destroys, his true enemy. Which is about all the plot a good third person hack-and-slash really needs.However, to create such a game with sufficient workmanship to make it compelling visually and challenging mentally and physically is no small feat. And that is what sets Lament of Innocence apart from many of its competitors. For one thing, developers are always tempted to substitute extreme difficulty for interesting challenges. Lament, on the other hand, is just doable enough to keep the player from throwing the controller at the monitor in disgust. And its puzzles can be resolved by keeping in mind that anything can be a tool. Castlevania isn't perfect. I found that motion control and camera angle are both a little too loose. To some degree this is intentional, but I prefer controls that send objects where they are suppose to go. Especially when you are leaping from stone to stone in a frantic effort to scale a wall and there is one, and only one, spot from which to leap. One of the problems in rating a game like Lament of Innocence is that it is very good, but falls slightly short of some other, very similar games. In this case I'm thinking of Devil May Cry. This is a case where 5 stars are too many, but 4 are too few. I would recommend both as great examples of their genre that can be played repeatedly.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Finally, a worthy 3D heir to the Castlevania series, November 11, 2003
Konami's previous attempts to create a fully 3D incarnation of Castlevania until now have failed. The sluggish Castlevania 64 was too ambitious of a project for the Nintendo 64 hardware, and the Dreamcast version was scrapped shortly before it's release for reasons unknown. I can happily report however, that the PS2's Lament Of Innocence successfully ports the series into 3D without losing the elements that make it a great Castlevania game. Everything a Castlevania fan could want is here...fast-paced whip action, plenty of enemies, haunting musical score, beautiful backdrops, a dramatic story, and good voice acting as well. There are a couple of shortcomings though. While the graphics are beautifully detailed, many of the rooms in the game look identical and are too large and barren to be a part of an actual castle. Also, I found that having to pull up a menu to use items/switch equipment can be very tedious during encounters with enemies. Just for the sake of keeping the frustration factor low, I would have liked to have been able to just pause the game to sift through potions, serums, ect. Still, Lament Of Innocence does enough things right to make it worthy of bearing the Castlevania name. It's an excellent 3D platformer no PS2 owner should miss.
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