Another slightly off trip in 3D for the Castlevania series.
Curse of Darkness (CoD) is another sort-of-misses-the-mark 3D Castlevania. While the controls were solid, camera okay, and quite fun overall to play, the repetitive environments and sparse enemies really hurt.
I like the ID system - expanded on the simple Familiars of SotN, there was really a lot of potential here. They're decent, although unlocking the different paths is really way too easy, and there's not very much incentive to stick with the lower forms. They look okay and the ID AI isn't too bad though, so most of the time you do feel a certain proprietary attachment to the little things.
The ability to steal items is great, I've always loved stealing in games, not just mashing enemies up and hoping for good or rare drops.
The item creation system was a brilliant touch - combined with stealing, you could spend a lot of time mixing and matching various equipment. However, CoD fell into the trap of good-better-best style equipment, there's really no reason to not use the "best" armor, the "best" helm, etc. Despite the potential for a really wide range of equipment for Hector, CoD merely gives you a taste of what the combination system is truly capable of.
I'm not saying the default combination items are bad - it's just that they fall into the usual RPG rut. You can't, for example, craft a set of, say, fire-oriented gear, or a set of speed-boosting equipment, or light on armor but granting boosts to skills, etc. There's SO MUCH you can do with this, and yet what you get in CoD is another tired +10 armor, +12 armor, +14 armor system.
The enemies are okay although they seem to be recycled a lot - there are way too few enemy types in each area, and generally after getting familiar with the game, just name a given enemy and you'll instantly be able to tell where in the map you are. I know the Castlevania series generally does this, but coupled with the boxy, dull environments, it is really noticeable.
Yes, the environments. Although you actually leave the castle and wander around the countryside of Wallachia, it feels more like roaming a few possible branches of a cave instead of wandering freely on an outdoor map. Paths are extremely noticeably boxy - the outdoor areas are practically just like indoor areas, you can only walk / run / handspring along a somewhat narrow corridor.
The sound effects are serviceable, and the music, while generally good, isn't memorable enough (for my tastes). My band loves videogame music, and we're spazzing over Abandoned Castle and Cordova Town, but frankly the rest of the CoD tracks didn't have that feeling.
The game also has an unlockable Crazy mode where enemies are much tougher, and a Belmont mode where you play another of the famous whip-wielding Belmonts.
Despite all the massive fun of getting different IDs and stealing and combining items, there is just not enough fun in the rest of the game to hold your attention throughout the endless hours doing said things, and it shows in all of the other reviews here. It's an excellent game, don't get me wrong, it's just that a lot of stuff seems limited for little reason we can see - perhaps the game was produced on a shoestring budget? That is among the rumours I've read about, which sounds weird, since I thought Castlevania was among Konami's more visible titles.