Castlevania Requiem | Konami
CASTLEVANIA REQUIEM REVIEW
Two Great Titles, Nothing More, Nothing Less
by Oscar Portillo
Castlevania is one of the greatest franchises of all time. Sadly, Castlevania Requiem is essentially a rehash of a previously released title, The Dracula X Chronicles, released for the PSP. Castlevania Requiem is somehow even more bare-bones than its predecessor, with no extras, no 2.5D mode for Rondo of Blood, no art galleries, no interviews, nothing. You can change some display settings on the borders, add scan-lines and interlacing (who knows why), and you can quick save. Those are the only features here besides the core games, which run perfectly fine and are faithful to the originals, not to mention some new voice overs and script rewrites for Symphony of the Night, which I think will displease hardcore fans.
As far as the actual games themselves, they are absolutely incredible. As someone who has played Symphony of the Night on the PS1 we can assure you, it holds up. A giant map to explore, a lot of enemy and weapon variety, and smooth movement make it just as enjoyable today as it was back in the day. Not to mention backtracking which in our opinion spawned the phrase metroidvania.
If Symphony of the Night is a little too easy, Rondo of Blood is a little too hard. The old school difficulty is sure to appeal to long-time fans, but I found myself butting my head against a few bosses before I really understood the attack patterns. Then again, this is part of the whole experience, so half the fun is memorizing patterns and finally overcoming each stage. It’s Castlevania through and through. Rondo of blood has remained elusive to Western fans, so one more port cannot be a bad thing.
Castlevania Requiem | Konami
We all know these games are great, so let us go back to the port analysis. It is just not very good, while it’s a faithful rendition of each title. It is lacking any extra bells or whistles. The quick save feature, which is nice is pretty screwy to figure out, so I just did not even bother to use it. Even the game selection menu looks like it was just thrown together at the last minute. The text on the menu actually overlaps on itself.
So how should I rate this release? It's really hard to say. Like I said before, the games are amazing and almost flawless, but the port is bare bones. If you are a longtime fan, you may want to spend your money elsewhere. You have no doubt played a better version of both of these games, and you’re not missing anything by skipping out here. If you are new to both games, then I would pick these up. Both titles are good and hold up, and give a lot of game for your money. I’m still a bit disappointed in Konami for making Castlevania Requiem ultimately a lazy port-job. At this point this is par for the course when it comes to Konami as it seems like they are doing everything in their power to beat EA for worst game company in existence. Considering that I'm leaning both ways on this, I would say TRY it for yourself.
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