I learned what a Dhampir is.
Gonna open this review with a shocker – I have never played a Bloodrayne game before. Look, can you blame me? The series doesn’t exactly have the air of ‘must-play’ over it. However, when I heard that the wonderful folks at WayForward ( Contra 4, Shantae: Risky’s Revenge) developing the latest entry into the franchise..well, my interest in the ladyvampire rose tenfold.
If you, like me know next to nothing about Bloorayne, here’s a quick little primer. Our lovely Rayne is a Dhampir, which means she is a child of a vampire father and a human mother. She’s pretty damn good at hunting other vampires, which she does plenty of on her quest to locate and kill her evil father. You don’t really need much more backstory to fully understand and enjoy Betrayal, just know that you’re out to kill plenty of bloodsuckers and disgusting creatures inside a gothic underground castle.
Boring down into the castle in your coffin rocket (Quite possibly one of the most awesome forms of travel ever created!) you take control of our wonderfully animated dhampir. Slashing, shooting and biting into anything that moves, Betrayal’s combat is very combat focused, and you’ll want to try to reach perfection with each encounter as the game rates your performance at the end of each chapter. Thankfully, Rayne has plenty of tricks and techniques to make sure it’s possible to get a good rank. Arm blades slice and dice, kicks bounce enemies around, dashing and head bouncing on the skulls of your targets before pumping them full of lead and don’t forget about her ability to infect an enemy and then use them as a remote bomb..fighting is just as fun to do as it is to look at.
Oh, and what a wonder it is to look at everything in this game. WayForward’s signature touch is shown to great effect as every little thing has incredible 2D art and it all animates fantastically. Rayne and her enemies are just packed with feeling, seeing the blood gush out anything is such a delight. You’ll dig deeper into the castle with each passing level, encountering new enemy types, small puzzles and mostly slick platforming. Easy as it is to move and dash around platforms, Rayne’s long jump was a little annoying to pull off, even if it looked stunning in action.
Once you clear all 15 levels and enjoyed that rockin’ final boss battle, you can revisit the chapters to try to get a higher score and gather up all the hidden collectable skulls, which in turn you can use to upgrade Rayne’s health or increase her ammo count for help in chaining combos. Hell, even after aquiring all of that, I’d play it all over again just to look at it some more. Challenging, pretty and somewhat of a retro 2D up-commence, I’m glad that Bloodrayne: Betrayal was my first entry into the franchise. I highly recommend it should be yours as well.
