A Night at the Blood Ballet
Ah, BloodRayne, one of gaming’s many butchered IPs. There could have been some future for its b-movie gore and sexy half vampire frolicking, but alas it somehow made its way to being largely associated with movies about one level up from digging your eyeballs out with a pencil.
For the longest time I thought I would never even actually finish BloodRayne: Betrayal. Having originally played the 360 release some time ago I found myself stuck some two thirds in with no clue of how to proceed. So it was certainly with some degree of trepidation that I picked up the PC release, and with the IP so far in the murky pits of hell, the portents were not altogether encouraging.
So what a delight it is then to report that BloodRayne: Betrayal is by far the best thing to come out of the franchise so far. Gone is the clunky third person action of the previous games and in comes some much more competent 2D bloodsucking via developer WayForward.
The first stroke of genius the developers seem to have had was the understanding that hitherto all BloodRayne stories have been absolute shite, and as such have acted accordingly in deciding not to really have one at all. There’s a bad guy, you have to kill him, done.
This refreshing ‘less is more’ ethos has also had a positive impact in other areas, where the loss of the 3rd dimension has meant that the desperate flailing of the previous games have now morphed into a much more precise and satisfying set of moves and attacks. You run, you jump, you stab, you slash, and you suck (to regain health). The combat is very much about enemy observation and timing as you really do not have the mobility to just duck and dive out the way of enemy attacks at a moment’s notice. The action is quite deliberate where careful anticipation and control is needed, and where out and out aggression is often punished.
Progression is linear; there are 15 chapters, and for each one you are scored and ranked according to the intricacy of your combos, the speed with which you complete the chapter, and the number of hits you took in doing so. It is very much a game of repeated plays, where your knowledge of the level and mastery of Rayne’s abilities will make all the difference between getting an F or an A. That the game scores you on speed, and yet frowns upon mindless rushing, makes for a tense challenge and in part turns combat into a puzzle in of itself.
However, it is very much the way you learn the game that perhaps hurts the experience most. Very little is actually told to you beyond the basic mechanics. The full move set and combos available are hidden in menus and are perhaps not the most intuitive way to assist you in learning how to overcome some of the quite challenging enemies and platforming sections.
The game doesn't really develop your skills in the way something like Guacamelee would. Instead of slowly ramping up the challenge and using the same skills you’ve slowly developed over the course of the game, Betrayal just loves to just throw you at a challenge without any prelude or warning, forcing you to perform feats of supreme agility where if you're not already an expert, you can expect to retry that section over and over until you quit in frustration or finally nail it. The game does at the very least have a good checkpoint system; however be mindful if you quit the game mid-chapter as you will have to start from the beginning of it if you do.
There is also a minor upgrade system; in each chapter there are a number of hidden red skulls where you can choose to either get more Health or more ammo for your gun with every 5 skulls collected. This works quite nicely as you start with very little health, and the challenge presented is such that many will no doubt struggle and need that additional help to make progress. It should also be mentioned that there are no difficulty levels, so if you can’t get through a particularly gruelling section then there is no option to make things easier aside from obtaining the skulls in the levels you've already completed and to just keep trying.
Aesthetically the game again makes an about turn in the series. Betrayal trades out polygonal models for 2D cartoon-style sprites. The animations are well done and the creepy gothic style is a good fit for all the enthusiastic bloodletting on screen. The soundtrack is also in keeping with things; the composer Jake Kaufman stated outright that Symphony of the Night was an inspiration for him, and while it doesn't reach those heights, it is nevertheless effective at reinforcing the atmosphere, with the ability to unlock an 8-bit version being a nice added bonus.
All in all, BloodRayne: Betrayal is a solid 2D slash and suck. It doesn't have any great ambitions beyond this, but considering the series’ history, this is not necessarily a bad thing. It manages to take the central ideas of the series (cutting people up with arm blades and sucking their blood), place them centre stage, and actually make them fun.