Castlevania: Lords of Linear
I would call this game a mixed bag. It has a lot of good and a lot of bad going for it. In fact, I don't think I've ever been so on the fence about a video game before. Here are the pros and cons.
PROS: It's the first good modern Castlevania game since, well, ever. It has great character designs. It has a very cool plot twist at the end. It makes use of the whip, the daggers, the holy water, and other iconic weapons. It features a Belmont as a main character (and he's played by Robert Carlyle!). The castle in the game is genuinely enormous and terrifying. Combat is straight-forward and satisfying. There are a lot of weapons, combos, and items to collect & upgrade, promising re-playability. It's nice and LONG, clocking in at 2 discs worth of material. You get to ride giant spiders. You get to ride giant spiders (that last one is so cool I'm compelled to mention it twice).
CONS: The writing is lame and the characters are uninteresting. Patrick Stewart's narrations are long, repetitive, and sound like they could be the lyrics to every emo song ever written. The camera is locked in, so you're surrounded by beautiful environments that you can't stop to admire. It's pretty darn linear. The castle part (definitely the most fun portion of the game) takes place smack dab in the middle and only takes up about 1/3 of the story.
I think the good outweighs the bad, even if only a little bit. But it's not something I would play again, at least for a long, long time. Not the best Belmont outing, but it's a breath of fresh air to play a new, good Castlevania game again!
