July 11, 2008 - Believe us when we say that we were just as shocked as you all were to hear that the next Castlevania title from Konami ? the one that would debut the series on Wii ?was a fighter. Granted we heard about it a while before everyone else, and were sworn to secrecy, keeping tight-lipped until the official announcement was made, but we had the same discussions around the office, skeptical talks about the game, and typical questions as everyone else. As part of our pre-E3 coverage with Konami, we had a chance to go hands-on with the game this week, and while we still don’t know everything about it ? or exactly how we feel about such a bold move from Konami ? we at least know more than we did before getting a chance to go a few rounds with the fighter.
Castlevania Judgement is in a very, very early form right now, and we’ve actually gotten word that a new build will be created for E3, which the team is currently working on right now. What we had a chance to play this week was a true “pre-E3” build, and it came complete with all unlocked characters and stages for us to play around with. Most of the audio in the interface screens didn’t work, and when in-game there were still typical pre-alpha issues left and right, but we had a chance to at least try it out, and see the direction Iga is taking this unique design.
The characters look nice, but it’s the effects animations that really come through in this early build.
For starters, the game plays like Power Stone, or a vs. version of the Xbox/PS2 games from a few years back. Each player grabs a character, and runs around in a small, one-level, free-roaming arena filled with monsters, candlesticks, and a classic Castlevania backdrop. General movement is handled with the analog stick on the nunchuk, while Wii-mote waggle doe s the main attacks for each character. To add modifiers to the regular attacks, you can hold any combination of A, B, and (right now it’s only working slightly, but it’s there) C and Z. When pressed alone, A throws whatever sub-item you selected for your player ? the list includes four for each fighter, and they are set up based on that character’s style ? while A and B together does an item crush that uses hearts and magic together.
There’s also general double-jumps for the players you’d expect. We can only talk about playing with Simon Belmont, Dracula, Alucard, and Maria, but out of those three everyone except Dracula could double jump, with Dracula’s second jump instead keeping him in the air in “hover” mode for as long as you’d like. As a few other quick observations, Alucard could use his “tetra spirits” attack, Dracula threw fireballs and the huge dark sphere attack made famous in Symphony of the Night, and Maria’s jump attack and sub-items make use of her summon creatures and famous owl. With someone like Simon Belmont, players can use daggers, holy water, the boomerang cross, or throwing axe.
While those are the only four fighters we can talk about, we did see quite a few familiar faces, ranging from other allied characters in the series (the time of each game doesn’t seem to matter in Judgment), a few of the more major enemies in the game, and of course some classic bosses ? yes, the one everyone would expect to be in a Castlevania game is there; he’s more frequent than Dracula himself. In addition we had a chance to check out a few levels, including the village (swarming with undead) and monastery, but also saw cave levels, some sort of torture chamber, and a pier or port arena. There’s also a general “alignment” color you’ll need to select when picking a character ? green, blue, red, and purple ? but they didn’t do anything yet in the game, so that’ll remain a mystery for now.
No Castlevania is complete without Dracula
In addition to vs. mode ? the only area we had a chance to play ? we also saw some sort of “story” mode in the game as well, and we already know DS connectivity is going to make an appearance, though in a brief interview with Iga the game’s designer said any announced info on that so far hasn’t been accurate (rumors were that it would be needed to unlock Maria or other characters in the game), and that DS connectivity would unlock features not only in Judgment, but in Order of Ecclesia as well.
The game obviously has a long way to go, as it was pretty clunky, still running in 4:3 for the time being, and had some basic camera issues that had player 1 blocking the screen every now and then, but we got the idea of the game, and it certainly has promise. Belmont has some awesome looking whip combos and extravagant offense, while Dracula is a complete tank, barely moving at all and casting magic from a distance. Alucard is like the anti-Belmont, focusing on magic more than combo attacks, but still having strong melee to work with, and Maria is extremely unconventional, summoning magic and odd, floating jump attacks to throw off opponents. In addition, each player also has a huge super attack that launches a scripted summon sequence, and they looked pretty good, despite being rough and early.
We’ll have more on Judgment as the game continues development, but until then check out our in-game images in the media gallery below. For those wondering of Judgment truly feels like a Castlevania-made-fighter, we’d say yes, but it needs a lot of polish if it’s going to sit at the top of our “must play” list, and right now it’s a bit too rough to tell.
