Nintendo fans have been hoping for some exciting new Castlevania content for the console scene for some time. We've had many handheld iterations, almost too many to count in fact, so it has been far past time for a console Castlevania experience.


Simon Belmont, properly presented as rough and tumble vampire slayer.

This has, in the past, proven a difficult endeavor. Though many attest that some of these games are more enjoyable than given credit for, Castlevania's transition to 3D hardware has been largely considered a failure.

Yet the Wii has exciting possiblities for a console Castlevania, with motion control of the whip being the obvious draw. Of course, we've been told time and time again how oh so "tiring" this would be for the player (blah...).

This week a new Wii Castlevania game was announced (Castlevania Judgement). Fans rejoiced.

But not so fast.

Two new strikes have this game hampered from the start. First, it's a fighting game. A FIGHTING game. Castlevania is about exploration and discovery as well as combat, with the former two elements clearly missing from the fighting game genre.

Once recovered from this shock, fans were treated to what many consider an abysmal art style:


Ugh.

This is the character design of death note artist Takeshi Obata, which might be fine for Death Note, or a hundred thousand other games, but not, in my opinion, for an iconic series like Castlevania. Here's another dreadful example, this time of Maria Renard, who is made here to look like she's 14 years old (with a 22 year old body):



So here we have a game that isn't in a style fans want, and is using an art design that has limited appeal. This makes this blogger wonder if the game is being made primarily for a Japanese audience. That's the only explanation I can give at the moment.

I'm not against fighting games nor am I one of the "anti-anime" legions out there. Both can have their place of course. Yet this seems to be the wrong direction for Castlevania.

But it could still be a fun game.

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