One side of the next generation

A couple months ago I was offered a nice deal on Microsoft’s latest console and couldn’t resist. So, even though most of the current games really aren’t my cup of tea, here I was, a brand new owner of Xbox 360 Premium edition.

The major difference between the two editions is the hard drive. The cheaper Core edition doesn’t have one. In addition the Premium edition packs component cables, a wireless controller and a headset with microphone.

The console itself is roughly the same size and weight as the original Xbox. You can place it either horizontally or vertically. It looks more elegant than the previous one and is available in just one color, white. I like the color, but it probably bums those who demand even their toilet paper in black because it’s so much better. Fear not, Microsoft has released a black one under the suitable name of Elite Edition. The elite edition also brings a 120 Gb hard disk and HDMI support.

While the Xbox had internal power supply, Xbox 360 has a huge external one. That’s right, folks. It is huge. It’s about the height of Nintendo Wii and weighs about as much. Fortunately it is easy to hide and forget.

The thing you can’t forget is the noise. Xbox 360 is the loudest console I’ve ever owned (or used). The noise varies a bit on whether you’ve placed the console sideways or upwards but remains nevertheless, and I’m talking about idle noise here. Whenever a game or something else that’s processor intensive is running, it turns up a notch. When you put a disc inside, the DVD drive steals the show, rocking like a hurricane. If I had my consoles in a cabinet or something, it wouldn’t be so much of an issue I guess.

Having the console only a couple of feet away isn’t helping either. Those who have computers with turbines for cooling or tend to have volume buttons stuck on loud are going to be pleasantly surprised by the fan noise. I was plain bothered. In all honesty, I have to say that from what I’ve read, there seem to be differences in noise levels. Some Xbox 360 units are reported much quieter than others.

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Whipless in Vallachia

Curse of Darkness is the second installment on Castlevania series for current consoles. Released on both PS2 and Xbox, Curse of Darkness (CoD for those who enjoy fishy acronyms) is a follow-up to Castlevania: Lament of Innocence and tries to improve on some of its predecessors shortcomings.

Lament of Innocence was the first next-gen 3D-Castlevania, previous two attempts being on the Nintendo 64. Although it had its fair share of problems and is widely considered only above-average, I liked it a lot. Although bit on the short side, graphically I thought it was beautiful and the gameplay was decent. Curse of Darkness and brings plenty of new features to table, most notable being the Innocent Devil system. Innocent Devils work somewhat like the familiar system from Symphony of Night, bringing summoned creatures to fight alongside you and boosting the abilities of your character a bit.

The bigger they are, the harder they fall

On the Castlevania timeline the game is placed right after the good ol’ Castlevania III for NES. In a nutshell, true to his Belmont heritage, Trevor Belmont has defeated count Dracula. All is not well in Vallachia, however. Some of Dracula’s minions are still afoot and most notable of them is Isaac, a Devil Forgemaster. Devil Forgemasters are mortals who possess the ability to summon Innocent Devils. Besides Isaac, there’s only one Devil Forgemaster, Hector, and you get to play as him. Hector is a former ally of Dracula and has given up his powers and renounced his title. Isaac holds a personal grudge for him for betraying Dracula and it’s up to Hector to stop Isaac and settle the score between the two.

So, no Belmont at lead this time. You’ll bump into Trevor during the course of the story, but he plays only a supporting role. Naturally that means that the legendary whip, Vampire Killer, is a no-go as well. To compensate for his lack of let’s say… whipness, Hector has a wide array of weapons to use: swords, axes, knucles, daggers, spears, etc. Weapons can be improved by combining different materials you find during the course of game or by merging weapons. Same goes for protective gear: new suits of armor, head gear and shields can be crafted this way.

Battle-type Innocent Devil as a bodyguard

Need to know basis

Now that the general details are out of the way, it’s time to focus on smaller ones. First, the Innocent Devil system. You get around six different types of them during the course of game. Devil types vary from fairy to battle type and determine the abilities. Defeating enemies with a certain weapon gives you power-ups of that weapon type. These power-ups evolve your ID to the next level once you’ve collected enough. Leveling might have a requirement of either 200 sword-type or 200 axe-type power-ups, for example, and once that is met, the devil progresses on the upgrade path and changes form. Depending on which which way the upgrade path goes, your ID evolves accordingly. Usually one goal increases offensive abilities while the other rises defensive or magical abilities.

Unfortunately, there’s no way of knowing what any particular upgrade path does. One form might be significantly stronger than the other, and some forms, well… just suck. While you can raise multiple devils of same type, evolving them all is a tedious process involving plenty of repeative hack’n'slash. What’s even more annoying, the ID’s have a couple of new skills to learn in every form but once you move a devil one step up in upgrade path, you can’t learn abilities from the previous form anymore. That means you don’t want them evolving too fast as you might miss very handy skills.

Hector and Julia

The innate skills you get immediately, but most of the better ones are locked. Naturally the game doesn’t tell the requisites for learning those abilities. Usually you need to defeat a certain number of enemies with the devil active. How many, who knows. It varies. 20, 50, 100? Maybe. Keep swinging that sword. Innocent Devils are a nice addition to the game, but mostly they don’t serve any other business than being a handy little sidekick who helps you around a bit in the battles.

Let’s move to weapon forging. While the “create your own weapons and armor”-concept is pretty neat, it has its share of problems. One of them is the rarity of certain materials. Having only one piece of “Extinct material #1″ and two of “Rare Emerald #3″ and four different pieces of gear needing three of each kind of slows down your equipment progress.

This leads us to problem number two. True to itself, the game gives no hint on what the end result will be. So you have to rely on luck. Combining your best spear to something which results in a baseball bat (not much of a weapon here, really) isn’t exactly heartwarming. Most of these novelty items will result in something useful eventually though, you have to just keep pouring your rare materials on them and continue experimenting.

Outside Dracula’s castle

Sounds of the abyss

Music is composed by Michiru Yamane, as has been the case in recent Castlevanias. While Lament of Innocence has better overall soundtrack in my opinion, Curse of Darkness is a good one as well. Graphics on the other hand aren’t on the same level. They aren’t too bad, but what really bugs me is the dullness of the textures. The textures repeat themselves a lot and the game’s title “Curse of Darkness” probably comes from the color scheme used in the game. Seriously, Konami, using brighter palettes doesn’t reduce the game’s atmosphere. As I recall, they had the same problem in the first GBA Castlevania title.

For me, probebly the biggest letdown was the level design. Lament of Innocence had variable levels, with plenty of alternate routes and secret pathways. For most part, playing Curse of Darkness feels like running in a tube. Not even the town or forest stages bring an exception to this. The design is rather uninspiring and lacks open areas.

Difficulty level varies a lot. Most of the difficulty comes from boss battles. Regular enemies don’t usually offer much of a challenge, unless you’re lacking on levels. The game’s not a total pushover, but most enemies rely on quantity, not quality.

Mage type I.D. has a cool hat

Fun, nonetheless

In addition to weaknesses already mentioned, the story is another one. It has its moments, but the storytelling is seriously lacking. The only things moving the story onward are the cutscenes and there’s not too many of them. The cutscenes also have a bad habit of providing more questions than answers. Too often I find myself running from place A to place B just because I can go nowhere else. Nobody tells me where I have to go and why. Plot should cover these things. This is a problem in the game’s logic only, though. You usually can’t get lost because of the level design.

Although I’ve been a bit critical on Curse of Darkness, I mostly enjoyed it. I’m not sure why exactly. It has a strange charm, and if you like previous Castlevania titles, this doesn’t dissappoint you either. It could’ve been much better had they tweaked the aspects a little bit more. Overall I’d say it’s an average as an Castlevania title and bit better than average action-adventure.