Four years on from the famously wonky Castlevania 64/Legacy of Darkness Konami was finally ready to take another shot at bringing the franchise into 3D. But this time they seemed determined to do it right.
An all-star development team composed of Symphony of the Night‘s Koji Igarashi, Ayami Kojima, and Michiru Yamane left fans with high hopes that this would mark a new beginning for the venerable vampire-whipping saga, perhaps best exemplified that in Japan this was titled, simply, Castlevania.
Nowadays Castlevania: Lament of Innocence is a mere footnote in the franchise. Save for a PS2 Classics version on PlayStation 3 in 2023 it’s never been re-released or remastered. And, having played through it, I can understand why.
Lament of Innocence isn’t a bad game, it’s just a bit boring. And a Castlevania title full of the most gruesome monsters in the horror canon in which you explore a spooky castle with an array of magical weapons really, really shouldn’t have you reaching for an espresso to stay awake through it.
As far as positives go, the game at least looks the part. On PlayStation 2 there’s no real chance of directly emulating the baroque intricacies of Symphony of the Night but clever texture work goes a long way in adding detail to the world. Character models are detailed, animation is decent enough, and the monster designs feel faithful to Castlevania‘s long history.
I’ll also go to bat for its soundtrack. Castlevania sets a high bar for music, but incorporating breakbeats and dance influences works surprisingly well. Sadly few of the series’ classic themes make the cut, with Konami arguing that this being an origin story means they wouldn’t have existed yet. I don’t buy that (where’s my damn Vampire Killer!) but it’s difficult to get too miffed when you have tunes like this:
As for actually playing it? The primary inspiration is obviously 2001’s Devil May Cry. Both use fixed camera angles, both have a gameplay loop of locking you inside a room until you’ve defeated the enemies, and both have a combo-heavy and stylish fighting system.
But where Devil May Cry shone, Lament of Innocence falls short. Even in his first appearance Dante was a slick fighter that was a pleasure to control. By contrast, Leon Belmont feels slower and weaker, perhaps because a whip doesn’t have the right amount of oomph in 3D space.
Lament also lacks the combat depth of Capcom’s title and though there’s some strategy in blocking enemy attacks to charge your magic meter and unleash special attacks, on the default difficulty simply grinding through the same three-button whip combo (light, light, heavy) got me through the entire game.
Compounding all that is that damn near every fight takes place in a large rectangular room with little to distinguish one from the other. Compared to the labyrinthine castles in the rest of the series it’s a huge letdown and, even by the standards of a magic castle, never feels even remotely like a plausible location.
The cherry on top of all this is that you don’t even fight Dracula at the end. The big bad vampire is some guy named Walter and the final boss is Death. I get that this is billed as the start of the story and Dracula’s eventual rise is teased, but it’s weak stuff. Other Castlevanias fudge things by having you fight Dracula’s spirit or whatever, but realizing the Count wasn’t actually going to show up and fling fireballs at me before turning into a gross demon thing ended the story on a bum note.
Ultimately Lament of Innocence doesn’t feel like the development team was trying particularly hard. Everything it tries, Devil May Cry did better two years before and while this is inarguably a more mechanically successful 3D Castlevania than the N64 game, it’s also much less ambitious.
So a swing and a miss from Konami. Onto the DS next, with Dawn of Sorrow. Bring on the pixel art!
Pixel Hunted 
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