Castlevania Lament of Innocence Review

Castlevania Lament of Innocence Review | October 27, 2016
PlayStation Exclusive Title

Castlevania Lament of Innocence is a 3D action adventure game. It was first released in 2003 for the PlayStation 2 and is one of only two games in the Castlevania series to be on the PlayStation 2. Today it is still only available on a PlayStation Network and it is in the same style a Devil May Cry and Castlevania: Curse of Darkness a 2005 PlayStation 2 game. Lament of Innocence is a prequel to the entire series it takes place in 1094 almost 600 years before the first Castlevania that was released in 1986 for the NES. It focuses on the origins of the vampire hunting clan the Belmont family. Leon Belmont a former baron is in search for his betrothed, a women name Sara. He finds out that a vampire named Walter Bernhard captive her and has taken her to his castle.

Castlevania Lament of Innocence has its limitations, mostly the controls are just OK, there’s some lag time when trying to use the special weapons over and over plus there is too long of a pause between after you finish one combo attack and start another attack. Leaving you open to be hit. There is also a problem with the platforming. You think you are in line with what you are jumping to and then you miss it by a mile. Thankfully the parts where the platforming is an issue you don’t die you just restart where you made your first jump. Despite these control and platforming problems the game itself still works. We loved the boss battles! They were a head of their time. There not as good as God of War but their intuitive and fun like Devil May Cry. But the main antagonist needed to be creepier. His name is Walter, how are we supposed to be afraid of a light skinned feminine looking vampire named Walter? Oh no here comes Walter everybody run and hide from him and his velvet red blazer! It just didn’t work.

Castlevania Lament of Innocence has no puzzles to figure out, no weapons to upgrade or find, and there are no experience points to level up anything. Besides getting money there is no reason to fight anything. The voice acting is terrible and there are not a lot of story scenes. What story moments the game has is ruined by the awful techno Goth background music that was way out of sync with the story scene happening. This was hugely disappointing because Lament of Innocence is a prequel to the whole series. We wanted to find out more about the clash between the Belmont Clan and why and how they started hunting vampires since this was the incident that started it all. The music drowns out and mess up many of the story elements and there is only a few story parts.

Castlevania Lament of Innocence took us almost 10 hours to get a 100% completion rate. Sadly, there is no replay value at all. You play the game once and there is no reason to go back. The main problem is that there is nothing to really do besides hack and slash, buy items then boss battle. It is just a really striped down action 3D platformer with no extra stuff to keep things interesting. Castlevania Lament of Innocence is worth paying $4.99 or under for. There is just not enough to do and with no replay value it falls really short compared to other games out there. Price under $1.00 it’s a MUST BUY PRICE!

7.0 out of 10
Average Game

7.0 out of 10
Average Game

Rated
M for Mature

Rated PEGI 16