It's Castlevania: The Fighting Game. That's right, they went full Dissidia here by bringing in characters from across the series to battle each other in a 3D fighting setting. Sounds awesome, right? Well, unfortunately, it's super mid. It's so mid, they should have called it Castlevania Judg-Mid.
None of the characters look the way they should, which is something that has always driven me nuts about various IPs that did similar things. If you bring in a beloved character and totally change their look, while calling them the same thing, people just aren't going to get excited the way they would if the look was recognizable. See also Zero's redesign in Mega Man Zero.
Regardless of all of this, it's the one time when the series tried to mash all of the games together in a crossover of sorts, so I'm playing through it with some of the characters before I move on to finishing the last two 2D 'Vanias.
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Intro movie. Here's Simon Belmont, cracking the whip as usual. They changed his look, but he isn't totally unrecognizable.
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He battles Alucard, who sprouts wings and wields a flaming sword. This game is gonna be awesome!
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...well, no, it's still Castlevania Judg-Mid.
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I had to enter a name, so I went with the funniest word I could think of. This never factored into the gameplay at all, unfortunately.
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We've got a bunch of modes here, like any decent fighting game has. Story is the meat of the game, and has you running ten battles on any character. Arcade is similar enough, but you already have everyone unlocked and it's more straightforward. Castle is just a long, long series of battles to eventually "conquer the castle".
...All of these are pretty much the same thing as far as the actual content goes, they just give you varying amounts of it.
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Alucard looks somewhat like he should, but like Simon, his outfit has some weird alterations that didn't need to be added. All of these outfits are too busy.
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Trevor Belmont here is a hulking brawler who fights with gauntlet-fists instead of a whip. I would have no idea this guy was a Belmont at all, much less Trevor, if he wasn't named.
No sign of Richter Belmont, or any of the GBA/DS game characters...with one exception. Would have been cool to play as Charlotte Aulin or Soma Cruz. Maybe they were saving all of the above for a sequel.
Who's the exception, you ask? Shanoa, of Order of Ecclesia fame. That game came out one month before this did in Fall 2008, so adding her into this game to promote the other game was a good idea.
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The Vampire Killer whip, one of the most iconic weapons in video game history.
Looking forward to Vampire Killer for the MSX2 soon, along with Ecclesia. Hard to believe I'm basically just about done with the 2D 'Vanias, after all these Halloweens.
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This Aeon oddball is some sort of Time Lord who yoinks 'Vania characters out of time and tests them in battle. So this is a bit like the plot of Predators, where the toughest warriors from different places are summoned together to battle. The end goal is to stop Drac from meddling in time, or something.
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Aeon is always the first battle for every character. The gameplay is very button mashy, and the 3D controls / analog stick running don't feel accurate at all. It goes for the Ehrgeiz style of 3D arenas with free-running, and the running is usually too fast for any sort of precision. This being a 2D fighter would have probably been a much better idea.
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This clawed menace is Cornell.
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Next up, Simon refuses to fight a woman. What he doesn't know is that...
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...the woman in question is Sypha, the most overpowered character in all of 'Vania probably, with her giant magic spells.
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I tried to get some good shots of said spells, but all I was able to get was this fireball. I'll try again when I play as her.
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Next up, Simon battles the dynamo of action that is Shanoa. This is the main thing I was interested in seeing from the game, and the main reason I'm even checking it out at all before I go on to Order of Ecclesia.
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Shanoa stretching a bit, undoing her hair. What a gorgeous character. It's about time the Igavanias got some feminine touch for the main character (besides PoR)
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Shanoa has a sweet back tattoo and a great 'bod. She managed to somehow actually look good in Castlevania Judg-Mid.
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She attacks with a large sword. And is clearly intended to be one of the game's standout characters. Gotta sell that DS game!
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She's also got some exploding attacks. Probably the most visually appealing out of all of the characters in this game (a game that doesn't exactly score highly on the "visual appeal" charts).
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Next up: Grant Danasty. He'll always be Grant Dynasty to me.
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They went all-out to make him weird as hell in this one. The characters are recognizable enough to pass as their namesakes, even if most of them don't look right.
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Besides the normal attack spam, there's also a big super-attack you can do when your blue meter is full (from doing or taking damage). This super attack launches a cutscene-combo that chunks enemy health. However, if they block or avoid the first strike of it, the whole thing is cancelled and your meter is empty regardless. It's very similar to the triggered super attacks in the modern Kombats.
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Here's Maria. So we've got Maria but no Richter? He's gotta be hiding in this game somewhere. In any case, this is Kid Maria, not the hot older version from Symphony.
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She has some pretty big magic attacks, like Sypha. Come to think of it, some of these look way more like they should be Sypha moves.
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Next fighter, Golem.
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Simon meets Trevor in a battle across time! It's like Highlander Endgame. Trevor of course is from about 100 years before Simon. Every 100 years the current Belmont gets to be the savior of mankind.
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Simon must defeat Trevor to truly get over as the New Generation.
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Much like the WWF's old guard in 1993, Trevor isn't in the business of putting anyone new over, BROTHERR. I had to claw for that win!
Trevor is actually the final boss of Simon's story mode, surprisingly. Defeat him, and we get a visit from...
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...that Aeon weirdo, who wants you to gather 13 keys (one from each story mode). Of course it's 13.
Well, no thanks. This game isn't good enough to play through 13 times. I'd like to check out Alucard's story mode though.
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But first, Sypha was unlocked from finishing Simon Mode, so I need to investigate.
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Sypha has some really bad-ass moves, like her super where she reads a book and conjures up...
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...this massive fireball attack. Looks sick.
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Sypha is fiery and passionate, and her final boss is...
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...Carmilla, Dracula's favorite lady. As far as 'Vania female villains go, never found her as memorable as, say, Erzabet from Castlevania Bloodlines, despite having significantly more airtime.
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Next (and last) story mode I'm running is Alucard, on his endless quest to KILL HIS DAD.
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He looks a bit like Sephiroth in this. And much like Seph...
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...Alucard has a huge sword for a weapon. Ya know, this game could have been Soul Calibur all over again with weapons if they played their cards right.
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Alucard's slashes give off rad sword-sparks.
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Carmilla gives Alucard the "you sure got a purdy mouth" line. What is this, prison?
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She's probably the trickiest foe I've dealt with in this game, since she likes to spam and if the computer spams, you're basically going to get helplessly knocked around. Getting semi-stunlocked by light attack spam is the hallmark of a mid fighting game.
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Didn't mention it earlier because it's so inconsequential, but we have "regular trash enemies" to break up the other fights sometimes. You'll fight a few weak foes at once. It's uninspired.
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DEATH appears! Not that you'd know it from looking at him! Looks nothing like the other games.
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Death has weird pointed legs. Seriously, if the models in this game looked the way they're supposed to, the game would instantly be so much more appealing. You could name most of these characters anything for how not-recognizable they tend to be.
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I finish the fight with Alucard's rad super, which culminates in a diving slash.
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Alucard battles his old ally, Grant Danasty. Was hoping there would be some additional dialogue here since they have a history, but nope.
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Alucard's final boss is Dracula (of course) which is the perfect fight to end my run at this game on.
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This is the Wrestlemania main event of 'Vania matchups. It's kinda funny that the Belmont clan has been totally upstaged by a vampire in their own series. He got over as a face more than they did.
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Drac fights a lot like he does in the rest of the series. Teleports around, throws fireballs.
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The teleporting is a little tough to deal with in this 3D space. The key is to stay on a swivel and close the gap / slash him up the second he appears.
Annnd that's pretty much it for Castlevania Judg-Mid. I've seen everything it has to offer, really, and the rest is just sorta repeating the same content in different configurations. The story modes don't even really have endings or credits, so that's it.
Final thoughts on this game? Well...it's mid. Not great, not bad either. If I bought it at full price in 2008 I'd be pretty disappointed, mainly because of the character models and the liberties they took with those.
In short...you have to really like Castlevania to get anything out of this game.
Yeah.
Two 'Vanias left, Vampire Killer and Order of Ecclesia. Have a quick detour to make first, though.
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