Castlevania: Lament of Innocence (2003) Game Review

I wasn't really sure what to expect with Castlevania lament of innocence. I don't ever remember playing any other Castlevania games so as far as I know this was my first experience. At first I was a little concerned with the controls but I mastered them very quickly. The most difficult part with the controls is learning to use your magic relics. To be honest I went through almost the whole game with only using them very little. I also had a little bit of trouble where in certain areas you must jump up in the air and use your whip to attach to the railing and pull yourself over to reveal another room or secret power ups. So when you come to the point early on in the game where they teach you how to do that you might want to spend a little bit of time practicing if it troubles you because there are a lot of areas where you must use this technique to further your cause.

As for the gameplay itself I was very pleased. It reminded me a lot of playing god of war, sure you're alchemy whip is not the blades of chaos but the gameplay for me was very similar. I really like the way you save on lament of innocence. I also like that there's no real set path that you must take. There are five different monsters that you must defeat before you can make it to the evil vampire Walter. So basically that means you have to go through five levels before you can enter the final level. As I said before you can do the five levels in any order you want. One of the few problems I have with the game is that even after you complete a level there are still locked doors that you're unable to get into. You'll find these keys on other levels and usually the door unlocks a relic or something else that is supposedly useful to you. I really like the idea of having the relics there to use but you don't really need them to complete the game. There are a few like the wolf's foot that allow you to access areas you couldn't otherwise but I don't think any of the areas are vital to completing the game. I just think there could have been a better way to integrate the relics into the gameplay. I did manage to find all of the relics and actually completed the game at 100% which is something I don't do very often.