Overall 7.2 Graphics 6 Sound 6 Addictive 5 Depth 6 Difficulty 10
3
Their work was cut out for them! NovemberJoy
I'm sure you remember the review of Bram Stoker's Dracula that I'd done in the past? You know, that game with terrible level design, clunky and stiff controls, and some sort of weird obsession with secret passages? Well, guess what:it's back, and worse than ever before. But how much worse could it be? Let's find out.
First of all, the graphics look far worse than in the NES version. Somehow, they managed to screw them up even though they were directly ported from the NES version. For some odd reason, almost all of the detail just seems to have drained away from everything along with the color. And, by the way, those enemies that popped out of nowhere? Now they blend in with the background even better than before, which might be one of the first times I've seen a game that had problems caused by bad graphics.
The music didn't fare much better. The Game Boy doesn't have as advanced a sound system as the NES does, so, logically, you would change the soundtrack to compensate for that, right? Well, according to these developers, you don't - instead, you take the songs and very poorly attempt to insert them exactly as they were in the NES version! And the sound effects took a serious hit, too.
But the gameplay took a much larger hit than the music or the graphics. In fact, the game is nearly unplayable due to one large flaw caused in the porting process - the draw distance. Normally, draw distance isn't a problem in a 2D game, but the screen size is just too small to accommodate the levels from the NES version of the game without shrinking the graphics. This means that you can barely see where you're going, which means you'll run into pits and fall off of platforms and cliffs a lot, because
you can barely see where you're going!But, guess what? They screwed up the controls, too. You know, the things that don't need ANY help with being screwed up? They somehow made them worse. The controls feel extremely stiff, even more so than in the NES version. I didn't even think something like that was possible, considering how stiff they already were.
There are a few other, very minor differences, but let's not beat around the bush here. I'm convinced that this version can't be finished by a person with average gaming skill without cheats or external help. Why, you might ask? Well, the bosses are far, far more difficult in this version. I don't mean that they have powerful or hard-to-dodge attacks or anything like
that, it's the fact that they take so many hits that you could probably break a Gamecube controller with a hammer before you could beat them. The biggest threat, really, is the time limit! I refuse to believe that this version was playtested with any sort of competence. How do you miss a glaring error like this?!
Well, anyway, let's have a quick recap - they made basically everything worse and the bosses are almost impossible. That's the kind of talent we're working with. It's no wonder these guys went out of business!
Graphics 6 Sound 6 Addictive 5 Depth 6 Difficulty 10
Review Rating: 3/5
Submitted: 05-29-13
Review Replies: 1
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