Halloween draws ever nearer, and with it comes tales of Gothic horror, the most famous of which may be the tale of Dracula; and the most famous of games involving Dracula surely must be Konami's Castlevania.
To detail the history of the Castlevania series would be a feat whole webpages have been dedicated to, so this review will only showcase a single title, the mobile game Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night, released on iOS in 2010 and Windows Phone in 2011.
The game retells the story of Symphony of the Night, utilizing sprites, animation and dialog from the famous Playstation title, but revamps the gameplay to a more casual mode of play in keeping with its status as a mobile offering. Yet for a game that can be played in short bursts, there is a surprising amount of depth and longevity in the title.
Musically and graphically the game deviates little from its namesake title, but this is hardly a bad thing. Symphony of the Night had an excellent soundtrack which is fully realized in Encore, and the graphics of the original still hold up today, and look sharp on the smaller mobile screen.
Gameplay has made a drastic turn, converting from the action/RPG styling moving into a puzzle/RPG hybrid. You move Alucard through Dracula's castle room by room (the layout follows that of Symphony of the Night, including the locations of hidden areas) and battles occur as random encounters. Once engaged, combat takes place in a sequence very much like the Capcom title Puzzle Fighter: pairs of colored tiles fall from the top of the screen and you and your opponent match them up to eliminate them and set up chain reactions to inflict damage. It is a simplistic and intuitive game mechanic, but the complexity goes far deeper than its trappings: when you become familiar with it you find that you can perform complex maneuvers and even parry your enemy's attacks (and they yours) by not only setting up chains, but timing the execution of them to the movements of your foe.
With each battle you win, you gain experience that you use to level-up Alucard. Once you achieve a new level, you will has attribute points that you can assign as you choose to customize Alucard's power. You can increase his defense, attack, luck and magical abilities to name a few. You may choose to round out the character in each attribute, or specialize in just a few, creating a character who is both more powerful and more vulnerable. Whatever decisions you make will have an impact on the game. In addition to experience, enemies also randomly drop items, which may be one-use healing items or more robust and rare things like pieces of armor you can equip to further extend Alucard's powers.
All in all there is lots of customization, lots of items to collect and combine for different effects, and lots of areas to explore and foes to defeat. The difficulty as you progress increases steadily, and bouts with boss enemies will test everything you've learned. The challenge and the rewards are high, but like many RPGs, the game can lend itself to long periods of grinding to level up a character before a particularly brutal face-off.
If you're expecting the action-oriented gameplay of the rest of the Castlevania franchise, you will be disappointed with Encore of the Night, but if you are a fan of puzzle games and RPGs, it has a lot to offer even if you are unfamiliar with Castlevania in general.
With each battle you win, you gain experience that you use to level-up Alucard. Once you achieve a new level, you will has attribute points that you can assign as you choose to customize Alucard's power. You can increase his defense, attack, luck and magical abilities to name a few. You may choose to round out the character in each attribute, or specialize in just a few, creating a character who is both more powerful and more vulnerable. Whatever decisions you make will have an impact on the game. In addition to experience, enemies also randomly drop items, which may be one-use healing items or more robust and rare things like pieces of armor you can equip to further extend Alucard's powers.
All in all there is lots of customization, lots of items to collect and combine for different effects, and lots of areas to explore and foes to defeat. The difficulty as you progress increases steadily, and bouts with boss enemies will test everything you've learned. The challenge and the rewards are high, but like many RPGs, the game can lend itself to long periods of grinding to level up a character before a particularly brutal face-off.
If you're expecting the action-oriented gameplay of the rest of the Castlevania franchise, you will be disappointed with Encore of the Night, but if you are a fan of puzzle games and RPGs, it has a lot to offer even if you are unfamiliar with Castlevania in general.
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