Toca Boo

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, and it is at its very best when you see children having fun with it.  As a kid I loved dressing up in costumes, loved candy and loved spooks, ghouls and scary stories.  When you’re in the safety of your own home, with the lights out and a roaring fire (preferably in the fireplace), who doesn’t love sharing a spine-chilling tale, or watching Boris Karloff lurch about on TV?  These are the sort of holiday moments that I look forward to sharing with my own children, the first of which is already on her way.  Perhaps that’s what drew me to Toca Boo…or, it may just be that I’m still a kid inside and I couldn’t resist the cute icon that popped into the App Store’s “Best New Apps” section this week.  But whatever the reason and given the season I had to give Toca Boo a try.

As an adult gamer, I’m certainly not the target audience.  Toca Boca, the game’s developer, specializes in “digital toys” for young children, defining the term as a game with few rules.  In essence, their products are designed to be simple, imaginative, and fun for little kids to play around with.  Toca Boo, however, proved fun for myself, and I’ve no shame in admitting it.

Released on Oct. 23, 2014, it’s definitely the perfect season for a spooky-themed game like this, although I haven’t found anything explicitly Halloween in the time I’ve spent with the app.  Rather than tying itself directly to the holiday, it instead finds its theme in the broader realm of spooks and scares, and thus invites play any day (or night) you feel the inclination.

The premise of the game is simple: you play as a young child who dresses as a ghost using a white sheet.  In the rules of the game, much like any child’s imagination, this means you get to float about the room as a ghost rather than being confined to the floor.  Your objective will be familiar to anyone who grew up with a brother or a sister: find a place to hide, and scare the living daylights out of anyone who comes close.

The gameplay and controls are also simple and intuitive.  Touch your adorable ghost avatar and drag your finger, and he will float about to follow it.  Find a nook or cranny and he’ll tuck himself in.  There are also blue-tinted areas, openings to boxes or the covers of a bed that you can tab on to have him hide.  Most rooms also contain red tinted areas that can be tapped, and these will do things such as turn on and off lights, set off alarm clocks or turn on and off radios.  Tapping these things to switch them on and off while one of your “victims” is near will start them sweating before you ever spring up behind them and will lead to bigger, more satisfying scares.

The house is three stories and you can freely move from room to room.  There are several family members to sneak up on, from an old stilt-legged grandpa, twins co-joined at the elbow, even a headless dog (come to think of it, why would this family be scared of you wearing a bedsheet?)  The house is always dark (rooms which give you a peak outside reveals that it is a dark and stormy night) so characters walk about with lanterns, candles and flashlights.  There are room lights, but they do very little to brighten up this Adam’s Family home and are mostly there to switch on and off and spook people out.  It’s fun to see the reactions you can get by scaring people in different ways.  Manage to get someone worked up enough before you jump, and you can have them flat on their back one moment, then racing out of the room the next (you can give chase if you like).

The game is a toy in that it is completely open-ended.  No score, no objective beyond amusing yourself.  You will be caught and scolded by the other characters if you fail to sneak around carefully enough, ruining a chance at a scare, but you can always set the stage for them again so there’s no real penalty.  It’s all just for laughs, and the charming graphics, the personalities of each character, the amusing sound effects and the whole “jump out and scare people” theme keep it fun.

If it were a free title I’d say download it and enjoy a few moments of silly, childlike amusement, but as it stands, it carries a $2.99 price tag on the app store.  On the other hand, the game is ad-free (with the exception of button on the title page for another Toca Boca title that was recently made free), intended as a title for young children, and once you’ve started the game there appears to be no way to exit it short of punching the Home button.  It’s clean, kid-friendly and well-designed for its target audience.  As such, if you have young children and you let them play with apps on your iOS device, I’d say it is worth the price tag for something so well designed that you can feel reasonably comfortable letting them play without worrying if they’re going to click the wrong thing and pull up your web browser or make purchases.  It’s good, clean fun and I recommend it.

Harvest Moon (SNES)

Everyone has a few games that they will always love regardless of the passage of time; game like Final Fantasy VI that, despite the ongoing march of the franchise, is regarded by many as one of the greatest RPGs of all time.  For me, one such game is Harvest Moon.

Released in 1997 by Natsume on the Super Nintendo, Harvest Moon is a simple, yet charming and addictive game.  Originally titled “Farm Story” in Japan (Terry Munson, an editor for Nintendo Power at the time, is credited with the game’s North American release title), the game is a farm simulator/RPG.  You might even go so far as to consider it a kind of “life simulator” (like Animal Crossing or The Sims) if you wish.  The premise is this: you’re a young man who has inherited a small ranch and are tasked with making it successful.  Your parents drop you off at your new home and will check back in with you in two and a half years, during which time you are expected to have it thriving, or at the very least serviceable.  Starting out, it is broken down and overrun with weeds and rocks, so it will take lots of hard work to put it back into shape.

First off, the game is absolutely beautiful.  There is a day and night cycle, and a change of seasons every 30 days.  The characters, town and countryside are all charming and the animals are simply adorable.  The music is excellent as well, and changes with the seasons.

In combination with the beauty of its presentation, the gameplay makes the game a true gem.  You start off in a broken-down ranch with a few tools, and by working, exploring and talking to the townspeople you set off on your quest to turn it into something special.  You have limited energy to perform choirs each day, but can obtain some replenishment via eating or visiting the hot spring in the woods.  Once you get the land cleared, it’s time to start planting crops, selling them, even buying and caring for livestock.

Now, if the game stopped here, it would be a farm sim and little more, but Harvest Moon goes deeper to bring more charm to the experience.  In addition to working the farm, you can woo the young ladies in town.  Each has a unique personality and will respond different to choices you make or gifts you might provide.  Successfully win the affections of your chosen girl, and you can marry and start a family, having up to two kids if you keep your girl smiling.

The game also provides several town events and holidays that occur throughout the year, and as you progress and build your farm you will be able to open up secrets and small quests that will provide rich rewards, such as discovering “harvest sprites” in tunnels beneath the farm or participating in the annual Easter egg hunt in town.  These provide opportunities to win awards and upgrade your tools, as well as just being a lot of fun to participate in.

Once your two and a half years (according to the game’s calendar) are completed, your parents will return to check on your progress.  Depending on how well you built the ranch, the variety of crops and animals tended and whether you chose a wife (and how happy she is) the game will provide you with an extended ending scene showing humorous and heartwarming bits of your life on the farm (or, if you do poorly, a less-exciting scolding from your parents).

The nature of the gameplay makes it extremely relaxing and a true feel-good experience.  I have played through it several times just to change the girl I wooed and experience the differences this choice would make.  With extended, repeated plays the gameplay can begin to become a little tedious, but after time passes I find that it’s a title I keep coming back to and enjoying all over again.  The title was successful enough that it has become a popular franchise and has seen a release on every Nintendo console since the SNES, as well as each new evolution of the GameBoy.  There were even Harvest Moon games developed and released for the PlayStation, Playstation 2 and PSP.  Any Harvest Moon game is sure to be a good time, but the original is still a joy to play and will always be one of my favorite games of all time.

Batman (NES)

Batman was released for the Famicom in December of ‘89, and in America on the NES in February of 1990.  The game was a movie tie-in, following the heels of the hugely successful 1989 Tim Burton film Batman.  As such, some character design and plot points take their cues from the film, but other than matching its design and style and a very loose look at the plot, the game cuts its own territory, becoming a dark comic-book story of its own and bringing other DC supervillains into the fray.

Although film adaptations are notorious for poor quality, Batman got everything right and is not only one of the best movie adaptations ever made, but also one of the best games in the NES library.

The game was developed by Sunsoft, who had already proven their worth in ‘88 with the exceptional Blaster Master.  Batman was a less ambitious title, but brought the same quality in every area.  The soundtrack is a great example of what the NES can do, being evocative, dark and layered and doing a good job of setting the mood, even if it is an original soundtrack (you won’t find Danny Elfman’s iconic theme here, unfortunately).  The graphics are detailed, dark and gritty, perfectly fitting the dirty, gothic style of the film’s Gotham City.  The gameplay is an action platformer that is very reminiscent of Ninja Gaiden in terms of play style and control.  The game is also quite challenging, but thankful it does not bring the kind of brutal frustration and unforgiving gameplay that Ninja Gaiden is known for.  Just don’t expect it to be a walk in the park.

Although arguably The Joker stole the show in the film, Batman is in the spotlight here.  He really feels like a superhero, from his billowing cape, strength to beat down enemies with his bare hands, and the wall-jump ability which lets you spring off of vertical surfaces like a ninja.  Batman also has use of his iconic Batarangs as well as a throwing blades and a rocket-powered spear gun, particularly useful in bringing down bosses like the Killer Moth, Electrocutioner and Fire Bug, who make an appearance as the Joker’s henchmen.  These battles are both fun and very challenging as each enemy has his own unique attack pattern.  “Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?”  You will here, as there are often no safe zones or cheap means to bring down the bosses, just precision as you track their movements and perform a harrowing dance of death with them.

I could go on to say a lot about the gameplay, but let this suffice: Batman has had a solid share of game adaptations, and unlike a lot of licensed games, the Batman franchise as seen a good number of decent titles.  This one, however, stands the test of time both within the NES library and also within the years-spanning legacy of Batman titles.  It is unlikely that the game met its match in turns of quality and treatment of its subject until the release of Batman: Arkham Asylum in 2009, 20 years after the release of Batman on the NES.

BASIC Programming

BASIC Programming is an Atari 2600 title with an interesting history.  Although it proudly bears the moniker “Game Program” along with other 2600 releases, it was really more of a teaching tool and, due to its severe limitations, a curious toy.

The “game” was programmed by Warren Robinett, a famous name in gaming as he was the programmer of Adventure, an early 2600 precursor to graphical RPG/Adventure titles to come.  He is also credited with programming the first “Easter Egg” discovered by players by hiding within the game an elaborate method of displaying his name (in the early days Atari did not allow programmers to take any credit for their work, which was somewhat resented).  1979 was the year both Adventure and BASIC Programming were released, and shortly after this Warren left Atari and would go on to help found The Learning Company, leaving BASIC Programming the last of only three projects (the first being Slot Racers) he would create for Atari.

There is an interesting (though unverified) legend surrounding the creation of BASIC Programming which states that it was made in response to pressure Atari was receiving over the 2600 (originally titled the ATARI VCS) being labeled a “Video Computer System” since computers should be programmable and the 2600 clearly was not (well, not unless you were a developer).  The story may or may not be true.  Perhaps Atari was merely trying to branch out into more educational territory, or perhaps it is even telling that after programming this title, Warren went on to help found a company dedicated to educational software.  Whatever the reason though, BASIC Programming landed on the 2600 scene with all the grace of a cinder block.

The Basic programming language existed in many forms over the course of the early home computer wars and, although often modified for a particular platform, existed in one form or another just about everywhere.  Systems like the Commodore 64, which I grew up with, booted straight into a Basic interpretor.  Although modern eyes might assume this to be a command prompt, the effect was that in addition to telling the computer to load programs stored on disks or cassettes, you could beginning writing programs in Basic the moment the system was powered on.

In contrast to a typical home computer, however, the Atari 2600 possessed such limited memory capacity that attempting to program it at the home level was extremely impractical.  As a result, BASIC Programming, despite its name, was quite different than Basic as it was commonly known.  Simplistic in the extreme, the memory constraints of the system meant that only 64 characters could be entered over the space of 9 lines of code (although a glitch discovered in the system could be exploited to expand this to 11 lines, though still with the same 64 characters).  The result was that programs could not expand beyond the most primitive, such as having the screen display a name, play a few notes (from the 2600’s extremely primitive sound chip) or move a colored block across the screen.  Touted as an educational device to help you “write your own programming” (I’m not sure what to think of the grammar there), the extreme limitations combined with the fact that the actual programming language had only a superficial resemblance to true Basic meant that its worth as an educational tool was small.

None of this was at all helped by the lack of a keyboard for the 2600.  To rectify this, BASIC Programming made use of a keypad controller.  Very few titles used this peripheral, which was a set of buttons laid out like a phone keypad.  Two of these controllers could be connected together, and paper overlays would tell what action each button would perform.  In the case of BASIC Programming, each button had multiple different functions that had to be switched between in order to type, since the two keypads did not have nearly enough buttons to act as a full keyboard.  This made entering even simple commands an exercise in tedium.  If you do have the patience to enter a rudimentary program, enjoy it while it lasts, because the 2600 also has no capability to save any work.  This seems like the least of concerns, however, since it is unlikely one would ever produce anything via BASIC Programing that would be worth saving.

Bozo's Night Out

Bozo’s Night Out was released in 1984 on the Commodore 64 by a company called Taskset, which released several games for the system.  This was back when games like this were commonly released on cassette tape instead of on floppy disk (imagine trying to explain that to today’s kids, to whom even the floppy disk would be a foreign concept).

The Commodore 64 was a very sophisticated system for its time, and was very popular as a gaming platform, predating the PC.  It was an 8-bit system, putting it in a similar realm as the Nintendo Entertainment System, but as a personal computer was on some levels capable of much greater sophistication.  This can be readily seen in the extremely large library of RPG titles available, including the extremely popular “Gold Box” series of Dungeons and Dragons titles released by SSI.  Some of these titles also saw ports to the NES, but a great deal was always lost in the transition.  The Commodore 64 sports some of the largest (not to mention most difficult) RPGs released, so fans of the genre have a lot to love about the system.

Then again, on the other side of things, you have Bozo’s Night Out.  A simple arcade game, one amongst hundreds of such titles released on the C64, Bozo hardly pushed the system to its limits.  Gameplay on arcade-style games like Bozo was generally less sophisticated, and yet Bozo exudes a certain charm and sense of fun that made it one of my favorite titles on the system.

The premise is simple: you play the role of Bozo, a drunk whom you must guide safely home from the bar each night.  There is a meter at the top of the screen showing the number of pints consumed by Bozo, and each night this meter increases by several pints.  With each new level and its corresponding pint increase, Bozo becomes more difficult to control, and will often stumble randomly about to the left and the right, making it a challenge keeping him on the straight and narrow path to safety.  Although this sounds like a particularly frustrating mechanic on paper, in gameplay it actually works pretty well for the game.  True, it is frustrating trying to walk Bozo between a thug and an open manhole, only to have him unexpectedly veer into one of them, but you learn to keep as much distance as possible and sweat your way through the close encounters, and it only truly becomes a matter of difficulty in the very last few nights of the game, when Bozo’s drinking has gone to extremes.

The obstacles Bozo must avoid include police officers who will haul him to jail, thugs, old ladies and women (hookers?) who will beat him to a pulp, and open manholes.  On the latter stages, as Bozo’s pint intake increases high enough, pink elephants will also begin roaming the streets.  Fail to keep Bozo away from these, and he does not die but restarts with fewer pints.  Run the pint meter all the way down, and it’s game over.

What makes the game so charming?  It’s the little things, mostly.  Bozo himself if a comical enough character, and being beaten by an old lady with a cane and sent to the hospital is entertaining as well.  Even the younger women have their own unique touches: Bozo’s Night Out sported bouncy boobies long before Dead or Alive and its dedication to “breast physics” ever came on the scene.  The music is a high point as well.  There is only one tune, but it is upbeat and very catchy.

As this is October and I’ve been focusing on horror-themed games, Bozo’s Night Out does have on last thing to offer: the town you wander through is surrounded by a brick wall, and here and there are doorways to go through and into the woods beyond.   This can be a handy way to escape some of the more dangerous situations on the street, however, attempting to shortcut through the park can be treacherous as well, as it is filled with monsters and goblins who will hunt Bozo down.  These freakish creatures include what appear to be mutant squirrels, strange mushroom men and skull-faced demons.  Whether the park is haunted or the ghouls are the figment of Bozo’s boozy imagination is hard to decide, but as a kid I generally avoided the park as meeting your fate amongst the ghouls seemed worse than incurring the wrath of Grandma’s cane.

2600 Horror: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween

Wizard Video Games was a title created by the slightly better-known distribution company Wizard Video to distribute Atari 2600 games based on horror movie titles.  Wizard Video was created by Charles Band, who would go on to create Full Moon Productions (now Full Moon Features), the company behind cult horror titles like Puppet Master and Subspecies.

Wizard, known for distributing sleaze titles like I Spit on Your Grave (a film Roger Ebert would describe as one of the worst he ever saw, which left him feeling uncomfortable sitting amongst movie-goers who were clearly enjoying the sadistic on-screen depravity), had home distribution rights for the The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a 1974 cult-classic horror film released on VHS by Wizard Video in the 1980s.  During this time Wizard Video determined that there may be money in video game adaptions of adult horror films, and thus the Wizard Video Games label was born and the Atari 2600 adaptations of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween came to life.

Although horror and video games fit together well nowadays, the hardware of the 2600 was not sophisticated enough to create a truly atmospheric game.  Perhaps the best example of this basic hardware used to good effect for horror would be Atari’s own Haunted House, which used lack of visibility, claustrophobic environments, a one-item-at-a-time inventory and enemies which could not be killed to create tension.  Wizard Video Games opted for more visceral imagery to set the games apart.  Unfortunately, this resulted in a very mixed bag, seeing as the Atari 2600’s graphical capabilities made it difficult to create an effective shock based on imagery.  In the end, Wizard Video Games produced only two titles, one a very pathetic attempt at adult horror, the other a decent effort that at least produced some suspense.  Owing to the graphic imagery in both, however, retail distribution was slim, and the retailers that did carry the titles often sold them behind the counter.  Thus the games gained very low exposure and, in a time where graphic violence in video games (still largely seen as toys) was uncommon or unheard of, the games developed notoriety.  Low production and poor sales mean that these two titles are now highly sought by collectors, especially if they can be found with intact packaging.

Starting with the worst, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre does not even make a pretense at being scary, only at being “adult” through its use of violence.  The player takes the roll of Leatherface and chases girls through a field, killing them with a chainsaw for points.  Graphically the game comes across as ridiculous, with Leatherface wearing what could easily be taken for blue pajamas and “chainsaw” that looks like a child’s rendition sticking right out of his chest.  Should you catch any victims, killing them results in an odd jumble of pixels, perhaps to suggest a mutilated body, but it is really hard to tell what they were going for.  There are other objects littering the field, and touching them temporarily freezes your character.

The game is extremely simplistic and involves almost no strategy.  You simple run, saw up your victims and avoid obstacles.  Your chainsaw constantly loses fuel, which acts as the game timer.  Once the fuel is gone, the game is over.  It’s strictly a race to gain as many points as possible, but the game is so basic and easy that if it were not for the idea of chasing people with a chainsaw, the game would have dropped into obscurity without much notice.

Halloween, on the other hand, is a game where Wizard Video Games revealed that they could produce a half-way decent product.  In it, the player takes on the role of a babysitter, and you and the children under your care are being stalked by Michael Myers.  The graphics are decent for the 2600 and the house has multiple rooms and floors to explore.  The objective is to run through the house, collect the children and lead them, one at a time, to the front door to escape.  While you search, Michael will appear, seemingly at random, to threaten you and the kids.  Whenever he appears onscreen, a rendition of the iconic Halloween theme begins to play, which is a great touch and adds to the tension.  When Michael appears, you can either run and try to lose him, or if you find a knife in one of the rooms, can turn and attack him instead.  Also changing things up, some rooms in the house experience power outages, and you can only see in these rooms through brief flashes of lightning.

Apart from the theme, Halloween’s “adult” status comes from actual depictions of animated blood.  If Michael catches you, he cuts off your head and your character runs back a few paces, spurting blood from the neck.  The same thing happens should Michael catch one of the children you are trying to protect.  Find a knife, however, and you can give Michael a taste of his own medicine, although in true Halloween fashion, he will still show up later, apparently unharmed, so this is a temporary (though satisfying) relief.

Unlike The Texas Chainsaw Massacre this title is actually fun to play, at least for a little while, and it displays some decent 2600 graphics and a reasonable amount of tension.  Had it not been for the bloody decapitations, the title may have had a chance for more wide-spread appeal and could have been remembered as a classic title on the 2600.  As it is, it is an obscure gem and collector’s item.

Haunted House

Haunted House, released for the Atari 2600 in 1982, is easily one of the best titles on the system.  The 2600 had few adventure games available for it, and most people readily think of Adventure as the sole example, but Haunted House was both an adventure title and one of the earliest examples of survival horror.

Played from a top-down perspective, you are an adventurer sneaking into the haunted mansion of Zachary Graves in search of an urn.  The ghost of Graves roams the dark halls of the mansion, and spiders and bats have taken up residence as well.  Your character appears as a pair of eyes shining out of the darkness, which has a certain minimalistic charm about it.  2600 titles are rarely known for their graphics, but the setting of Haunted House allowed the rudimentary graphical capabilities to be used to good effect.

At first look the game may not seem either frightening or challenging.  The brightly colored walls in the screenshots certainly don’t create much atmosphere, but these shots are actually of the game on its easiest setting.  It makes for a better image, allowing you to see more of the game field, but on all but the easiest difficulty settings those walls and the playfield are completely black.  You find your way around the mansion by lighting matches (you have an endless supply) which create a small glow around your character and will show the walls, doors and any items hidden in the rooms.  Items are urn pieces (it is broken into three, all of which must be found to reassemble it), a scepter that wards off ghosts, and key that can be used to open locked doors.  The trick is that you can only hold one item at a time.  Once the urn is rebuilt, you must make your way to the front door of the mansion and make your escape.

At the higher levels of difficulty the game can be quite exhilarating.  Trying to escape from the ghost of Mr. Graves as he chases you through dark rooms only to come to a locked door for which you have no key is probably one of the more thrilling moments of frustration you’ll encounter in a 2600 title, and having the urn completed but trying to find a route to the front door that doesn’t require a key (since you cannot carry it and the urn at the same time) can leave you scratching your head, especially when you catch the notice of a bat or spider.  The gameplay is simple and basic, but is an excellent example of how the early hardware of the 2600 could create an engrossing gaming experience that is better than the sum of its parts.  The game is still in circulation as part of an iOS release (Atari’s Greatest Hits) and part of the Microsoft Game Room for XBox 360.

In 2010 Atari released a direct sequel to the original game on Windows, Wii and Xbox Live Arcade.  A cartoonish style was given to the game, which tells the tale of the original hero’s two grandchildren searching the Graves manor for clues to their grandfather’s disappearance (apparently he never did escape with that urn).  Gameplay is fairly simple as you search throughout the manor for clues, fight off ghosts and ghouls (which are harmed by light sources) and solve simple puzzles to get around.

The game takes queues from the original title, but has received poor marks for its simple and somewhat repetitive gameplay.  However, this new title is clearly aimed more at children, and taken as such it’s actually a rather fun little romp.  If you were looking at the game and honestly expecting something along the lines of Resident Evil, you’ve only yourself to blame for that.

2014 saw the release of yet another Haunted House title from Atari, this time an iOS game.  Although it is playing homage to the original game in title and theme, the game otherwise bears no resemblance, being instead another “endless runner” game.  What the game has going for it is a cartoonish style that’s rather fun and a twist on the usual game mechanic: you do not control your character directly, but as he runs you instead interact with the environment around him, using swipes and gestures to ward off monsters, open up new pathways and spring traps before he triggers them himself.  It makes for a slightly more cerebral exercise than the usual runner, and deserves points for trying something new.

Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night

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.