Tag Archives: Playstation 5

Castlevania Dominus Collection Review

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It’s time to look at the next Castlevania title. This collection brings 3 more main games as well as a revisited version of one of the classics. So you’ve got quite a lot of content in here, especially considering that the main games all allow you to play through them a second time with another character. Effectively a whole second story mode so that’s pretty crazy. It’s definitely one of the fun things about collections because you really get your money’s worth with them.

First up lets talk about the Order of Ecclesia. In this game you don’t play as one of the Belmonts and instead you are a spellcaster who is charged with absorbing 3 legendary spells inside her. If she can do this then she will prevent Dracula from coming back to murder everyone but she is betrayed by her good friend and gets amnesia. Now she has to regain all of her skills and get the spells but can she really stand a chance? It’s a very different kind of Castlevania game when it comes to the gameplay. You have to use a ton of spells and continually switch between them.

It’s a pretty interesting idea but one immediate drawback here is that because of how you actively need to switch abilities to use the new ones, you probably won’t even touch about half of them. Once you get the good abilities that you want then there is really no need to try out any of the others. They can be fun to switch around with but for the most part you just don’t need them. Still it does mean everyone’s playthrough will probably be a little different as you pick the play style that suits your needs the best.

The layout of the map is pretty smooth as you would expect and I also like the fact that they have little sub quests in the hub world. The missions are never anything that really puts you out of your way so it’s easy to complete a lot of them while exploring. It gives you extra incentive to look around thoroughly and the quests give you little rewards. I ended up completing a whole lot of them on my way to beating the game. As always I got the bad ending first but that also helps you appreciate the level of detail they put into the game. Putting in more than one ending definitely has to be difficult considering most titles don’t do that.

This is a very fun game and the story is engaging. Castlevania has really come a long way from the 2D platformer titles into the very iconic vania styled ones. As always I can also give the games a whole lot of credit for making this part fun as well. You really feel stronger as you absorb more abilities and level up. There are a few rooms that don’t appear on the map which feels like cheating to me but most of it makes a lot of sense as you just play through the game normally. The layouts are food and there are enough quick travel rooms to keep anything from being tedious.

Then we have Portrait of Ruin which is a little more traditional. You play as a guy who is distantly related to the Belmonts but has never been able to use the iconic whip. He’s still been able to defeat every vampire that he needed to though. Now he faces one of the most powerful vampires alive and may need some help. Will he be able to face up to his destiny and use the whip or will he fall? I also hadn’t been using the whip very often so this game definitely encourages you to do so. By the end of the game it ends up being one of the most powerful weapons even if you will probably be using the sword for most of the early game.

The game’s main difference from the last one is that there are a lot of little worlds instead of one big one. You jump into paintings which become their own worlds like Super Mario 64. It’s a fun idea and if anything it probably makes the game easier since all of the individual worlds are a lot smaller. The game also becomes a lot more linear this way since you very rarely have to go back to an old world. It is technically still a vania as there are optional power ups and such but don’t expect to get lost or anything.

It definitely makes things really calm the whole time. The bosses are all fun and getting good enough to beat them all is a real feat. This time you actually fight Dracula and Death as a combined tag team which made for a cool boss fight. I thought that was a really nice way to spice things up since that had never happened before. It’s a really smooth experience and it can hold its own as one of the stronger titles in the franchise. At this point it’s safe to say that the modern games all hold their own on a high level.

After that is Dawn of Sorrow which is a direct sequel to one of the prior games. Dracula is surprisingly still gone but a lady named Cecil has decided to work on destroying Soma so one of her proteges can become the new Dracula. Soma decides to stop her before she can hurt anyone but will he be able to resist the powers of darkness? The Belmont of this generation thinks this is definitely a bad idea and Alucard agrees but nobody is going to stop Soma. He figures this threat is too big to be ignored and must be dealt with effective immediately.

In this game you absorb the souls of enemies when you defeat them although it is part RNG. You have to defeat some enemies numerous times in order to absorb their soul while other ones will drop it on the first try. I didn’t really care about the souls initially but for the rue ending you have to absorb a specific three and this led to me having to enter and exit a room over and over and over as I farmed the same enemy until he dropped the soul. It actually took quite a bit longer than I expected so that surprised me. The actual final boss for the true ending is also quite difficult. I believe I went in rather under leveed which did not help. Still, those attacks were completely crazy. Dodging them is hard.

See, the final boss spams an infinite amount of minions at you while walking around the place. You have to destroy him in two different areas to win while not getting hit by anything else. Your best bet is to beat the minions as they come while also landing his on the weak points. Of course that’s way easier said than done. I recommend using Death’s scythe as your ongoing support attack since all of the weapons that it summons are enough to keep all of the foes busy at times. It doesn’t always work though, it’s a bit of give and take.

Finally you also have the arcade style remake. It’s a fairly short game with only 5-6 levels but this time you can’t rewind or use access points. The game does save what level you are on at least until you exit the game. So basically you gotta make sure you have a lot of time to invest and then do everything at once. If you can’t do that then it’s basically about time for you to throw in the towel. This is the one game I could not conquer.

The Castlevania games are really no walk in the park and beating it all without true save points would just be asking for a tad too much. With no way to grind EXP or anything, it forces you to try and just get really good. An admirable goal to be sure but one that would probably take too much time without much reward. For example there are no PS5 trophies for beating this one. I do aim to get the Platinum though as there are only 3 trophies left and apparently none of them are particularly long.

Of course the soundtrack is really good across the whole collection. All of the games sound really good and the graphics are also solid for all of the titles. These are all clearly well made games with solid fundamentals, stories, and gameplay. Now all we need is a big budget modern day PS5 title for the series and we would really be off to the races. There is just a lot of potential here and you have to assume that all of these collections are to build up hype for a new game. Hopefully that is the case at least.

Overall, This is a collection that was really fun to play through. I think that’s probably even the best word I would use for the collection. You really have a blast going through each title and exploring the maze. If every vania styled game was like this then I would be a huge fan of the genre. The level up system was handled very well and there is a whole lot of replay value to be found here. Whether you are a fan of the franchise or not you will definitely enjoy your stay here.

Overall 8/10

Metaphor: ReFantazio Review

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It’s time to look at one of the longer games that I’ve played recently. This one took me nearly 70 hours to complete and that’s considering that I didn’t do all of the side quests. I did complete each character’s bond story though, mainly because I really needed the power ups and job classes that came along with them. Without those then things would have definitely been a lot tougher. It’s a very complete game that doesn’t have many real weaknesses and turns out to be a top tier RPG.

The game starts off with the King being assassinated and then the Prince is cursed. He is presumed to be dead but his loyal followers hide him away. A battle for the throne begins among the Church and the leader of the military. Meanwhile the main character (Lets call him Terry) is instructed to find a way to break the curse for the prince. Seemingly the easiest way to do that will be to bump off the curse caster, Louis. Will it be that easy though? Also, there is no definitive proof that the killer is Louis so that could get a little dicey. With a game this long, you know it won’t be as straight forward as all that though. Additionally, until he can find an opening, Terry will enter the running to become the next King.

It works as a popularity contest of sorts. The characters have a few months to rally people to the cause and whoever has the most popularity on election day is the winner. The top 3-5 candidates are also protected by the King’s magic so they can’t be assassinated. That was a really clever ploy by the previous King because otherwise this would just become a big battle of strength right off the bat. He really prevented that. Sure, it doesn’t apply to all candidates but that makes sense too since you would just have a lot of people entering only so they could be protected.

The world building here is quite good and of course you have a fairly large party of characters who all get a significant amount of screen time. It’s one of those things that makes RPGs so engaging. What other form of media can give you 70 hours of content like this? For a movie series that would be at least 35 movies. For a TV show, we’re talking 200+ episodes, which happens but it’s still rare. A video game gives you all of this in one shot and so you can tell early on that this will be an elite game. The more you play, the more the plot really begins to expand more and more to include everything that is going on.

The graphics are naturally really good. The game has 3 different kind of cutscenes, the ones that are completely hand drawn, the pre rendered full cinematics that take place in game, and then the text box versions. Nearly the whole game has voice acting as well so it becomes a really cinematic experience. It’s always super impressive to see this because it takes a lot of budget and time to include all of this in one game. Then we have the soundtrack which may not be one of my favorites but it does have quite a lot of tunes. They definitely didn’t cheap out on the budget here or anything like that.

The gameplay is your classic turn based combat style. You can swap characters in and out as you land your attacks. There are multiple classes based on the robot you have chosen for your character and then each of those have their own special abilities. You can use your magic currency to swap them in and out so there is a ton of strategy involved. Even 70 hours in you won’t have enough energy to unlock every class for every character, at least not within 70 hours. The final area is an excellent grinding spot though so if I spent maybe 10 more hours there I could have probably done that.

I had to train for around 5 hours at the end to defeat the final boss. Make no mistake, the game goes really hard on that one. The jump in difficulty is considerable and you will be challenged way more than any other boss in the game. That’s how it should be though, you want to end with a bang and since there is a good place to train, I had no problems there. There is one point in the game where you are attacked by a powerful boss and auto save prevents you from fighting any minions to level up. That was the only rough patch in the game because it’s possible that you could have really been soft locked there.

It felt like a big oversight for such a polished game and all comes down to the day system. My only negative with the game is the fact that it grabbed the Pikmin styled clock. Every mission is related to days of the month. So lets say you have 10 days for chapter 2, you have to try and beat as many side quests and tournament battles as you can before the days are up. If you are not strong enough to beat the boss by then, you will have to replay the whole 10 days or find a good place to grind. This means that it is not possible to complete every side quest and bonus material that you want to accomplish.

Perhaps there is some kind of perfect planning that would make this all possible but it would definitely not be easy. I had to skip on quite a few quests as a result and it also did make training a bit harder at times. Removing the day system would be a net positive in every area because it doesn’t provide any benefits to the game. All it does is ultimately hold things back which is not a good idea.

Like I said, that was really my only main issue though. The gameplay is on point and I liked the UI. The hub world is easy to navigate and likewise the quests all make a lot of sense. The game was very well thought out in all the other areas and the sheer amount of content and gameplay mechanics are so vast that I can’t even go into them all. I don’t see myself ever attempting to get the Platinum in this game because there is so much content and it would take forever, but it is there for the extra replay value. When you consider everything, then this is definitely a full 100+ hour game and you don’t see a ton of those.

Overall, Metaphor is definitely an excellent game. I recommend it to anyone looking for a good title. It can definitely get rather dark so you should know what you’re getting into. The story is very captivating though and it’s never going for try hard edgy the whole time. The villains do sometimes get off rather easy considering the scope of their crimes though. Some might disagree with me on what it means to get off easy here but a last second redemption arc does little to redeem a character in my eyes after a certain point. I’d definitely be up for a sequel to this game someday. Just take away the calendar system and this will really be perfect.

Overall 9/10