Finished this in PCSX2 - started with no mods and finished with upscaled textures. Played on normal.

I don't have many positives to say about this game. To be honest, the studio's achievement is remarkable considering their context, but the game isn't very good.

The graphics and ambientation are the best part in my opinion. Both Van Helsing and the monsters look cool, the game is filled with fog and a dark atmosphere, and there are a lot of well known, well-modeled characters.

The problem is the game part of the game (lol). Although pretty short, it gets really repetitive rapidly. The combat is very simple, and quite bad - you can't really move Van Helsing intuitively, specially when dodging, as it feels the controls don't properly align with the camera. You are forced to lock into enemies so you can even hit them. There's also a dodge button, that either has no i-frames, or has too little of them at 60fps, since you can't dodge through attacks. The ranged combat allows for four types of weapons with differing fire rates and damage. The slower weapons do the most damage and most stagger, and are the only ones worth using in the late game due to the latter, otherwise enemies just stun lock you to death. You can cheese the mechanics because the fire rate gets reset when dodging, so if you hold the shoot button and dodge constantly, you can shoot twice as fast with the coil weapon, for example, turning most fights into a joke. The melee combat is cool and simple, but every time you hit an enemy, the camera zooms closer, so by the time you finish a combo, you can barely see your surroundings.

The bosses look cool, and are usually quite a difficulty bump, but even them are repetitive since you'll fight most of them more than twice. The music doesn't sync well with the combat, abruptly ending about 3 seconds after fights end. The voice acting is awful, and so are the animations.

It was a passable experience that doesn't overwelcome its stay.

To be honest, this would still have been an amazing stand-alone video game. If the movie didn't exist, this would have been the coolest ambitious PS2 hack-and-slash. I found myself wishing it would never end.

There are so many small details about this game that makes it so much more impressive than it has any right to be. It was the studio's second PS2 game, and only three years before becoming defunct. The game is Devil May Cry in Castlevania. It's bad-ass.

And the hat mechanic is awesome!

This is probably going to be the most random game on my profile. I played this game as a kid and I came back to it as an adult. I had a bone to pick with it. I remember liking it, but it was too hard for me to understand as an adult. As an adult, I beat it deathless.

It's a solid game for a movie-tie in and DMC clone. Being both of those things doesn't make it bad, but it doesn't make it remarkable either.

Those revolver sounds by the way are just... Chef's kiss. So good.

Score: 75