This game frustrates me to death because I had a mostly negative opinion of it for the first two-thirds or so. After things picked up literally 30 hours in, I started finding myself actually loving the story and characters so much more. I hated Rex quite a bit for most of the game, as I'm sure lots of others do, but even he grew on me a bit by the end.

I do like this game, probably a lot even, but I really can't just ignore how much I disliked the first 30 hours. Will I ever play it again? Probably not. But man, I'm so glad I didn't drop it.

It's not easy to put into words how I'm feeling after finally beating this game. I was expecting to feel somewhat empty after finishing it, as with most games like it. But I don't feel that way. I wept pretty openly multiple times by the end of this game, but it was never because I was sad. I feel almost a sense of fulfillment, even inspiration.

I do not think, that by any means, this game is perfect. It has its own set of flaws as any game does. Yet, even through those, this game delivers a message that I think is important. It's one that rings true to me just as it does to many others now and to come. Games like this are why I love games. Games like this remind me why games are so special.

It's hard to recommend picking it up just yet because of the buggy state of the port, but it seems to be slowly fixing itself. Either way, waiting for rollback might be the best option.

It is still a great game though, shoddy port aside, and really brings me back to the era where some fighting games just did whatever kind of bullshit they wanted as far as mechanics and characters went. It's filled to the brim with depth (and cheese) and is a great time to sink your teeth and a few dozen hours into with friends. If you're in it for the single player experience you're probably better off just watching the story mode online or just reading about it, it's nothing special.

This game has some of the most enthralling open-world exploration I've played in a while. The world is gorgeous and massive. Zipping around and soaring through the sky with the gravity-shifting mechanics feels as satisfying as ever. Combat, while cleaner than the first game's, is still pretty ho-hum at times. I do appreciate the wider enemy variety, though. It keeps combat situations decently fresh even if the core mechanics are just okay. The story in this game is honestly not that great. It started off fine and has some great moments, but kind of unravels into nonsense by the end. Kat and Raven are still some of the most charming main characters in recent memory, though. The game also had its share of forced stealth situations that were integral to the story - something I really hate about games that were clearly not built for stealth. Those couple issues aside I had a very delightful time with this game. Just a shame Japan Studio had to get shafted...

Funny to think that this game is one of my favorite Castlevania games despite basically being a recycling of Simon's Quest's ideas. The game's rune mechanic was such a breath of fresh air and added more layers of strategy to combat than what was usually present in modern Castlevania games. Also was the first Castlevania game I've played in a while that felt truly difficult, which I appreciated after romping through SoTN and Aria without trouble. Such a shame that the Glyph Unions got shafted, though, forcing you to use two of the same rune if you wanted to have a proper Union (magic runes aside). All in all, through, really fun game with probably my favorite combat in the series. Props to the secret ending, too. That shit went hard.

A brilliant idea that makes perfect use of the touch screen for its gameplay. Had a great time mastering each tool and improving my speed and accuracy, which is something you'll definitely want to do considering the game's difficulty. Later stages, in particular, have little to no room for error even with the use of the game's slow-motion crutch. I'd say around 2 hours of my 8 hour playtime consisted of retries on the game's harder stages, but I'd say it was worth the work.

Presentation, especially compared to what I know of later games in the franchise, is very so-so. The graphics can be rough but are passable and the music, while good, doesn't have a lot of variety.

I found the story surprisingly enjoyable, albeit a bit rushed in pacing. The characters were very likable and the plot was a nice mix of anime corn and Grey's Anatomy with a dash of bioterrorism. A little dramatic, sure, but pretty entertaining.