Castlevania Judgment

Castlevania: Judgment is the first Castlevania game on the Wii, and is also the first in the series to be a one-on-one versus fighting game. It was released in November 2008 in the United States, January 2009 in Japan, and March 2009 in Europe.

Story
See also Judgment Timeline Galamoth plots to send the Time Reaper from 10,000 years in the future into the past to destroy his rival Dracula, and change history. Aeon discovers this and pulls together champions from different eras of history into a time rift, in order to find a chosen one capable of destroying the Time Reaper. Like most traditional fighting games, there is a story surrounding each character

Character Gallery
''See also

Gameplay
Castlevania Judgment is a 3D fighting game, complete with subweapons, hearts and generation bending characters.

The game features several modes: Connecting Order of Ecclesia to Judgement unlocks
 * Story Mode (personalized stories for each character)
 * Arcade
 * Survival
 * Versus
 * Wi-Fi
 * Castle (travel through Dracula's castle)
 * Viewing Mode (music and art)
 * Accessories (enables you to customize the appearance of your fighters with your retrieved items)
 * Hard Mode level cap raises to 255 in Order of Ecclesia
 * Queen of Hearts item in Order of Ecclesia
 * Aeon and Shanoa in Judgement
 * New accessories in Judgement

Development
Shortly after a patent for the game Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia for the Nintendo DS was found, a patent for another game called "Castlevania: Judgment" was found. In late 2007, Iga had indicated that the next game Konami was planning on releasing after their third Dual Screen game would be a next gen game. At that time Konami was leaning towards making the game an Xbox 360 exclusive game due to the success of that platform in the United States. However, the July issue of Nintendo Power revealed that Castlevania: Judgment was a fighting game for the Wii, with character design by Takeshi Obata, famous for his work in Hikaru No Go and Death Note. About the decision to make a fighting game, Igarashi says, "I guess some fans may worry about the game quality, but I am confident that we can achieve a very high-quality game. I think that fans…will see that it stays true to the Castlevania series. Even though this is a fighting game I can guarantee that it will be fun.”

When the game was first announced, six characters were confirmed: Simon Belmont, Dracula, Death, Alucard, Maria and Shanoa. Other playable characters include recurring enemies and bosses of the Castlevania franchise, and a new exclusive character named Aeon.

Other non-playable characters roam the games stages, serving as obstacles that can be eliminated to replenish energy. These characters include common Castlevania enemies such as zombies and minotaurs.

Criticism and Reception
The largest forms of criticism for Judgment so far stems from two things: firstly, it is a fighting game and thus rather disconnected from the rest of the series; secondly, the character designs are quite a bit different from any others within the franchise. Addressing the second, the nebulous 'Castlevania feel' - a factor hard to quantify or describe - is often deemed absent, though the artwork is technically sound and the designs unique, varied and interesting. However, while the direction taken by the art is indeed revolutionary, the storyline fails to rise to this level as well, with players expressing irritation at the stock 'fighting game' character motivations and interactions (Maria's "pettanko" fixation on breasts, for example, and the cliché love triangle plotline amongst the CV III crew). Other critiques are directed at Alucard and Maria's unorthodox choices of weaponry with regard to their mainline canon counterparts.

With regards to the former, Koji Igarashi has so far done a meritable job of explaining why they would develop the game as a two-player fighting game. However, it still stands to reason that playing a long adventure game on Wii using the motion controls would be very tiring - IGA himself admits that precise movements while wagging the Wiimote might require a superhuman degree of coordination. The Wiimote can still be used as usual, with the player able to control Alucard's sword and other weapons by swinging the Wiimote. Unfortunately, players have found the controls to be unsatisfactory, citing the limited directional movements of characters coupled with the largeness of the arena as a major stumbling block. The special attacks' animations, while indeed spectacular, are also time-consuming and deplete a disproportionate amount of a player-character's health.

The reviews of the game vary between above-average and very poor. Overall, Judgment appears to be a case of a solid concept plagued by a lacklustre execution. It is hardly unique in this respect. It is an innovation within the franchise nonetheless, and perhaps subsequent efforts might alleviate Konami's "growing pains" with regards to Castlevania's 3D titles.

Review scores

 * Publication Score
 * 1UP.com D-,
 * IGN 7.5/10,
 * Nintendo Power 7.0/10[citation needed],
 * X-Play 1/5

Related Products

 * Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia - Related games which can give each other bonus unlockables when the DS and Wii are connected
 * Castlevania: Judgment Original Soundtrack
 * GuitarFreaks & DrumMania V6 - Contains a rock version of Vampire Killer with scenes from Judgment playing.
 * Judgment Promotional Calendar - Preorder bonus in Japan
 * Official Koma - Comic panels associated with this game
 * Judgment Action Figures - Figures based on Judgment characters (Simon)
 * Akumajo Dracula: Prize Collection - Volume 1 has two figures from Judgment that can be won from an arcade (Simon and Maria)