Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth Review At Kombo
January 04, 2010
Not content to just discuss the recently released Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth for Nintendo's WiiWare service here as a mini-review and in a video text commentary, my formal review of the game has just been published over at Kombo. You have played it by now, right?
The original Adventure has been drastically improved and expanded upon, resulting in a satisfying vampire slaying experience. While at first glance the game appears to be a simple action title with few surprises, ReBirth actually includes a number of branching paths locked behind steel doors. Experienced players can play through several times and take different paths that contain different challenges, some of which are only found on these side trips. An extensive options mode allows for additional tweaks, such as turning the level of difficulty to Easy Mode and granting nine lives at the start of the game to the conventional Normal setting all the way up to the unforgiving Hard Mode. There's even an unlockable option to turn Christopher into his creaky, hard-to-steer self if you really want to recreate the old Adventure experience. While the game defaults to 4:3 full screen mode, it's possible to let out the sides for widescreen displays. It even offers support for the Classic Controller and GameCube Controller. ReBirth offers gameplay for everyone of any skill, and while I don't anticipate the casual crowd rushing to this title, it's nice to see that the game really is suited for anyone and everyone.
I've replayed the game nearly each day since I bought it and each time I find something new to either impress me or make me smile. I know it's too early to consider such a thing, but if anyone over at Konami is daydreaming about doing a sequel, I'd like to recommend an update of the second Game Boy title and sequel to the original Adventure, Belmont's Revenge.