For the record when it comes to be PS2 Castlevanias I feel like Curse of Darkness gets tarred with the same brush as Lament of Innocence too often. I am not a fan of LoI, but CoD is massively better: you have an arsenal of weapons comparable to the DS games; a new familiar mechanic which encourages you to try different weapons; a great "steal" mechanic where you could get rare items from enemies by parrying one of their special attacks (this gave boss fights in particular a lot more depth since you could chose to go for a quick kill or try the extra challenge of getting a one-off rare item); the map design while not as intricate as the 2D games, was not linear and there were places to explore and risks/rewards for doing so; there's also some great post-game content including optional areas and bosses as well as a really, really challenging new difficulty mode and Trevor as playable character.Pretas wrote:Nobuya Nakazato has a special thanks credit in Ecclesia; it's tempting to think that his input had an effect on the game being much tighter and more challenging than previous similar entries, as well as the inclusion of the Training Area. Anyway, the two PS2 IGAvanias are pretty much definitive proof that Koji is clueless about the fundamentals of great action-adventure games and possesses limited talent as a creative overseer, aside from obsessively curating the series' story canon. Even there, he's sometimes dropped the ball, as Curse of Darkness completely failed to exploit its status as a direct sequel to CVIII.
While it's not perfect, I think it's pretty much everything a (3D) Castlevania game should be. Maybe IGA doesn't make the deepest games around, but he does know how to make something you can, how shall I say, sink your teeth into.