The Castlevania series has come a long way since its introduction to North American audiences via the Nintendo Entertainment System. Since then, we have followed the legendary Belmont clan through a number of games as the quest to rid the world of Dracula once and for all. Oh, what a wonderful and exciting ride it has been and, thankfully, the Castlevania series sees no signs of slowing down. Castlevania: Judgment for the Nintendo Wii takes us out of the 2D plane and into a 3D fighting game that just doesn’t do the series justice.

As a loyal fan of the Castlevania series, I don’t mind the fact that Judgment has taken an interesting fighting game route. It’s a rather interesting addition to the side-scrolling fun we had with past games in the series. You see, Judgment contains all the elements found in a fighting game including an Arcade mode, Versus mode and even a Story mode. The various characters also have their own unique fighting styles as well as finishing moves and combos. You can even play against a friend online thanks to the Wii’s Wi-Fi connection.

Judgment’s Story mode contains a story for each of the available characters but don’t expect a deep and involving tale. Yes, different characters have different motivations for fighting but the main theme is always the same. You see, a mysterious man named Aeon claims that he has opened the portal between space and time so that different characters can go through it to face off against foes from the past or future. Simon Belmont, for example, doesn’t want to use the portal to kill Dracula but rather wants to go back in time to prove that he’s better than his ancestor, Trevor Belmont. Yes, the stories in Story mode are nonsensical and uninteresting.

Of course, we don’t play fighting games for the stories. We’re in it for the fights and - in this aspect - Judgment doesn’t fail. Thankfully, there are numerous characters you can play in the game as well and checking out their fighting styles and abilities is actually quite fun. Simon and Trevor, for example, might use their famous Vampire Killer whip but both of them have their own style of fighting. Taking a page straight out of the Soul Calibur games, there are even characters that wield bladed weapons such as Alucard and Carmilla (from Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest). Oh, and there are characters that use magic such as Maria Renard, Sypha Belnades and Shanoa. Speaking of Soul Calibur, there’s even a Voldo-like character named Grant Danasty.

While it’s great to see various characters from past Castlevania games, the 3D fighting and an awful camera just make for some frustration. There are too many times in the game where I would swing at nothing seeing as my character just couldn’t lock on to the enemy. This becomes even more evident and annoying when you waste your throwing weapons at nothing when the enemy is right in front of you. It’s good to see that the characters that have the ability to summon powerful allies Final Fantasy-style don’t have to aim the spell in the direction of the opponent or we would have to suffer even more frustration.

Apart from the awful camera that doesn’t give the best angles, the opponent AI is unpredictable so you will encounter some challenging battles early in the game then some rather easy ones later on. This fact is more noticeable in the game’s Arcade mode as well as Survival mode as you attempt to survive a wave of opponents. Castle mode has you attempting to move from room to room to get to Dracula all the while you go up against enemies or scores of minions along the way. Like in the game’s Story mode, there are Power Up items that grant you everything from health to weapons such as holy water bombs and throwing daggers.

As far as the controls are concerned, using the Wii Remote and the Nunchuk attachment makes for an awkward time. Thankfully, the game allows the use of a GameCube controller or the Nintendo Wii Classic Controller and this is a far better alternative than simply waving the Wii Remote to slash. 

Visually, Judgment looks good on the Nintendo Wii. The backgrounds look great and there are some objects you can smash along the way such as icicles or the glass in a stain-glassed window. The character models look very different from recent games in the series and this is mostly due to the fact that the character models were designed by famed Death Note and Hikaru no Go manga artist Takeshi Obata. They don’t look bad at all, actually, and watching the characters in motion actually works.

The sound, on the other hand, suffers thanks to the voice acting that will not fail to make you wince. Each character’s phrases become repetitive and overused throughout the game. Sure, the sound effects work but they’re overshadowed by the sound the characters make during battle. The music is actually good, with some music sounding better than others. Oh, and don’t get me started on the tunes with the bad guitar riffs.

Castlevania: Judgment for the Nintendo Wii is a fighting game that doesn’t pull any punches but isn’t able to land them well either. Sure, the collection of fighters are interesting and they have their own cool fighting style, but this doesn’t matter when the game suffers from a number of problems that hold it back from being a competent fighting game with an interesting Castlevania twist. If you’re a true fan of the series, a rental is in order but other than that this is one game in the series that should be skipped.

Gameplay: 6.0
Thanks to a number of issues that make the Wii Remote controls feel completely awkward, Judgment is best played with the GameCube or Classic controllers instead. There’s nothing compelling about the story either and the camera is not your friend. Still, there is some fun here but in limited bursts.

Graphics: 7.0
The backgrounds aren’t bad at all and the character design might be a bit different from what Castlevania fans are used to but it’s good seeing as they’re based off Obata-sensei’s art.

Sound: 6.5
Sadly, the voice acting will transport you back to the day when dialogue translation was poorly handled and voice acting very amateurish. There’s some good music here mixed in with some cheesy bad heavy guitar riffs.

Difficulty: Medium/Hard
The difficulty level is actually very erratic and nonsensical at times. How is it that Alucard can kick around Trevor and Simon when you play him and then get ripped apart without landing a single blow when you play against him?

Concept: 6.0
It’s Castlevania as a fighting game and the idea isn’t bad but it just doesn’t come together as smoothly as could have considering there are enough characters to use in the game. You can unlock loads of extras (some of them even by hooking up the Nintendo DS to the console) and there’s online multiplayer.

Multiplayer: 6.5
You can play against a friend online via a Wi-Fi connection and it runs smoothly enough. Playing with others fixes some of the AI problems but the bad camera still plays a role in making the battles awkward.

Overall: 6.0
We don’t mind a Castlevania fighting game when it’s done right but Judgment just isn’t able to pull it off well thanks to a number of problems that make this a unimpressive fighting game. All is not bad, though, seeing as the collection of characters bring something different to the battle, but it’s not enough to recommend this one.