Castlevania Sucks

This weekend I played Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles for the psp. I wouldn't go as far to say that this game sucks, but I defiantly didn't enjoy it too much. Now I've heard really great things about the Castlevania series but I found some things I didn't like about it.

First I have to say, the intro video to this game was incredibly cool and I was totally psyched about it. You can see it here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=245TkRS2sGQ. But on to the actual game; why the hell do you jump backward when you double jump? This seemed pretty cool at first but it soon frustrated me as I tried to double jump out of the way of enemies only to land on their heads, damaging me.

There was a particularly stage (4 I think) that required a lot of jumping and so was very difficult for me to complete. Maybe it's because almost all games make you jump higher when you tap twice on the jump button and I wasn't used to it but it was still very difficult. I would find myself getting used to the jump but every time I reacted on instinct in a tense moment I would forget about the jumping back and damage or kill myself.

Another gripe I had about the game is the girl (Sophie I think) you unlock in the 2nd stage. Why the hell is she so much more powerful than the main character? First off, she uses birds! She throws Doves, the birds of peace, at her enemies as a weapon! Not only is this a stupid idea, but it's much more powerful than the main character's whip. Once you use the main character's whip you have to wait till it returns to you until you can use it again (which makes sense). But if you tap quickly on the attack button for Sophie, she can have like 3 birds out a once. Another reason to hate the main character even more is the fact that when you double jump with Sophie she jumps higher on the second jump, not back. So I found myself playing a little pale girl in a white dress throwing birds most of this game.

While not as important as the above mentioned problems with this game, as far as I played there was no storyline. Apart from the intro video and some dialogue in the begining of stage 1 there was no storyline and no explanation for what the main character was doing in a house infested with zombies, ghosts, and floating eyeball things. Then you meet a girl in stage 2 and she persuades you to let her fight with you. No reason for her being in that castle at all or why she wants to fight apart from her parents being "ok" with her being with you.

Now, I'm not a stranger to games with light storylines and a lot of gameplay, I happen to love the Devil May Cry series, but the gameplay in this game wasn't good or rewarding enough for me to stick around to see if there was a plot to this game. I'm sure if anybody reads this post they're going to say that I didn't play it enough or give it enough of a chance. I played this game on and off throughout all of my Sunday. I would play for 20-30 minutes or so, get frustrated, put it down and leave, and then come back to play. I probably played this game for at least 3-4 hours, (I'm a slow gamer) but still couldn't look past the issues I had with this game. I mean I really tried to like it, but I guess me and Castlevania just weren't meant to be.