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The Curse of Dracula vs. RedMaverickZero
The Curse of Dracula Momma always told me not to read in the dark... It hurts your eyes... Hehe.
MCW, Me, and Aeth
Download: 33 KB
V.S.
RedMaverickZero
Play Time: hours and 30+ minutes
Review # 17 for RedMaverickZero Momma always told me not to read in the dark... It hurts your eyes... Hehe.
Them's Fightin' Words
    Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a pretty cool show you would say? I mean, it's a fairly attractive girl running around stabbing things and stuff right? But more importantly, it was a hot chick killing things. Well, "The Curse of the Vampire" you don't get the hot chick in tight clothing. Instead you get a weird dude who's the son of the one who killed Dracula years ago. Now Dracula is back and the only way to defeat his cold hard soul is by taking four pieces of Dracula's body and destroying them! Sounds spooky? Wait until you read what else happens!
Graphics
    For those who don't know, this game was made for the "Do More With Less" contest. So I won't judge this area based off of color quality, but of the structure of the graphics themselves and the rules that were provided for the contest. First of all, you can only use four colors for walkabouts, hero graphics, and everything else. But for the maptiles and backdrops you use a different set of colors if you so choose to. The artist of the game, MulticoloredWizard picked fairly decent colors to establish the characters of the game. Also, they worked well, not of a structure standpoint, but from the fact that if one set of colors didn't fit well, then they would.

For example. The main character, Guy, is consisted of five (bought color?) colors. Red, Blue, LightBlue, White, and gray. Now, those colors can't really make a good looking character in a normal game with no strings attached. But you can pretend the colors are something they're not. Like the red outline of Guy could have been imagined a black. Anyways, as I said, I am not judging the graphics area on colors, but more of a graphical structure. Guy had a very nice position in battle and he had some crazy cool skills as well. For the color scheme that was used the graphics were fairly well done. Some areas did grow to appear a bit annoying after a while. Such as the library, after 3 or 4 minutes all I saw was line line... green. It was obnoxious on the eyes. But it wasn't entirely their fault, they were making due with what they had. And they did a fairly nice job doing so too.
 
Storyline
    As mentioned in the Introduction, Guy Belmot, a crazy whip slinging madman dude is off to kill Dracula. The legendary vampire who "Will suck your blood". Guy Belmot must go through Dracula's mansion and find the four pieces of Dracula's body to destroy them. Only then can the curse be broken. Sounds easy right? Go find some stuff. That's where you're wrong.
 
Gameplay
    This game used a multiple of ways to portray it's story. First of all, the coolest thing that was done was the SubWeapon scripts. Every sub-weapon you would equip to Guy would give him a skill to use that weapon in battle, along with his standard spikey whip. This was very unique because different enimies were affected by different subweapons. Such as the holy water was good against some foes and not as good against others. And they all helped the battle atmosphere.

One of the biggest drags I had about this game were the random battles. They were way too high. After conversing to Wiz about this he said "They were supposed to be high at night time". Well, the battles were high no matter where you go. And the battles really are pointless unless you intend on testing out every single subweapon a few hundred times. For the three large puzzles in the game this game the random battles were almost unneccesary. If anything they should have been set very very low. Because when you're trying to solve a puzzle you kinda need to think. Not be nervous about when the next random battle is.

As said above, there were three big puzzles in the game. They were a MUST to get three of Dracula's body parts. One of which was a killer maze where you would walk around in a big "liney" library where if you walked a certain direction long enough the entire map seems to be... line, line, green. Where you have to find switches to activate a door to open so you get a part. There was another puzzle just like it with the exception of the switches. A solid blue background with waves and such. I've said it before in my review of Rampagin Gineau Pig. That puzzle games are showing they can compete with other OHR games. But this game kinda drowns it out with the repetitive battles. Oh yeah, the final puzzle was pushing rocks around, which lost it's novelty fast.
 
  Battle
    Creative. The use of all the subweapons was genious. Yet the random battle generator was set too high. Every two to three steps "BAM!" battle. And I thought Ska-Drummer Man RPG had high set battles. Yeow! There were many strategies as I said. Subweapons provided the battles with a crisp battle atomsphere allowing the player to try a new approach to battle. Yet... When you picked a bad sub-weapon you kinda paid for it. With HP. :(
 
  Map Design
    Oh boy. This was divine. Shadowiii said Maze Madness had very well thought maps. Yet, this game comes very close to that. Every step you make is crucial. I mean, the library maze was so well thought out I really didn't know what to expect next. A part of me thought it would last forever and to quit the game. Yet somehow I was driven to get to the end. Despite the awful random battles. The maps were very very well thought out. I do believe based off the credits, that "me" did those. I take my hat off to you for these.
 
  Balance
    Yikes. Balance... Well, there were no shops whatsover. Therefore no healing items. Bad... Healing items although can be worked around with skills are a very big must in my book. You can't depend on brute force to win all the time. Yet, this game encouraged that. My personal outlook of this was, survive. The save points fully restored your HP and heart points. Yet there was such a limited amount that it was hard to find them. Maybe two for every area at the least. And these areas were BIG. This game was intended to be difficult. Yet, I don't think the authors of the game fully understand how difficult of a game, or frustrating of a game they made.
 
Music
    This was the highlight of the game in my thoughts. There were exactly two BAM files for the entire game, yet they were perfect. The only thing that could've made them better was them being composed by one of the 3 authors. Yet it was suprisingly catchy. The battle/title screen music had an upbeat sound that kept you playing and made the battles a bit smoother and funner to play. Good job. And the world music was kinda spooky and creepy and did it's job. It was very well chosen and very well used. Good job.
 
Enjoyment
    The game was fairly long for a contest game. Roughly 30 minutes if you fight EVERY FIGHT. And that's if you know what you're doing. Some things could've been made better though. For instance, the random battles should have been toned down... But the puzzles were a nice addition to this game. Mazes and actual thinking are things that is hard to come by in OHR games of today. And "The Curse of Dracula" did it quite well. Almost too well.
 
Final Blows
    Towards the end, the narrator says that "You know Dracula will come back, that is why you kept training. For the next day you find him." To me, it sounds like a sequel. Guy Belmont, was a great character, tough and a muscle man. He had the attitude somewhat like the popular character from Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts games as Cloud Strife. The "I don't care but I'll get what I want" kinda guy. Anyways, if you do decide to make a sequel (3 of you!) try working on the areas I mentioned above. Then your game will be even better than it already is.
Wow. This enemy looks just like Guy's walkabouts. Hehe. It's Dracula. So scary! Heh.

Wow. This enemy looks just like Guy's walkabouts. Hehe. It's Dracula. So scary! Heh.
Final Scores
Graphics: 7/10.0
Limited colors. Fairly simple graphic design. Good use of resources. You get a silver medal my friends!
Storyline: 6/10.0
Could have been elaborated on a bit more. So that you could kinda get inside Guy Belmont's mind and see what pushes him forward to kill Dracula like his father. But the story was well thought out for the mostpart.
Gameplay: 5/10.0
Pretty long for a short contest game. And everything ran smoothly. With the exception of the tedious random battles and lack of good balance, this was a good area for the game.
Music: 8.5/10.0
Catchy, spiffy. And cool. Excellent job here.
Enjoyment: 5/10.0
Not as much fun as some games I have played. But it is one of the more unique games. MCW and Aetherall have teamed up with "me" and they're showing the new people out there that team games are working better than new solo games.
Overall Grade: B-
Final Thoughts
    1,2,3,4. Find Dracula's body and SMASH! HULK SMASH! Oops, wrong game. Check this out, it's a cool experience.  


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