Topic: Castlevania Judgment for $10: buy or avoid?

This game has piqued my interest and I'm hoping that some NL readers can help me out!

The critical reviews range from decent to absolutely horrid... but many of the worst reviews sound like they were in "pile on" mode and cared less about giving a fair assessment of the game than trying to blindly tear the game apart. There is also the fact that I have a hard time believing reviews in many cases because there are more than a few reviewers that seem biased against the Wii, and regularly give lower scores to games that I rather enjoyed (ie: TMNT Smash-Up!, Mushroom Men, The Munchables, Samba de Amigo, etc.)

My expectations going in aren't high, and I'm clearly not looking for the next SoulCalibur or Street Fighter. Fighting games are mostly a novelty to me, and will only get played casually for short periods at a time. I am also a fan of the Castlevania series, so the game appeals to me on that level. As long as I can get 8-10 hours of play from the game, I would consider it worthwhile...

So is it worth dropping $10 on this game, or should that money be saved for bigger and better Wii games? Maybe I should grab Tatsunoko vs Capcom and consider that my only fighting game for the system? Maybe there is room for both?

I really did not like it, although $10 is pretty tough to beat xD

I say buy. I bought it around that price and i found it to be quite enjoyable. I could barely find any of the stuff people where complaining about. Sure the camera can mess upp and I recommend a Gamecube controller, but its still a fun fighter.
Ive heard people complaining about the finisher moves being to powerfull, and sure, on easy they take alot of the life, but turn upp the difficulty and they are not nearly as powerful. So, again, I say buy it, as long as you dont expect more then a fun fighter you cant go wrong

Terrible camera
Terrible character balance
Weak controls
Shoddy collision detection

As a general rule of thumb if a game is getting trounced on all sides from reviews it isn't simply a case of people picking on a misunderstood game. Still, at $10 you won't really be out that much cash.

The trick is that a lot of professional and personal reviews have a disclaimer: "this isn't as bad as people are saying". Check Metacritic, and you see a similar phrase show up at least 3 or 4 times. Reading the user comments on Metacritic also makes it sound like the game might have enough redeeming qualities to be worth checking out... maybe.

I wouldn't be going into this game with high expectations, but more a sense of (morbid?) curiosity. As long as it doesn't leave me cursing then it's probably worthwhile.

I'm a big follower of Castlevania since first Vampire Killer for MSX2. Judgement is a slap in the face for that great saga. I would not buy that.

Shanoa with (apparently) short hair and in a nun-esque outfit screams "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT BUY!" to me.
Seriously, the character designs are the only reason I, as a Castlevania fan, haven't bought it yet.

I thought Shanoa was a nun in the order of Ecclesia. This isn't taken from the same time as the DS game... so why should she be in the same outfit? That said, I do have reservations about some of the character designs. I'd rather see something closer to the Castlevania tradition.

Why is it a slap in the face? Have you tried the game? It seems like people who are the most negative towards the game haven't bothered to try it, but don't mind judging it. (If you have tried then obviously the comment holds more weight - but it still doesn't explain why you dislike the game so strongly.)

Castlevania Judgment indeed.

I think the gameplay looks fun, but I can't get over the character designs, unfortunately.
And no, I'm pretty sure Shanoa's never been a nun. And if I remember correctly, Shanoa was sucked into Judgment's Time Rift while looking for Albus. In other words, she is taken directly from the DS game.
_{And when she's dressed up as a nun, she just seems so unobtainable. I don't want that. D:}

EDIT: This is how Shanoa should look:

:3

If you really want a fighting game, it's not the worst game you can buy. It's one of the most decent fighting games on Wii, and since Wii doesn't have the biggest range of fighters to begin with, at 10 bucks you can probably get enjoyment out of it. If you're used to the character designs from the other games in the series, this one may be a shock because they had the guy from Death Note do the designs because it was really popular in Japan at the time. Death in particular looks WTF.

Fair enough. I read that other justification somewhere (Destructoid?) but maybe it was just wishful thinking or nonsense.

Using the familiar character designs does seem like it would've been the smarter and easier choice. Whoever decided otherwise certainly didn't win over a lot of fans.

Also, that picture of Shanoa really creeps me out. Something about her face and fingers just looks wrong.

There is also incredibly juvenile dialogue in Maria's story where she whines about her boob size when fighting the other females. Yeah...

i think this was a decent game
best played using a classic controller, not so much with with wii-mote and nan-chuck
where this game really shines is the soundtrack, some of the best re-mixes
you'll spend a good amount of time playing through everyone and unlocking stuff

Castlevania has been always adventure games with a mix of dungeons, action, rpg. Judgement is nothing more than another cheap fighting game, it has nothing in common with vampire killer/Castlevania series except the title, a cheap excuse to try to increase the sales. They might have named it "Street Fighter-vania" and it would match better the spirit of the game.

not a bad game, but you say you haven't played TvC, then use the money to add to and buy that instead.. seriously.

Plus it sucks. There's always that.

Although I still haven't seen convincing arguments that the actual game is bad, mnementh's advice to save that money for TvsC sounds like the best plan. I don't love fighting games enough to play them often, so I might as well get the best one I can.

(And thanks to WaveBoy for the Guilty Gear recommendation. The only reason that game isn't higher on my list is because it's just really hard to find around here... but I'll definitely keep it in mind.)

Looks good, but a $47 after shipping is a little out of my price range right now.

I have a motto about buying Wii games: wait until it's $20 or less. Speaking of which, apparently Walmart (Canada) has No More Heroes 2 for $20 now according to CAG... so maybe saving that $10 was a really good idea.

edit: Ok, apparently it's not $20 at all Walmart stores, but if you live in Quebec it's worth checking.

For $10 you can't go wrong, the music alone is worth that price.