Visually the game is a disaster after the very promising opening sequence. When booting the game up, I was treated to a cool animated monster intro done seemingly by the folks who drew the Spawn anime. Then I pressed start to begin my game. After reading a novel worth of text I finally meet my character, or what I could see of him through the blurry filter the game offers. I noticed that the characters, maps, textures, and special effects were very reminiscent of an old PSone title. Your main characters are very generic and poorly animated and the enemies all remain the same for over 200 kills. After a bit I was praying the next enemy to attack me on the first level would be something other than a werewolf…but alas, that’s all I fought for the first 20 minutes of the game. Fighting these creatures wouldn’t have been as bad if the level design wasn’t so monotonous and boring. Just grey, rocks, and dirt…repeat. This is what you have to look forward to over and over. Just change the scenery (or lack there of), enemies, and add moves and weapons, and you’ve got yourself a game that makes watching paint dry interesting.

Sound…or should I say…what sound? There is no dialog to go along with the game’s text. What’s sad is that as bad as the game is, poor voice acting seems to be missing, which would have been perfect in this game’s case. Next you have the enriching score, that is, when it decides to start. Case in point; I was near 25 minutes into a level listening to the crunching of rocks and other ambient sounds as I slaughtered countless enemies. Then out of the blue the music begins. I thought to myself…I must be getting to a boss or ending of the level, but the fact of the matter is, that the music didn’t cue until such time it saw fit. When the music began, it was okay, but should I really have to tolerate near total silence for almost half and hour before I’m treated to it? Need I say more?

Game play is a repetitive, easy, and unresponsive mess. Hack, slash, and repeat, but make sure you wait for the controls to react to the analog stick before you move. It’s almost as if you have to acquire the powers of “prophecy” to know when the controls will react precisely. This game is a shoe in for folks who like to mindlessly press buttons, or have a three year old with nothing better to do but play with the controller and mash the buttons while gazing at the screen with drool hanging from their chin

To sum up…who in the hell tested this game, let alone allowed it to be produced? To say this game felt incomplete would be an understatement. Of all the successful titles that Konami has developed in the last 18 years plus, it hurts me to have to shred such a beloved company of such credibility. The saying goes something like, there are always a few bad eggs in the basket, and the problem with this egg is that it’s rotten.