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Crawl and 1OOO wrote:

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I looked at some screen shots for that game. Is it just me, or does it not even look good?

Yeah, the graphical design is really hit and miss; whatever Belmont it is this time is probably the worst protagonist sprite I've seen in the series, and the way the game is just presented (the graphical style, the effects, even the sounds!) seems to evoke the vibe of a Flash game more than anything. If it were a Flash game it'd probably be passable, but with Konami themselves at the helm it's pretty dire. The few times it uses multiple sprites to form a large enemy it just looks remarkably half-assed.
On the bright side, there's a big red knight that's smoothly animated and is probably the nicest sprite in the game (that means a lot!). The areas you go to are practically just retreads of stuff from Bloodlines and Super Castlevania IV, except they did it better. Considering how the other two Rebirth games just reuse graphics from the old instalments, I don't see why this didn't just pinch everything from a 16-bit game as well.
As always with my nags, if the game were just an engine for a level builder then I'd be much more supportive; I mean, it recycles a whole bunch of enemies, revisits a whole bunch of area clichés in each level and still uses the remarkably basic tile-based level designs that have been around since the dawn of the series - what's stopping them? (well, besides the fact that that'd be awesome and nobody makes awesome things anymore)

I played it again and made my way to Death this time before I got a Game Over and had to retry the level from the start. If the boss is the only decent part of the level, screw that. I'd like to finish it just so I can be satisfied that I'll never have any reason to play it again, but even as it is, killing nearly an hour to get back there doesn't sound too inviting. And I think the music has given me a headache.

Finished Castlevania Rebirth on Easy which I can't say I'm proud of (it's depressingly easy without the slightest ounce of challenge at all), but at least I know what Dracula's second form looks like. I assume on Normal mode his second form is a little tougher, but if it doesn't gain any more attacks I'd probably say it's one of the lamest Draculas ever.
Also got about two hours worth of gameplay into Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin a couple of days ago, though I didn't really achieve too much with it; defeated a couple of bosses (weird gel-in-a-jar and half of a giant bull thing), found two new areas (desert and circus) and got exploring the latter for a bit.