Well, I've read your review a couple of times.

First and foremost let me say that I am not unbiased in these comments. I would certainly not give Castlevania 4 a score as high as 9/10. As a matter of fact, I can almost imagine using lines from your review to back up a lower score. For instance, the part where you said in earlier Castlevania games you'd have to take your hit like a man if you screwed up, but in CVIV you can fudge things.

But if I try to get past that, I can say positive things about your review. It was a fairly long review, but it kept my interest up through the whole thing. Usually, I can't bring myself to finish most reviews that have been written lately because they're so boring.

I think part of the reason you kept my interest up is that the review is pretty full of your personality, and it also never felt like you were describing things obligatorily. Like, when you talked about 8-way whipping, instead of just saying that you could now whip in this game, you gave a little story (which I guess I refered to earlier) which made things more interesting. I also liked the little bits of lightheartedness (Simon being dipped in Tang in older games; the moonwalk adding that bit of 80s soul).

So, I would say it was a good review. If I were you I would ignore RandX's critiques. No offense to Rand, but I don't write my reviews as buying guides, and it doesn't seem like you want to, either, and if not you shouldn't have to. I also don't think it's necessary to nitpick in a review just to come up with things that some person you've never met might possibly dislike about a game. In fact, I think that could be a very, very bad - you gave the game a 9/10, and therefore the review SHOULD be overridingly positive. Giving space to nitpicks would give them disproportionate weight when you're trying to make the game sound exciting.