An attractive college girl
takes a midnight stroll through the dark corners of a cemetery without showing
an ounce of fear or worry. She casually comes to a stop when out of the
darkness comes a creature that was once human but now a damned being, a child of
the night that craves human blood. Yet the girl doesn’t show any fear, instead
she pulls out a sharp wooden stake and fights the creature until the monster is
impaled and turned to dust. This is the life of Buffy Summers, a vampire slayer
whose adventures are well chronicled in a long-running television show and video
games (the most recent one had been on the Xbox). Now the Game Boy Advance puts
you in the role of lovely Miss Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Wrath of the
Darkhul King. Vampire season is officially open.
Wrath of the Darkhul King
puts Buffy somewhere during the show’s fourth season when she was still dating
soldier boy Riley and her main nemesis was a deformed super soldier called
Adam. As the story unfolds, Buffy’s Watcher, Giles discovers that there is a
rise in demonic activity throughout their quiet college town of Sunnydale and
that there’s a dastardly source behind it. The source of all this evil, she
finds out early, is the rise of the powerful Darkhul King–a demon with enough
power to resurrect slain demons to do his bidding. To show he means business,
he even kidnaps residents of Sunnydale . . . thus sending Buffy on her quest to
rescue the prisoners and uncrown the Darkhul King by slaying him. And if that
wasn’t enough, she must deal with Adam and a menace known as The Gentlemen (who
are featured in one of the best Buffy episodes ever).
Part of being a Slayer,
though, is possessing super strength and combat skills that could put any male
demon hunter to shame. Buffy’s weapons of choice go well beyond the usual
wooden stake and crossbow; Wrath of the Darkhul King offers a variety of weapons
from a trusty dagger to a powerful flamethrower. She even has a few
hand-to-hand combat moves at her disposal such as kicks, punches and blocks.
This is a good thing since Buffy’s quest takes her through cemeteries, an
abandoned hospital and even her campus. There are even cut scenes done through
use of actual digitized stills straight from the show (fans of the show will
love that Buffy and the Scooby gang are all present). In short, this is a
side-scrolling platform game with all the right elements in place.
Yet even with these
things, the game is flawed down to its very core. To begin with, the controls
are utterly dreadful. Buffy’s hand-to-hand moves are limited to just a few
variations of punches and kicks but what makes this bad is the fact that on
several occasions her kicks and punches are delayed. Push the kick button and a
few seconds later Buffy responds with a swift kick–a little too late if an
enemy is already upon you. This delay also proves to be frustrating when Buffy
needs to jump a few gaps here and there. Just about the only good thing about
the combat is that the new weapons, such as the laser rifle, work in her favor.
Using the powerful Glove of Myhnegon, for instance, is much more fun than
knocking an enemy down and having to squat over them to stake them in the
chest.
My other major gripe with
this game is the poor level design that hardly offers anything new the farther
you go. While there are a number of locations and familiar beasties to battle,
all you’ll ever do is flip switches and push boxes. The biggest challenge is
jumping gaps. Oddly enough, you’ll encounter these large gaps almost
everywhere, including some unlikely places like in the middle of a museum.
Secondly, the story does try to keep things witty and fun–just like in the
show. While it manages to be somewhat faithful in terms of how each character
talks, the game over does it (the excessive use of the word “thingy” is used way
too much here).
While the rest of the game
fails to impress, the visuals are surprisingly nicely detailed to the point that
you’ll appreciate the environments and all the little details. Watching Buffy
break objects you’d never image would break in other games is something of a
neat treat. The special effects are also quite beautiful to watch, especially
when lighting up a demon or dusting a vampire. The stills are also wonderfully
clear so fans will definitely enjoy them.
Whether it was intentional
or on purpose, the game’s soundtrack is old school and will most likely bring to
mind those classic NES game tunes. This is not to say that the score is cheesy,
it’s actually not bad at all, although it’s nowhere near the score you’d
normally find on the show. Even the opening theme is all wrong, but gamers
won’t mind it at all. And while there are some nicely done sound effects, the
game would have benefited from some small sound samples for flipping switches or
dragging crates.
Children of the night,
hear me now. Wrath of the Darkhul King has all the right Buffy the Vampire
Slayer elements but, ultimately, its blood is tainted by its
impossible-to-ignore faults. For fans of the show, this game doesn’t have much
to offer in terms of story. For fans of platform action games, the fun is
buried by poor controls and uneventful levels. If you’re looking for a
supernatural action title, I suggest you skip this one and purchase
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow.
#Reviewer’s
Scoring Details
Gameplay: 5.0
Sluggish controls keep gamers from
truly unleashing the inner slayer in all of us and it actually becomes really
trying in times when Buffy is required to jump huge gaps. Yet Buffy the Vampire
Slayer has always been about martial arts and weapons combat, something the game
doesn’t pull off successfully. Sure there are weapons galore but her
hand-to-hand combat skills, which she uses often in this game, are limited to
the same few kicks and punches. To make matters worse, Buffy’s movements are
sometimes delayed (e.g. push the punch button and Buffy responds with a punch
two seconds too late).
As for the level design,
pushing (or smashing) crates and flipping switches is okay but that’s about all
there is to this game puzzle-wise. You’ll experience the same thing over and
over again with nothing new added to the level except for the requisite level
boss fight.
Graphics: 7.5
Surprisingly, the game’s graphics
are easy on the eyes and the plentiful details throughout the levels won’t fail
to impress. Graveyards are filled with various tombstones and gothic mausoleums
while the old abandoned hospital looks creepy in the moonlight. Aside from the
wonderful detail found in each area, the great visual effects of vampires
getting dusted will pleasantly surprise gamers and the way baddies catch on fire
when Buffy lights them up with her flamethrower.
To top it all off, the
characters look good out there, especially Buffy and a majority of the evil
minions she encounters. The still-photos used during the cut scenes are also
nice and clear and are used cleverly to tell the story (despite the weak
dialogue).
Sound: 7.2
While the game wasn’t able to fully
recreate the show’s rocking opening theme, the music found in this game will
bring to mind those old NES days when game music was not as impressive as it is
now but still good enough to be memorable (I still hum the old Super Mario
jingle–I can’t help it). Aside from the decent number of tunes found here, the
sound effects could have used a variety of other sounds aside from the sounds of
kicks connecting with bad guys. It would have been nice to hear the crate
scrape the ground as Buffy moves it or the enemy make different sounds when they
die. Just about the only sound effect that really stands out is the sound of a
vampire getting a stake to the chest.
Difficulty: Hard
You would expect a game with this
kind of difficulty rating to be difficult because of the challenges encountered
in this game. The truth is that the game is difficult because the horrible
controls make it hard for gamers to really respond to the challenges the game
throws at you. There are a few boss battles that pits Buffy against show
favorites like Adam or the Gentlemen, but the controls will suck the life (no
pun intended) out of these encounters that will have you yanking your hair out
each time you die from the Slayer’s dawdling response time.
Concept: 5.0
Not much thought was placed on
adding variety to this side-scrolling platform game and that’s a shame
considering the potential the Slayer universe offers. There are certainly
recognizable characters and monsters fans of the show will instantly recognize
and the story does attempt to stay within the show’s beloved supernatural action
theme. With all the right elements, though, the game hardly added unique Slayer
moves or added more depth to the level like Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
does.
Overall: 5.9
Wrath of the Darkhul King has its
shining moments of fun, but these precious moments are overshadowed by a far
greater evil–terrible level design and slow-as-molasses controls. This is very
unfortunate considering that the graphics are nicely detailed and the sound is
equally good, yet the beat-them-up action in this platformer will leave fans of
the series and action games looking elsewhere for a taste of fresher blood.
