When the Nintendo 64 was released and revolutionized 3D gaming for eternity, people were excited for Castlevania's transition from 2D to 3D...that is, until they actually had Castlevania on the Nintendo 64 and played it. Suffice to say, it was not very fun and made their wallets cry in regret. The controls were awkward to use before The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time had to tell it how to have proper 3D controls; the 3D graphics were unattractive and had dull colors even for its time; and the game, itself, was so dull and repetitive that it was only worth a rental at best.

    Only a few months later, Konami decided that it messed up so badly that they needed to make a Director's Cut version of this game that tries to make up for Castlevania's mistakes. But paying $70 for the same game but different was already too much for gamers to handle, so again, Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness is worth only a rental, perhaps even skipping altogether even if it's free like on Vizzed.com. This time, though, you start the game as a werewolf named Cornell rather than Reinhardt or Carrie. Just imagine beating a new campaign only to unlock older campaigns from an older game, and that's Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness for you! Heck, even the environments are the same for the most part!

Graphics: At least the graphics take advantage of the Expansion Pak for a higher 640 X 480 resolution this time, so the graphics look nowhere nearly as blurry as in Castlevania. However, most of the game looks drab and dark to the point where the 2D Castlevania games look like cakewalks in the park with the Care Bears, for better or worse. I would say it's for the better at first, because at least this lends to a haunting atmosphere, but it becomes dull and tedious to look at in a hurry! It's like the artists were skeletons rather than actual human beings! A little more color and style would have been appreciated, and the drab colors could have been used sparingly to make them seem even scarier later on.

Audio:
   Music: You hear the music? Not much? That's because there is barely any music in this game, and whatever music is in it, it's as repetitive as this game! Also, it's nowhere nearly as memorable as in older Castlevania games, so there might as well be no music! Like the artists, the musician must have been a skeleton.
   Effects: I can give much better praise for the rest of the audio, as they all lend to a scary atmosphere quite well. There were even times when I got scared from a loud sound effect or two! Okay, I guess the sound designer isn't such a skeleton after all...

Addictiveness: Well, it's hard to be addicted to a video game when it's this repetitive in the level design. It's certainly makes it harder when its reward for clearing the first campaign...is an older campaign! Seriously, couldn't Konami just let the game start with the old campaign and then give the newer ones? That would have been a better reward then what we got now with Legacy of Darkness! As for the game itself, you would find yourself doing the same thing over and again just to get through the next level, or even just doing something really tedious to the point where you would rather not finish the game in your rental period. Period. Once you beat this game, if you even managed to slog yourself through this, you would not want to play this game again unless you're someone like usedpizza on Twitch who just loves to speedrun Castlevania 64! For everybody else, even a little bit of this game is not really worth your time.

Story: To be honest with you, I never bothered to complete this game, but I can tell you right off the bat that this game features four stories from four different perspectives. This is where the story of the Castlevania series goes from being simple and endearing to being convoluted and uninteresting. Actually, I could not complain much about Cornell's story, which is a story of revenge and saving his sister, but then the stories include other characters that nobody cares about other than beating the blood out of them, and there are lots of twists and turns to the point where the player cannot find the entire story memorable. Pass.

Depth: Because the game has four campaigns, there is a lot more meat to this game's bones than the previous installment. However, the game loses almost all sense of depth when the player realizes that he has to trek through some of the same locations as in Castlevania 64, so this is just one big, repetitious game! Sure, Cornell's first level might be refreshing, but even then, a first-time Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness player can easily tell that it's just tutorial filler that leads to the same old crap! Why couldn't Konami release this version as Castlevania 64 and not after it's taken their poor fans' money first!? Those greedy pigs! Right after the release of this game, if it wasn't for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on PlayStation, Konami would have been in deep crap! (See what I did there?) But hey, at least this game offers more for your money this time...I guess.

Difficulty: I mentioned before that the controls in Castlevania 64 were awkward, and this is no exception. I'm not talking about delayed attack animations, although that could have also been an issue. No, I'm talking about camera controls mostly. The only way to control it is with one button. This setup works well with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, because the entire game is designed around it. It does not work well with Castlevania, because it's not designed very well in the first place! You would go through sections where you would not know where to land simply because the camera fights against you at every turn. The secondary attack function is awkwardly placed at one of the C-buttons--and by the way, try playing this game with the Xbox 360 controller, whose Right Analog Stick is terrible for the C-buttons--which makes it difficult to use it!

The crappiness of the controls are amplified by stiff platforming where anybody can make a mistake at any moment. It's as if the designers played way too much Super Mario 64 and decided that this was how they wanted to design the levels in Castlevania 64, but without realizing that camera controls are severely limited. Again, Zelda was designed around this limitation, while Castlevania clearly was not thought out.
At least it functions during more open areas where there is no platforming to be had. But with no Z-targeting from the Zelda series, combat is rather awkward when the camera fights against the player in a similar fashion to the platforming. Again, the designers copied Mario too much and didn't do much else. Hell, try fighting enemies while platforming! You will know the meaning of pain soon.

Overall: As a Castlevania player, you should avoid this game. Now, it's not a BAD game, and with a bottle of beer or with a bunch of friends, you can easily laugh at this game and get some enjoyment out of it. I mean, just watch JonTron's review of the game for goodness' sake! However, as a game in a long-standing series, it sticks out like a sore thumb and has the word "crap" written all over it! However, the game does last you a while and could potentially take you 20+ hours to complete, which isn't something you would find in many modern games that cost you $60. Was this game worth $60 at around the 90's? Probably not. In fact, people who already played Castlevania 64 either skipped Legacy of Darkness or just rented it from the nearest video store. Bottom line: what a horrible night to play an inferior Castlevania game!