BloodRayne: Betrayal Review

I’ve never played one second of the BloodRayne series before Betrayal; it wasn’t on my radar. When I had the chance to review BloodRayne Betrayal, I couldn’t pass it up. The series hasn’t been well-received, and I wanted to find out for myself if Betrayal could break out and bring something new to the table, and it did just that.

Story

The story is straightforward; the protagonist, Rayne, is transported to a castle via a coffin rocket to destroy her father. She must go through many vampires, monsters, traps, bosses, and more to do this.

Presentation

The first thing I noticed about the game immediately was the excellent art direction incorporated here. I wish more games were in this style. It has an anime/manga feel that is refreshing, compared to all the games we’ve seen in the past few years, which often try to be as realistic as possible. The music also brought this together, with a gothic sound overlaying classical music and guitar riffs, depending on the level. In addition to the actual art direction, though, I thought the levels were incredibly varied, featuring different environments and elements, with both indoor and outdoor scenes. A lot of detail was put into all the various objects in the environment to create dynamic levels.

Gameplay

Moves

The entire move set is available to you from the beginning, with no unlocks, and boasts numerous combos you can do with Rayne’s swords. I loved this because you could learn and use different ways to finish off your enemy at your own pace. In addition to the combos, there were some interesting abilities such as Dash, Backflips, Wall Slide, and more. There’s also a pistol with ammo and a flamethrower that’s unlimited, which makes disposing of masses of enemies an easy experience. The great thing about the combat system is that nothing was impossible to do, and there were no impossible button sequences to pull off. It’s a game that tries to be as accessible as possible.

Combos

The combos are sometimes instrumental, from sweeping your enemy’s legs out from under them to throwing them in the air to toss them into an environmental hazard. There are a lot of tools at your disposal, and you can use them to your advantage. There are obstacles like falling spikes, lasers, and TNT barrels that can be used to destroy groups of enemies at once. Alternatively, you can always infect them with the simple press of the ‘O’ button and blow them up whenever you wish, eliminating all enemies in the vicinity. A nice thing they added to the game was the potential to fight in shadows occasionally; it creates a new element of difficulty that you don’t usually see in games of this nature, although this isn’t often used.

Scoring System

The gameplay is fast-paced, and you get score bonuses for completing sequences in the allotted time, which creates a nice challenge for you to get the best score possible. However, I found the timers incredibly hard to pull off. The scoring system is downright unforgiving. The scores range from A to F, or at least I assume so, since I could never achieve a rating above F. However, I haven’t seasoned myself with these types of games, so it’s probably a skill issue.

Difficulty

That doesn’t take away from the fun, though, as the leaderboards are a tiny part of the game, and you don’t need a high score to enjoy beating the game. It’s not an easy task to beat this game, though. The game’s difficulty level becomes quite frustrating later on as the traps and enemies become numerous, the checkpoints become few and far between, and the bosses become larger and more formidable. Every struggle with Betrayal will make the completion much more satisfying.

Concerns

Multiplayer/Collectibles

I have some criticism for the game that goes beyond the score multiplier. Why is there no multiplayer option in this game? Increase the difficulty, add more enemies on screen, and you could have a blast with split-screen or online co-op play. The length is also somewhat concerning, considering the title is $14.99, and the game can be completed by a skilled player in around 6-8 hours, depending on whether they’re going for collectibles. Yes, there are skulls to collect, which can be pretty tedious. However, the only incentive for those is extra health and ammo, which you might not care much about if you’ve already completed a playthrough.

Trail & Error

There are also spots in the game where trial and error is mind-numbingly frustrating, which was a big annoyance. The biggest thing to me, however, had to be the placement of Chapters 14 and 15; I thought they should have been reversed, as Chapter 15 was a far easier level to complete than Chapter 14, and there was no end boss. It felt like the ending just happened out of nowhere.

Final Thoughts

Overall, the game was a great experience and a complete rebirth for a dwindling BloodRayne series. I would recommend this title, especially for old-school Castlevania fans, as it incorporates many elements from the series while also creating unique ones.