The Brimstone Society has summoned Rayne for one last mission to lead a group of soldiers into a giant underground castle to do battle against none other than her father, Kagan. When her escort proves ineffective against Kagan’s supernatural forces, it’s up to Rayne to run, jump, cut, and feed her way through gruesome foes, deadly traps, tricky platforming sections, and horrifying bosses. Finally, it’s Rayne’s last job — will she “clean house” or find herself six feet under?
Nazi… Vampire… Slayers?
BloodRayne – well, that takes me back; I used to play the original on the Gamecube, and it was a combination of two things I loved; vampires and slaying nazis. History teachers always have weird points of interest for specific periods or subjects from long-forgotten days. Mine is Germany, especially pre-world war two Germany (which I mentioned a few times already), so when I get to play a game that dives a bit into this history, I’m always up for it. Original developer WayForward has upgraded its 2011 classic 2D hack ‘n slash platformer with high-resolution visuals, modern features, and all-new voice acting performed by original BloodRayne cast members Laura Bailey (Rayne) and Troy Baker (Kagan). BloodRayne Betrayal: Fresh Bites distills the best parts of the BloodRayne series into a bloody, twitchy, action-packed 2D hack ‘n slash adventure through fifteen challenging stages.
BloodRayne Betrayal: Fresh Bites feels pretty balanced based on Rayne her combat abilities. By kicking and shooting, she can stagger most enemies if she starts slashing or shooting first. You can catch a few foes at once as well, so if you aim correctly or can keep your enemies on one side of you, you can tangle them up with strikes; otherwise, it’s a c-c-c-combo breaker. The gun only holds a few shots, so you can’t just spam it, but ammo drops are plentiful, so you should use it often. A quick dodge rounds your moveset out, giving you the means to get away if fleeing is your best bet.
Time to die
Let’s talk hazards – since there are plenty of them. From light sources to poisoned toads and much more, everything is out there to kill you. If you take damage, you might be surprised how badly you get hurt. Rayne can be dropped relatively quickly if you get careless, making combat feel pretty tense, adding to the arcade feel the game is giving off. Luckily you can keep her going by biting enemy necks. Draining blood from a foe gives you some health back (and hurts them a ton), giving you a quick means of injuring enemies and healing yourself. It’s a great tool that you’ll want to work into your attack patterns quickly if you expect to get far in the game. You can do a quick, nonlethal bite and make an enemy into a remote mine, somehow. Which is amazing?
Now, you’ve got a great set of abilities to deal with an onslaught of enemies throughout BloodRayne Betrayal: Fresh Bites. The big challenge comes from much of the game taking place on a single plane. It feels a bit like a beat them up in a way with its combat abilities, but there’ll be no dodging up and down on the screen. Everything is usually positioned so that it’s only a step or two from fighting distance from you. As a result, the danger is always pretty close, and the enemies work well together to bash you. With few places to dodge, you need to be light (ha, pun intended) on your feet all the time. And this is where my irritations started to kick in (and another pun). For starters, the movement in the game feels a bit imprecise. Rayne feels like her walk and carries her just a bit too far and fast to land right where you want her to, which results in face-hugging enemies while trying to dodge them. In my case, this resulted in a few deaths on points you didn’t want to die since checkpoints are also a bit scarce.
Controller Issues
Outside of combat, however, it’s controller-against-the-wall time. BloodRayne Betrayal: Fresh Bites has a bunch of platforming segments as well. These are where that movement style wears thin, as it’s hard to make precise landings on moving platforms—falling off a cliff results in death and a return to the last checkpoint, which is aggravating when you slip off an edge due to Rayne’s movements. Checkpoints are often placed in understandable places, but you still may have to repeat a few fights and other annoying jumps before getting another shot at where you died. It doesn’t help that BloodRayne Betrayal: Fresh Bites has a bizarre high jump that you need all the time. Taking a page from Super Mario 64, you can do a giant leap by getting momentum going in one direction, then rapidly reversing it and jumping. With this jump, Rayne will do a backflip that carries her far higher than usual, but you have to do this constantly. It makes the most straightforward platforming segments take far longer, and when it comes up in combat, you end up getting slammed as you try to hop to that higher enemy that’s flinging things at you. It feels needlessly complicated and often results in frustration while I am looking for my Castlevania fix.
Conclusion
So, to conclude, BloodRayne Betrayal feels like a fresh litre of blood in an old bag from the arcade era. Those with nostalgic feelings towards action-packed platforming games in the arcade halls of forgotten times will find their hail mary in this game. However, those looking for the blast from the past they had on the Gamecube might be better of waiting for the remastered versions of those games. The minor control issues I had and mentioned above weren’t game-breaking but did spoil my time with BloodRayne a bit, also lowering my score to what I had initially in mind. Still, a great game and a must-play for the fans.
