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Dracula: The Last SanctuaryReviewed By: Kirk Hiner Review Date: August 19, 2002
Jonathan Harker needs a new wife. In Bram Stoker's original Dracula, Harker saved Mina Murray from a somewhat nasty fate at the hands (or teeth, I guess) of Prince Vlad Dracula. Fair enough, I'd attempt the same if my wife, Tieraney, were ever caught under that vampiric spell we know so well. In Dreamcatcher Interactive's Dracula: Resurrection, Harker must once again face Dracula (or, at least his minions) in an attempt to reclaim his all too suceptible wife. Okay, these things happen. I'd again do the same for Tieraney, but you can bet some new rules would be implemented and deadbolts installed when got back home.
I don't know, maybe Harker's just a better man than me. It's possible. Regardless, this adventure finds every woman's hero back in London, trying desperately to forever release Mina from Dracula's spell. He has some help this time around, but help in horror movies means bodies to count. Despite his efforts, it's not long before Dracula, who has also come to London (perhaps to see the We Will Rock You musical), is able to convince Mina to return with him once more to his castle in Transylvania. Actually, that's chapter two of the game. Chapter one involves Harker running around trying to keep Mina from Dracula, then trying to get her back from Dracula. His adventures take him into cemetaries, tombs, mansions, asylums, and sewers, all of which could have been anywhere other than London. I would have liked to have seen at least one landmark, perhaps, or something to give me the feel of early 1900's London. Nope. Not much sightseeing to be had here. Perhaps there's more to be had in Transylvania.
That personal gripe out of the way, I will point out that the locations we are given are beautifully done...when they should be. It never really occured to me before this game, but quite often the settings in games are overdone to make sure there's always something interesting to see. Not here. Grand ballrooms are gorgeous and bright, while sewers are dingy and drab. Everything looks like it should, and they feel like they should. The atmosphere is perfectly controlled, so it's easy to lose yourself in your surroundings. This can also be attributed to the graphics engine, which is the best I've seen in an adventure game...and yes, that incluces RealMYST. Sure, you don't move freely about as in RealMYST, instead employing Phoenix VR technology for 360 degree viewing of each space you inhabit, but the technology here is used more successfully than in RealMYST. To get to the next explorable location, you click on the area which your cursor indicates as being visitable. The cursor also changes to indicate which items can be pick up or manipulated. This removes a lot of the guesswork, as the cursor will let you know if you're holding the right object to perform a certain function. Back to the graphics, there is absolutely no difference between the way the surrounding area looks when panning and the way it looks when the camera is still. Finally, searching a room for usable objects is no longer an exercise in frustration. The graphics do seem washed out at times, but that's really no big deal.
Other elements of the game add to the visual flair, my favorite being the spectacles that allow you to see things in "vampire vision." This casts a ghostly, green glow over your surroundings and reveals items you wouldn't otherwise be able to see...items such as pentagram locks, the hearts of vampires, and footprints. They prove quite useful, and are quite cool. Purist Dracula fans (are there any left?) will probably be put off by all of the gadgets Harker uses to help himself on his way. This is no longer just a guy with a stake, Harker now uses cannon balls, bullets and crossbow bolts dipped in a special anti-vampire solution, and numerous other items combined in a way that would make MacGyver scratch his head in confusion. As we played, Tieraney quite often turned to me and said, "I don't understand how that worked." I had no answers for her, I only hoped I could remember the trick when I next have to return to Tranylvania to save her. Most of the puzzles in Dracula: The Last Resurrection are pretty easy, actually. Perhaps too easy. A good portion of the game is spent working your way to the puzzle and collecting the items needed to solve it. More often than not, you're presented with inventory items only right before you need them. Every now and again, however, a puzzle creeps up that takes forever to solve, and a few are more made complex by forcing you solve them within a brief amount of time. A couple even commit a huge adventure gaming faux pas...you have to die to figure out how to solve them. That's annoying, but not nearly as annoying as simply accessing the inventory. Honestly, honestly, it took nearly thirty seconds for my inventory to open each time I tried to access it. Every single time. Considering that it often took a few guesses as to what inventory item was required to solve a puzzle, that made this game far, far longer than it needed to be.
The final showdown is somewhat anti-climactic, but at least it involves Dracula this time around. Unlike in Dracula: Resurrection, the title villain actually does feature heavily in Dracula: The Last Resurrection. The main problem is that he's not really all that intimidating. His sole method of attack is to insult Jonathan, then leave. At the end, it comes down to Dracula vs. a cliché. Oh, and you still can't load the game off of disc two. You have load off disc one, eject it, then insert disc two to play the game. You'd think the developers would have learned by now. Still, Dracula: The Last Sanctuary is a satisfying adventure game. It's not an improvement over Dracula: Resurrection, but it's also not any worse. For each element that missed its mark, there was another that nailed it. Therefore, if you felt Dracula: Resurrection missed its mark, the sequel comes no closer. If the original game nailed it, however, then Dracula: The Last Resurrection, is just as accurate. Let's just hope no more shots are fired. Poor Jonathan Harker doesn't deserve to go through this again.  [an error occurred while processing this directive]
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In Dreamcatcher's new Dracula: The Last Sanctuary, Mina again trapses off with the Prince of Darkness. Harker hops right back to it, but not this guy. No sir, not me. I love my wife dearly, but ain't nobody worth three stand-offs with Dracula. I mean, how many times can a woman leave you before you get the hint? Dracula could probably quite easily win a restraining order against Harker.
Huh uh. The entire second half of the game takes place in Dracula's castle, which isn't even that great a castle. There are some cool moments outside, and trippy moments inside, but the location was not exploited as well as it was in Dracula: The Resurrection. At least there you had some villages to explore and people to meet.
As with Dracula: Resurrection, the 3D modeled characters here steal the show. They're able to convey emotion without speaking, they move in sweeping gestures, and they're equisitely detailed. This may be the first game where I really felt as much time was spent creating the character animations as was spent creating the world they inhabited. The characters themselves are not as interesting as those in Dracula: Resurrection, but they're just as impressive and equally well "filmed," albeit a bit too bouncy at times.
The story fell short a couple times as well. For instance, why would Dracula have a cable car running up to his castle? Even better, why did he hire