10 Video Game Spin-Offs That Insulted The Fans

10. Castlevania Judgement

There are plenty of franchises that could perhaps benefit from a fighting game that pits its vast array of characters together.

In all fairness, it’s not like Castlevania doesn’t fit that bill with its lore taking place over hundreds of years. Judgement, as a concept, should've been a nice surprise that brought familiar faces and locations together.

In practice though, the game was a hot mess of terrible decisions. Whilst Castlevania had changed art style over time, Judgement’s take on the series just wasn’t the right fit and many classic characters were poorly represented. When it came to the gameplay, the Nintendo Wii’s motion controls meant that the fighting itself was imprecise and aggravating, which got even worse with the camera whipping around wildly.

Koji Igarashi himself, a figurehead of the series and a producer on the title, even admitted that the controls were “difficult to do when you’re waving something around”.

Motion controls in a fighting game just aren’t worth the trouble and they wounded any promise the game had mechanically. The salt in that wound was how everything Judgement got right about Castlevania (such as including sub-weapons and a host of kickass music), it got twice as many things wrong.

What should’ve been a celebration of the series’ wide, gothic cast and history instead was a huge sales failure and a black mark on the franchise.