Castlevania Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate is the latest installment of MercurySteams retelling of Konami's well known series. Does it stack-up to its father console title and past castlevania titles?  Read the rest of the review to find out in our latest installment of Dog House Reviews.

Castlevania LoS Mirror of Fate takes place in different timelines before and after lords of shadow. The prologue starts you off as Gabrielle before his adventure in lords of shadow, introducing you to the combat in the game. It ends with Gabrielle sealing away a Daemon with his variation of Blood Cross (so it looked since he painted a cross with his own blood after getting stabbed by the tail.) It also reveals that Gabrielle had a son by the name of Trevor,  which was kept secret from him due to the Mirror of fate fortelling that it would endanger the World. Because of this, the Order of Light took him in in secrecy soon after birth right when Gabrielle's adventure started. The game then continues a ton of years later with Simon Belmont (skipping over Trevors tale) waking up from his recurring nightmares of when his mother died to protect him as a child before being raised by mountain folk and vowing revenge against the Dragon Dracul aka Dracula*.

*Fun Fact: Gabrielle called himself Dracul, which meant dragon in old Romanian, instead of Dracula or his human name.

The game allows you to play through three characters and their storylines (four if you count the prologue with Gabrielle): Simon Belmont, Trevor Belmont, and *Non Spoiler* Alucard (who is actually Trevor so we will call him Trevorcard.) Simon's and Alucard's story take place at the same time while Trevor's takes place years before he turned. Each character has their own abilities and sub weapons; Simon using guardian spirits and classic castlevania subweapons like the throwing axe, Alucard using his passive and activative vamiric abilities or abilities he earned through drinking blood off of certain bosses, and Trevor using light and dark magics (Like Gabrielle from the Lords of shadow console port).

This is the fifth game in the Custom Robo series, and the second to get released to the US. Custom Robo is developed by NOISE and published by Nintendo. Anyway, the first title to get a US release was released to the gamecube, and it’s one of the best titles on that platform. A lot of people were worried about the DS game, and I hope with this review, we put those feelings to rest.

Warning, this review will contain spoilers, mostly concerning if this game has any ties to the gamecube Custom Robo game.

Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies Review

WARNING: IF YOU DON’T READ THIS REPORT AND GET READY FOR THE TEST ON IT, YOU ARE KICKED OUT OF SWINEDIMPLES ACADEMY. NO EXCUSES.

Okay, let’s be honest. This game isn’t, yanno, the most recent thing on the shelf. Besides remakes, it’s the most recent Dragon Quest title. It’s also the first one to have it’s first platform be a handheld device, this being the DS. THAT’S THE REASON WHY PEOPLE ARE IFFY ABOUT GETTING THIS GAME. So maybe, with this review, I can show you why your ideas about the game are wrong, and how it’s a noteworthy Dragon Quest title.

Yes, I just assumed that you, the reader, don’t consider DQIX doesn’t live up to the other titles. You can proceed to hate me now.

Well, I know I’m late on the ball, but I feel like I can finally give a solid review of Theatrhythm Final Fantasy. The game came out last month, but I honestly needed a month to play it. Then when I was going to write this originally, I got sucked into the game and forgot about wanting to review it. So besides this being horribly delayed, let’s get this review going.

This morning I was skimming my 3ds store when I noticed the new demos and saw the Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance (3Ds) Demo. Having already payed fully for the game I decided to see whats in store for me and upon playing through the tutorial and the story sampler they had in it, I gotta say I really cannot wait until the end of this month. As this is my first main mini review I do things differently than I do normal reviews, instead of putting my two cents worth on the stuff in it, I give you a breakdown on the new stuff that is in store as well as what I learned from playing the demo but I will give my thoughts on stuff like graphics, music, controls, etc.

The Resident Evil franchise as we all know, has been going down for the past three games when it comes to the plot, horror, and basic feeling to the whole thing. We noticed the game go from worrying about whats around the next corner and surviving by resources to ammo dropped from everything to the point where you could go Rambo throughout a whole chapter with a shotgun. All hope seemed lost until Capcom released their most recent title for the Nintendo 3DS handheld called Resident Evil Revelations.