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The criticism that Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin's music has "sparse" vocals
In this review of Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, the reviewer writes:
Sound: 8/10
The dramatic score is enough to send a chill up your spine, although the vocals are a little on the sparse side.
...okay, I'll agree that the score is dramatic and sometimes chilling, but...why was this reviewer expecting vocals? I mean, game soundtracks don't typically contain vocals (unless you count synth choir). Even if you're gonna say "but this is the mid-noughties and later; big-name games generally have songs", still, this is not the kind of huge-budget cinematic game where songs would fit, and besides, it's on a handheld system.
Plus, Oscar-bait songs are the realm of movies. Only one Castlevania game has ever had that and that's the legendary Symphony of the Night. And while that song was fitting and worked well, it wasn't far and away the best part of soundtrack.
Comments
>IGN
>Expecting sense
See, there's your problem!
Though I'm honestly not sure why they were expecting vocals at all. The only recent example I can think of Unchain Blades Exxiv and even then it was just a lot of image songs alongside the actual soundtrack.
You mean a separately-released soundtrack? Or appearing in-game?
The image songs were released as a separate album from the soundtrack. There are a few moments when an image song is used when a character isn't involved (or even mentioned yet) but they're mostly confined to events that have to do with the character singing them.