Castlevania LoS: Frankenstein's Monster of Bull**** Game Design

[jacquel]

Re: Calling it now: Castlevania Lords of Shadows is gonna melt faces

Well, for the love of god don't go searching anything related to the game right now cause apparently someone who got it early put up a video play-through and spoilers are all over the internets. God damnit.

[Denmo]

Re: Calling it now: Castlevania Lords of Shadows is gonna melt faces

I'm not a fan of God of War, I tried it, it didn't fit my tastes.

And yeah okay, I rethought myself and 20 hours for an action title is pretty nice. But only if it's like, Super Metroid nice, not Kingdom Hearts nice.

And yeah, as soon as I saw the collossi weakpoints, I facepalmed. I mean C'MON think of some way to ONE-UP SotC's idea at LEAST.

And yeah, that weapon? Multi-tool cross-whip hookshot? Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

And yeah, the graphics are fantastic looking, but it doesn't help that trailer's narrator sound any less pretentious.

And yeah. I'll give this game a shakedown if I can, since it's Hideo, but promising all these gameplay modes as if they're the BEEZ KNEEZ just screams of a bland game.

And.... yeah.

[jacquel]

Re: Calling it now: Castlevania Lords of Shadows is gonna melt faces

This is all true (I'm guessing, since every review seems to more or less agree) but was anyone really upset when SotN did this with metroid?

I guess the possible difference is that in that case, it was retooled to have an identity of its own.

Oh well. Expectations lowered. It doesn't help that it *** SPOILERS ***
looks like the plot mirrors Shadow of the Colossus, too
*** END SPOILERS ***
.

[Magus]

Re: Calling it now: Castlevania Lords of Shadows is gonna melt faces

Hrm. Yes. My expectations have also re-calibrated.

But that IGN review is total ****. Dude just played the demo and wrote 8 sentences about it.

[Biggie]

Re: Calling it now: Castlevania Lords of Shadows is gonna melt faces

I think the dumbest complaint I've read is that it's not like prior Castlevanias.

YOU'VE HAD LIKE 15 GODDAMN CASTLEVANIAS THAT ARE BASICALLY THE SAME.

[John Mora]

Re: Calling it now: Castlevania Lords of Shadows is gonna melt faces

We need more original ideas, like Castlevania Judgment!

[jacquel]

Re: Calling it now: Castlevania Lords of Shadows is gonna melt faces

Hrm. Yes. My expectations have also re-calibrated.

But that IGN review is total ****. Dude just played the demo and wrote 8 sentences about it.

Yeah, agreed. The best review to me as far as "I think I would agree with what you say" is the gametrailers one, and gamespot's is similar.

Felt like the IGN guy made his point with "Its like God of War and not Metroidvania" in the first sentence and then proceeded to say that in slightly different ways for the next two pages.

[Magus]

Re: Calling it now: Castlevania Lords of Shadows is gonna melt faces

I know we shouldn't expect much from ****in' IGN, but c'mon.

i mean

srsly?

[Chrono]

Re: Calling it now: Castlevania Lords of Shadows is gonna melt faces

So far I'm having a great time with this. Graphics are fantastic and the detail is great. Combat is fun and I look forward to all the crazy upgrades and spells. Love all the small things, like the hand-drawn travel log and bestiary.

[Sivart the Sloth Trencher]

Re: Calling it now: Castlevania Lords of Shadows is gonna melt faces

Hiud. yjod hs,r jsd kidy ,r;yrf ,u gsvr. Drtopid;u.

EDIT: Sorry, my face was pretty melted there. What I had meant to say was "Guys, this game has just melted my face. Seriously.

For all of the reasons Chrono stated above. :O

[Goufunaki]

Re: Calling it now: Castlevania Lords of Shadows is gonna melt faces

Played the demo and really loved it.

Must get full game.

[Sivart the Sloth Trencher]

Re: Calling it now: Castlevania Lords of Shadows is gonna melt faces

And so, my first, and hopefully only gripe with this game presents itself in the form of the Ice Titan. I'm really not digging this static camera thing. I'm trying to run around this big monster and I'm forced to rely on a camera that refuses to let the thing out of my sights in the slightest? Yeah, that's pretty frustrating.

[Gustaff 13]

Re: Calling it now: Castlevania Lords of Shadows is gonna melt faces

Totally. If there's one thing I've seen so far that made me think "these dudes love Castlevania" It's the hand drawn bestiary and the Aha sketch animated Gabe in the move lists.

My biggest gripe so far are the infinite Goblin/blow up a door sections. Not that it's very difficult to accomplish, but that every time I encounter one I think it's a good opportunity to fill up my magic (and health subsequently). But they're soooo small, and the camera is zoomed out soooo far that I never can evade in time when one of the buggers throws a bomb.


Other impressions:

• It's not as big of a God of War ripoff than I thought. Well it is and it isn't. Some of the mechanics are there, the 5 items for max health/magic boost, for example. But here you're able to backtrack if you miss them. And really, there's so much going on with combos, magic, and honor it's kinda overwhelming. The chapters really feel broken up, almost like road trip movie; whereas God of War had a continuous world feel. You can only save your game on the world map, outside of a level.
• It's a bigger SotC ripoff than I thought. The Ice Titan was ripped out of SotC. I fear the others will be, too. The only thing scraped was Wander's endearing feebleness. (and his auto-regenerating life...)
• It's in line with IGA's kooky cannon. The inclusion of alchemist Rinaldo Gandalfi (in mentioning, if not appearance) is so far the only tie in, but I imagine there'll be others. He's presented as a Divinci style artisan. Chronologically, this game would be the first is the series.

Would love to play some more, but I wanna sleep and might be hauled into L4D. The weekend approaches...

[jacquel]

Re: Calling it now: Castlevania Lords of Shadows is gonna melt faces

[*]It's in line with IGA's kooky cannon. The inclusion of alchemist Rinaldo Gandalfi (in mentioning, if not appearance) is so far the only tie in, but I imagine there'll be others. He's presented as a Divinci style artisan. Chronologically, this game would be the first is the series.[/LIST]

Its not. A slew of characters have the namesake and perhaps some resemblance to characters in IGA directed games, but its separate cannon.

[John Mora]

Re: Calling it now: Castlevania Lords of Shadows is gonna melt faces

Why are we talking about cannons?