Lord of Shadows may not play like previous games but it didn’t piss on the series legacy. There were some awesome homages to the past games that actually added to atmosphere and mythology of this continuity unlike what Ninja Theory did with DmC.
No real point responding to rugal’s alt account.
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That’s what I’m saying.
Did I need to say “IMO” before I posted what I said? I really didn’t mean for it to sound like my view of those two games trumps anyone else’s. I’m just saying why I liked them more than the other handheld Castlevanias.
Sometimes a game doesn’t have to have the cleanest graphics or be glitch free or have the tightest gameplay systems or strongest level design to have enough charm to be memorable and fun. I managed to play through CotM a couple of times on the GBA before knowing about the glitches so it wasn’t an issue for me. And even though the graphics were super dark and muddy at times I stuck through it because I liked that it was so dark and muddy. For me it made the world seem super gothic and grim and dank. It made me feel like I was in a dingy and terrible place. The visuals pushed me to want to finish because I wanted to get the fuck asap. Dread. I want to feel dread when I play a Castlevania because that’s the feeling the original games gave me. The other titles were so bright and cheerful that I didn’t really get the same feeling out of them. That’s why I liked OoE so much. The world felt depressed and inhospitable. It felt like a gothic title and not a title inspired by gothic themes. I mean for me SotN is as colorful as it should get before it starts to feel too bright.
I liked all the other games a lot and I know why they are objectively better but I never fell in love with them like I did CotM.
(I forgot all about the cutscene art. lol)
LOL. Rugal wishes he had an ounce of my wit and logical reasoning. I actually am mostly “eh” when it comes to Lords of Shadow, or any other 3D Castlevania for that matter… I was merely playing Devil’s Advocate on Hawkingbird’s reboot statement as that is usually used as a cop-out for when designers are either too lazy or too drained creatively to resuscitate a dying franchise.
I feel that the series has mostly ‘peaked’ at this point and that the core gameplay elements (twitch platforming, intricate level design, memorable enemies) of what has made Castlevania a beloved series just haven’t(or can’t) translated well into 3D.
But y’know, alt accounts and all.
And CoTM was great… I loved going blind trying to beat that damn game on my GBA back in the day. HoD is underrated. Can’t stand Soma Cruz’s anime fun-time adventures, and Portrait had good ideas marred by that same anime bs. OoE is where I feel the series should be aesthetically, but that is merely subjective.
I think CV can translate to 3D just fine, it just needs the right talent. I mean DMC1 has all the memorable enemies and atmosphere a CV game should have for example. No I’m not saying P* should make one, I’m saying that it can be done and I think Mercery Steam could pull it off. LOS was a good start, not perfect but a place to really build on top of. Correct LOS’s flaws, and improve on it’s strengths and you’d have a really great 3D CV game instead of just a good one.
The reason DMC fans are mad about DmC is because it’s Devil made Casual. It’s not just the changed aesthetic and retooling of the character, people probably could have gotten over that. It’s because the combat is a step back from what we had before, it’s less then what was, it’s not even a new direction, it’s just DMC3 but way easier, with worse enemies, less weapons, and it doesn’t take the narrative content in any kind of new direction. It’s not like they took what we knew about Sparda and expanded on it in any kind of way, instead that made him into a balding middle aged dude who runs away. They didn’t do anything with it, they just made a shitty version of DMC3, hell there’s less character development between Dante and Vergil in DmC then there was in DMC3. Just everything about it is a step back. Doesn’t help they they seem to have abandoned an already started story arch in order to present us with this dreg of a game.
CV on the other hand has been meandering around aimlessly recycling itself in every way, over and over for years now.
And I like COM. Unless your a cheating bastard and abuse the card glitch, then it’s one of the few Castleroids that offers a legitimate challenge.
I love quote edits. Hey I’ll give it another go. Everything gets a shot by me when I get the time.
You mean the prettiest on a handheld? And I still wouldn’t go that far.
Dracula X Chronicles
They look really similar in terms of polys and textures etc. I was actually about to say that after watching that video I hope they work on that camera some more during combat. It’s too loosey goosey. It should just stay centered on the character and not pan so much. Also a lot of the animations still look rough. Maybe that’s intentional though. Other than that it looks hype and having played lots of Dust The Elysian Tale it’s nice to see another exploration heavy 2d style action game down the pipeline.
I’ll be uber geeked if it gets ported too like Revelations. I think they should after a year like how Capcom did.
I just think it’s strange to prefer CotM over the later portable Metroidvanias because its graphics were a little darker, all while having inferior level design, bosses and enemies, mechanics, and battle systems, all saddled with an embarrassingly bad, game-breaking glitch that demonstrates the game was poorly tested.
I agree with you that atmosphere is important, but I don’t think CotM even did a particularly good job there. Its sprites that you laud so much were still “anime”, and had a darker tint, but similar aesthetic to Iga’s games. And when you take into account all the game’s other failings, I don’t see much argument for it being better than a PoR or AoS.
I thought the end of PoR felt like it was overstaying it’s welcome because the later paintings were weirder versions of the previous paintings. The level design was all over the place in the end. I also didn’t like the sub weapon grinding through use because it took so long, though i hate grinding in general, especially since it was required for a quest. OoE also had the element affinity that all it did was slightly boost damage that probably 95% of people didn’t even know what it’s for. It wasn’t for a quest or anything but to just get the highest damage possible you had to basically use a rubber band trick to absorb a guys spell over and over till you max out the value.
Gabriel Belmont Gameplay with commentary
Yeah, that’s fair criticism about the grinding required for certain quests or to achieve certain cool abilities/weapons. It’s definitely a downside, but for me, not a major one. At the very least, it’s no worse than grinding for souls in AoS or DoS. And way better than the excessive card/item grinding in CotM, which had the most limited shop of any CV game.
I didn’t have as much of a problem with the reuse of stage backgrounds in later paintings either, since the level design itself was sufficiently distinct. Plus, the Nest of Evil (the one good idea from CotM, amusingly enough!) making its return really freshens up the end of PoR.
I’m not sure I can explain it any better than I did already but as pretty and tight as this is
http://www.unseen64.net/wp-content/gallery/castlevania-dos/castlevaniadosbeta01.jpg
I still prefer this.
All handheld castlevanias have doody lookin sprites anyways.
I liked the CV3 trio fight in Nest of Evil but my doppleganger fight was ass. The Jonathan was using Alucard spear and he didn’t do jack shit and just stood in place attacking. I was like “WTF? Is this a joke?”.
I think OoE had the best extra areas because it’s nest of evil felt more difficult and the training hall was some pretty fun platforming. I would like to see a castleroid have more platforming elements to it. When HoD first came it out it was really interesting because people were figuring neat tricks to get through areas, instead of just running around the obvious path. Though that was before everyone figured out Soma could fly :xeye:.
The doppleganger fight in PoR was forgettable, true, but everything else was awesome, including the CV3 trio, a bunch of cool bosses (Abaddon comes to mind), and generally bizarre enemies. (Golden skeletons!)
I loved the Training Hall, but I remember feeling underwhelmed by most of OoE’s Large Cavern. It just felt like an inferior retread of what was original in PoR. Well, that’s with the exception of the hopping Chinese vampire in OoE. THAT was fucking awesome.
Huh? The main character in HoD was Juste, not Soma. His methods of flying were limited to the Floating Boots and near the end, the infinite straight vertical jump.
But overall, I agree. The Training Hall in OoE showed just how fun platforming elements can be in a Metroidvania.
Hod online not hand held.
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I meant Harmony of Despair which is the online one. Soma was broken because they basically gave him a lot of stuff from his games and more while everyone else was gimped compared to their game’s arsenal (except probably Alucard who had most of the things except familiars). He could fly by jump kicking yorick skulls and activating medusa to float then repeating to get higher and higher.
Got you. I haven’t played Harmony of Despair; I originally missed it because they released it on PSN, but after reading a bunch of bad reviews, and being unimpressed with several gameplay videos I watched, I decided to skip it when it was eventually released on XBL. Do you think it is a worthwhile game yourself, outside of Soma being broken?
I actually had fun because I ran it with some other people. It was also when it was first released so everyone was still figuring stuff out, like the mechanics of the boss fight, paths through a level, gimmicks, etc. It’s really grindy though especially on whip users since they level things through use and you have to farm just to get the subweapon drop. Shanoa also has to level spells through use but she got shafted in that she had only a fraction of her total moves, and there were only I think 6 spells after all the dlc for her to level up and 5 weapons total to use as weapons (though the only one that functioned different was pneuma and sinetro and dextro custos are the same thing just different elements). At the end game though it was usually just Soma running through everything with valmanway (which acts like crissaegram) and running through shortcuts that he pretty much access to. Though Retro Dracula had some property where he couldn’t be hit for a moment after getting hit to nerf valmanway on him, but Soma also had Claimh Solais to rape him. Dunno if there is a community playing the game though.