Topic: Lords of Shadow Opinions (has Spoilers)

[Valtiel]

did anyone get stuck in the clockwork tower tryin to use that crappy 1st lever, the camera makes it well difficult to turn it properly, must of spent about 30 mins tryin to turn that thing, gave up in the end...is there a trick to it?
other then that its really tough and enjoyable, apart from the fact that most of the combos are made redundant simply by there being so many and some unworkable in most combat situations as your generally overwraught with enemies...

The problem isn't the camera; in LoS, item interaction isn't done by holding the button down. So if you turn a crank or rappel, you just hit R1/RT once, then hit it again to let go. Just hit the button, turn the crank, and then hit it again to let go, and you'll be fine.

[ShinAkumaXX]

Heck, Cornell posed more of a challenge than the final boss, seeing as how you have a constant replenish of light & dark magic at your disposal and you *should* have both Ultimate Light and Ultimate dark abilities by then, making the fight even easier...

Anyways, I was thinking how nice it would of been to be given a weapon upgrade or new ability purchased with XP points that allowed Gabe to launch/juggle the larger enemies in the game, adding a little bit of depth to the fights.

Yeah, I went back and tried Cornell on normal mode again after beating the game. Before I lowered it to easy after a bunch of tries... Well now I had all my life bar filled up and all the crystals and while I beat him on the first try he was still tough! I still almost died. I think in my opinion he is definitely the toughest boss in the game. Maybe I'm just mentally scared from our first encounter and fear him? I heard some web site calling it an 'easy' fight.

[crystos]

all hail cornell.. to me he is the best character re imagining. I like the design.. i like that he is truly a tough ass. Much better than that other cornell on the n64

[kinjo]

no i wasnt holding it down, thats a rookie mistake lol,its just the game and thumbstick dont seem to be in sync on the same angles which is why he just stops pushing/pulling on the first corner... infuriating! im slaughtering this game on knight, yet to be foibled in this is a serious kick in my gulags >:[

[bucky]

Regarding the music, I think there are some tracks that are beautifully arranged. The core problem is that they lack distinction between levels, as others have pointed out. Castlevania has been about memorable themes that are tied to unique levels or settings. If you're in the clocktower, you need a song that belongs there and only there. Then once you make it to the haunted aqueduct, you need another distinct theme. Not every song has to be as poppy or rocking as possible... in fact I can entirely do without any "rock/metal"-oriented songs in a CV game. But stronger and bolder melodies with more varied instrumentation would've gone a long way to helping bring distinction to the LoS score.

It's not that every traditional CV composition is perfect either. I'd say that for even the good soundtracks you probably have great themes 8/10 times, with the rest being either 'meh', or even annoying. (I'm looking at you circus-y areas in PoR, just to name one...). However, if they're deciding to leave out 'funky, 'rocking', or 'metal' tunes from Castlevania, here's just a couple examples of how "orchestral" or traditional can still be catchy as hell-

wood carving partita

name entry, POR

ghostly theatre
^Please tell me this wouldn't have fit beautifully somewhere in LoS.

The LoS composer is very talented. I don't see a reason why he can't do another CV soundtrack, there just needs to be a more conscious examination of what the Castlevania aesthetic demands.

Overall, in spite of some flaws, I really enjoyed Lords of Shadow.

[Ahasverus]

Remember than Araujo's main objective was to make this score to reflect Gabriel's mood, NOT STAGE MOODS, that's why some music is even Random coded, it doesn't belong any especific stage but a especific situation. Good or bad decision, IDK (I love it personally) but he nailed it I think.

[thernz]

That honestly doesn't excuse the lack of variety in the music. Just because Gabriel is having the same emotion doesn't mean you have to use the same song. I think the purpose of the music was to be more "incidental", reflecting individual events. But I don't really think incidental music works in the context of a game. There's little way for it to be effective when the player is in complete control of how things will play out. I guess it could've been made more interesting if the music was more procedural so it could be more effective in reflecting what the player was doing.

[Ahasverus]

I think MercurySteam must really improve their storytelling abilites. It's kinda comic how Zobek says Gabriel is becoming cold hearted and next xinematic he's crying and telling "I didn't want to do this!" . The same with the music, they have an idea, but the fact that 60% of people feel it's akward makes me doubt of how it was implemented into gameplay sensibilities (I will repeat it until I die, It's my favourite musical score ever but I see most of people doesn't share that opinion so...). They are (thankfully) very minor complaints very improvable for the sequel 

[Valtiel]

I think MercurySteam must really improve their storytelling abilites. It's kinda comic how Zobek says Gabriel is becoming cold hearted and next xinematic he's crying and telling "I didn't want to do this!" . The same with the music, they have an idea, but the fact that 60% of people feel it's akward makes me doubt of how it was implemented into gameplay sensibilities (I will repeat it until I die, It's my favourite musical score ever but I see most of people doesn't share that opinion so...). They are (thankfully) very minor complaints very improvable for the sequel 

I agree on this - I think it's one of the first priorities for the next game. I mean, LoS is still leap and bounds above the series' standard (it's nowhere near as offsensive as the storytelling of Aria or Dawn or worse of all Symphony) but it's somewhat disappointing that they put so much effort in the action scenes and digging the voice talents and then sort of fell on their faces with the writing.

[e105beta]

While this doesn't really excuse the storytelling flaws (which are still leaps and bounds ahead of anything CV has done before) I think people need to realize this game didn't have a big budget, nor was it made by a big studio. I know it's tough to believe, looking at the graphics and whatnot, but Lords of Shadow was Konami taking a big risk with a small studio.

It kind of explains the lack of variety of music, probably my only complaint with the music. If you're a small studio with a moderate sized budget, and you're dishing out the bucks for Patrick Stewart, Jason Isaacs, AND trying to get Oscar Araujo to compose with a full blown orchestra, you're going to have to work your money well. I mean, seeing what my band teacher used to charge to compose and perform music, I can only imagine how much an orchestra costs.

Which is why I'm not to worried about the soundtrack of the next game. They'll most likely have a bigger budget looking at the success of the game, which in turn will give Araujo more songs to compose, some feedback from the first game, and probably some more compositional freedom.

[Kale]

How'd you know they dind't have a big budget? I think they did, or at least a fairly good one. Definitely by far bigger than the recent cvs... or maybe all the other CVs.

Risk or not, they stilll had Kojima to look over it, so I doubt they'd just say here's 5 dollars, go buy yourself a steak.

[Valtiel]

How'd you know they dind't have a big budget? I think they did, or at least a fairly good one. Definitely by far bigger than the recent cvs... or maybe all the other CVs.

Risk or not, they stilll had Kojima to look over it, so I doubt they'd just say here's 5 dollars, go buy yourself a steak.

Not really. Surely bigger in absolute terms, but you need to realize developing for the DS/portable consoles probably costs 1/10th of how much a next gen HD game does and they certainly didn't have 10 times the budget.

MS is a VERY small team. To make a comparison, I don't imagine them having more than 1/6th of the budget SSM had for GoWIII.

[Ahasverus]

How'd you know they dind't have a big budget? I think they did, or at least a fairly good one. Definitely by far bigger than the recent cvs... or maybe all the other CVs.

Risk or not, they stilll had Kojima to look over it, so I doubt they'd just say here's 5 dollars, go buy yourself a steak.

1st of all, MercurySteam is composed of 50 people. That's nowhere near the 500 GTA team had.
And they had a limited budget, even Cox said it, they did their best with what they were given, and we were VERY lucky we had Kojima's money, Konami's inicial budget was laughable as always, Kojima productions gave the studio more foundings for the project. If this game is succesful, we'll see a "bigger, better and more badass" version of this game.

[whitedragon_nall]

I could be completely wrong here, but I really don't believe Cox when he says they had a limited budget. The graphics, music, and VA rival most big budget games. Heck, some big budget games even look and sound worse than this.

[Harrycombs]

I mean, LoS is still leap and bounds above the series' standard (it's nowhere near as offsensive as the storytelling of Aria or Dawn or worse of all Symphony)

I agree with you on Dawn, but Aria actually successfully pulled off a surprising plot twist, and Symphony told the story in a great way (for instance, using the succubus scene to tell the story about his mother was genius). But the story telling was definitely above PoR, DoS, OoE, and HoD. Still inferior to CV64 though. They really need to look at that game more, story telling, cut scenes, scenery, was all great.