Topic: Lords of Shadow Sequel Ideas (spoilers...a lot of them)

[Apolake]

It would be nice to have more dark and foggy stages, reminiscent of Alan Wake...and maybe a female protagonist in the near future.

[Nagumo]

Yes, we are team Satan.    

[crisis]

I <3 the Chapel

Nagumo, Successor, & ne1 else should post here as much as they like


To those that keep comparing the first 3 chapters to CV1-IV:

They are nothing like CV1-IV.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

What the fuck is this, and why are other forums being trashed!?

I will not tolerate this.
You know, I go away for one weekend and this builds up?

Knightmere:
You're getting a warning.  Please take any disputes you have with another forum OUT OF THIS ONE, either to Personal Messaging or to another means of communication.  And do not pollute actual discussion with petty squabbles.

[knightmere]

What the fuck is this, and why are other forums being trashed!?

I will not tolerate this.
You know, I go away for one weekend and this builds up?

Knightmere:
You're getting a warning.  Please take any disputes you have with another forum OUT OF THIS ONE, either to Personal Messaging or to another means of communication.  And do not pollute actual discussion with petty squabbles.

Sorry Jorge, I will keep it civil.  Please accept my apologies, I was not trying to start a forum war.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

...very well, then.

I will erase most of what occurred in this page.  I trust it will not happen again.
Please continue the discussion, now.

ANYWAY:
I love Lords of Shadow... as a game.  I went through the entire game, losing valuable hours of sleep, and am now collecting all of the extra items I missed during my fast runthrough.  As such, I've been really holding back on any opinions on the game, since it's really not fair to say them until the entire game is sampled.  Now, with that being said, here's my personal view of the whole thing:

1. The scope of the game is quite amazing.  Castlevania games need a large scope such as this.  This wasn't just little random cutscenes here and there.  There were great touches done as well.  The Pan puzzle with the Pendulum, the Fairies' Puzzle with the Runes, and the Blood Puzzle near the end, were very well-executed.  And the grand locales we got to visit on our our adventure were topnotch.

2. Although the music is very nice... this is one area where it was lacking.  Not lacking in quality or lacking in execution, but lacking in feeling and soul.  If I had a jukebox mode where I could plug in my own songs, I would have dug up memorable entries in the vast Castlevania musical library, and would have atmosphere-ized them into matching the mood of the game's soundtrack, similar to how "The Waterfalls" and "Prologue" were cleverly arranged.  "The Waterfalls" has a beautiful, somber feel, and "Prologue" sounds like a perfect lead-in piece, which is what its CV4 version was.  Having said that, many locales could have used a musical score to match where you were.  For example:

Wygol Village at Night - It really could have used "Monster Dance" from Simon's Quest
Hunting Path - "Forest of Monsters" from CV4
The Crow Witch's Tower - "Rising" (CV3) would have been perfect, here.
The Castle's Underground Waterway - "Chaccone C. Moll" or CV64's "Underground Waterway".  I will not bring up Crystal Teardrops only because these would have probabaly fit the stage better.
Wygol Abbey Church - Really could have used "Chapel Hidden in Smoke" (OoE), "After Confession" (DoS), or "Watchtower" (CV64).
The Necromancer's Abyss - Could've used "The Abyss" from DoS or "Chaos Realm" from AoS.  It's really a no-brainer, here.

One did not even need to bring out the big guns (Bloody Tears, Beginning, Dance of Illusions), just pepper the nice soundtrack with a few tunes to keep the stage fresh and memorable.  Why does the Valley of the Fallen Titans have the same music as the Three Towers of Agharta (unless as a composer, you're telling us "All desolate places use this tune"... which is, sadly, a boring disposition to take, for Castlevania).

And that's only what I can think off off the top of my head.  So many missed opportunities!  I do not even mind the parts that were to have silence, and I love the battle music used for when ogres/werewolves show up... but there's only so much ambience one can take.  Even Legacy of Darkness seems to have a more memorable soundtrack, at least when it comes to recognizable locales having music to match.

Castlevania may have different feels throughout its history, but one thing about it which has always shined about it, is its memorable musical score.  While LoS has a nice score, no one will be humming the tunes in their head, ever.

3.  And this one is pretty stupid and I realize it sounds stupid as I say it... but I will say it anyway:
The breakable objects in a stage... they need to reveal items all the time, or hearts/jewels.  I mentioned this somewhere else, but I ran through the game breaking everything I could break, just because in my head, the Castlevania that has been ingrained in there has to have objects pop out of the breakables.  It only started to feel more once I got the Dagger Upgrades and was able to get more.  Destroying something only to get "You cannot carry any more fairies/daggers/holy water vials" or "Your crystal is already complete" just became more and more frustrating as I played.  If you don't like hearts, then give us Jewels.  Make it so that if we pick up hearts/jewels, they'll power whatever subweapon we have active at the time.  I realize it's stupid and that it might break our suspension of disbelief, but dammit most of us have already broken that vinculum years ago.

4. I love the Magic System used.  Light & Shadow Magic were a good choice... but why two magic meters?  Most of us just went to elemental fountains and just held both buttons.  Seems unnecessary to me.  Again, I mentioned this somewhere else.  Why not just share the meter and toggle the magics?  Then you even save a button, you end up with a completely free Right Analog stick.  Hell, you can even use that completely freed-up Analog Stick and Button for extra SubWeapons or something (The Cross, Axe, Watch, and something else like the Rebound Stone or Bibuti or something could've gone in there... maybe you can even combine subweapons for different combos?).

5. Your camera control was good, but could be better.  It makes it tough to look for secrets at times, but it's not that bad.

6. Platforming via shimmying was OK.  Reminded me of Castlevania64.  Good job on the execution and mixing it up with whip swinging.

7. It's cool that you had unlockable things via the menu.  However, it would've added a Castlevania touch if you had a salesman like Baba Yaga or Renon, throughout the stages.  This is an optional thing though.  The game did just fine without it. it just would have been a nice addition.

8. Great job on the narration.  Sir Patrick Stewart narrating the chapters did a good job both storytelling to us what's happening, as well as giving us glimpses that there was something amiss in the story.  I'm not sure if the latter was intentional, though.

9. Stick with the fighting system.  It was well-executed.  Great job, here.  However, sometimes the enemies move off-camera and it's annoying when they do that and come in with an unblockable 'white flash' attack that you could not possibly have seen since they were off the camera.

10. The visuals are great.  Please continue with the beautiful locales... just make some more of them happen during sunset or night-time.  The Crow Witch Malphas's entire locale could've looked even cooler if it were done during early-morning moonlight, with dawn happening as you'd exit with Pan.  Or, the other way around.  Hmm... perhaps this is a bad example... but the hunting path could've been done at dusk.  The entire Castle section was awesome in its execution, though.

That's all I can think of, for now.

[e105beta]

I see nothing wrong with daytime. Day is as prevalent night, and in a story that spans several days, you're going to have day and night. I personally don't believe Mercury Steam should change this too much. Sure, I would have appreciated a night forest level instead of having ALL the forest levels take place during the morning/afternoon/evening, but it didn't irk me to the point of dislike. It could have felt MORE like how Castlevania has traditionally felt, but it didn't feel "not Castlevania". I think the fact that it was never a bright and sunny day helped that. Even when it was "day" it was always off. Always muted, and the shadows were always strong.

Yes, I'm going to mention SCIV. I don't care how many people say that I'm wrong, I got a SCIV vibe from the WHOLE game, even the earlier parts. Maybe it wasn't as dark or muted as SCIV, but then again, does it have to be? Does it have to give me the EXACT same feel? No. SotN didn't give me the exact same feel as Dracula X, so LoS doesn't have to give me the exact same feel as SCIV. It was actually relevant to the plot. More so than the randomly thrown in Egyptian levels in PoR.

I'm torn on the music. I loved it, but I want it to be better. I don't want it to be too much like the older games, because I do think that would hurt the melancholy atmosphere that the game presented, but I'd appreciate a more fleshed out soundtrack, with a bit more of a unique flavor to each song. I don't mind a few songs used multiple times, but I want more level variety. That's ultimately where I see the generic comments coming from. The music felt generic because we kept hearing the same stuff. I personally attribute that to the budget. Sure, it was probably bigger than IGA's budget, but Cox has said it is still a small studio with a fairly small budget. Making more songs with a fully fleshed out orchestra costs money.

The game isn't perfect, but then what is? I'm not under the illusion that Rondo, SCIV, SotN, or even Castlevania were perfect, but I enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed LoS, so I'm looking forward to a sequel. Sure, I have my gripes: The Titans, while I liked them, weren't really Castlevania, and I would have liked some more involved platforming, but the game had me engrossed from start to finish, so I can't really say too much bad about it. There probably won't be as much light and whatnot for sheer plot relevance, and most game designers try improve upon their design from game to game, so I think a lot of the small things will get fixed in the sequel. Ultimately I hope the game doesn't change too much in the sequel.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Ok, you're defending LoS, but this thread is about what one would like to see in a sequel.

And I'd like Daytime/Night-time.  Perhaps some enemies/events/items are only available during certain times of the day. Something like that.  Or, perhaps the game is keeping time of your adventure for some particular purpose/achievement/trophy.

It's not necessary, but it'd be nice.

[e105beta]

Ok, you're defending LoS, but this thread is about what one would like to see in a sequel.

And I'd like Daytime/Night-time.  Perhaps some enemies/events/items are only available during certain times of the day. Something like that.  Or, perhaps the game is keeping time of your adventure for some particular purpose/achievement/trophy.

It's not necessary, but it'd be nice.

I guess I don't want it to change too much in a sequel? Maybe I'm still on my new game high.

If there is one ABSOLUTE thing I want in a sequel it's to get rid of those dark crystals (i.e. the cop-out weapon) and add in some traditional sub weapons.
The subweapons were, IMO, way too few, and holy water and knives just didn't do it for me. I want grimoires and axes.
Heck, they could have just used grimoires for the same use as the crystal. If there was anything that felt wholly un-Castlevania, it was the demon summoning crystal.

Also, I used axes more than anything else in the old games. I miss them Q.Q

[Munchy]

Now that people mention a day/night cycle, I'd love the sequel to be a 3D Simon's Quest-type game. It seems like a lot of the things Mercurysteam was going for would work much better in that format than in a linear game. And they could do things like changing the types of enemies that are out during night/day.

...Fuck it, just remake Simon's Quest in 3D.

[Ahasverus]

Edit: Wrong thread

[uzo]

...Fuck it, just remake Simon's Quest in 3D.

If they used the Lords of Shadow engine for a Simons Quest style/remake game, I wouldn't complain. It would be awesome.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

I agree with Uzo.  Wygol could be easily made into other towns, etc.  Hell, drop a garlic in that graveyard and it becomes Aljiba.
And you'get another Carmilla, too.

That'd be really cool.  But that's not really a 'sequel'.  It'd be a whole new thing.

Lots of the locales looked like they'd work, too.  The waterfalls section look like where in CVII you'd pick up the flame whip.  The giant lake could be someplace where you'd use the crystal to drain it, etc...

[thernz]

It'd be neat to see this type of environmental detail in a nonlinear world too.

[Harrycombs]

If there is one ABSOLUTE thing I want in a sequel it's to get rid of those dark crystals (i.e. the cop-out weapon) and add in some traditional sub weapons.

I don't get why they couldn't have put in Grand Cross instead of that crystal. It would have made a lot more sense.


If they do make a Simon's Quest style game for the sequel, that would be great, but its probably highly unlikely.