Topic: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate 3DS (Discussion Thread)

[Kingshango]

The person playing made the game look pretty...dull. Dunno. The combat makes me depressed. The music too. I do however love the look of the game, and the level design seems very good, much better than in any handheld Metroidvania I can think of. But the combat... Not only do the enemies have too much health, somebody thought it was a good idea to also give a few of them SHIELDS. We'll be moving through this castle at a snails pace, I fear.

Judging by other gameplay video's, small battles like the skeletons and such can be skipped (unless a event forces you to fight to trigger a event like the fight with those bats ) and it seems that certain enemies don't respawn  after battles so that might make backtracking the castle a little less tedious.

[Sumac]

blood skeletons,

Blood Skeletons were in the series from the first game.
And there was also Skeleton Champion (the one who looked like he run away from Olympic Gmaes) or something like that.

[Neobelmont]

I like being able to combo it up the guy did not even try to block attacks if my memory serves correct. Avoid super block/counter, combo attach ground then do it again maybe with a air combo get's me all giddy think about all the attack combinations I can think of, not to mention the sub-weapons that will be available later on and the three different characters more styles for me heck I hope ms makes a versus mode with the four characters with that streetpass thing.

Also death traps/pits are a must and one hit medusa heads. Also I wonder how far MS can bring creativity with using the whip to interact with the environment besides whip-swinging.

[Maedhros]

ANYWHO... to get this thread back on track

Check out this 27 minute gameplay footage of the demo, you can actually hear the music very clearly in this one and it sounds like they just took the Lords of Shadow OST and stuck here. Disappointing:

Castlevania: Mirror of Fate - 27 Minutes Full Demo footage

Besides the low technical quality (slowdowns and being 30FPS and the obvious temporary placement musics), the environments outside the castle looks really good, it gives a good Castlevania vibe. Combat is dull as ever, if they replaced it and removed the qtes/finishers I would probably like this game.

The "press R to balance" still bothers me. Why the hell didn't they made this skill-based instead of "press button to win"?

[Tavis Belmont]

NO WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!  Now I'm having flashbacks of my elementary school PE classes where the teacher forced us to exercise to that song MERCY WHYYYYYYYYYYYY?! D;

Ah, growing up with PE in the South... what happened to those days?

Anyhow, didn't Cox and his team say the demo was still an early build? Maybe they brought an older one on purpose to E3?

[beingthehero]

Why would they bring a low quality, problematic game to E3? That would entirely defeat the purpose.

[DragonSlayr81]

Anyhow, didn't Cox and his team say the demo was still an early build? Maybe they brought an older one on purpose to E3?

Every game company says that. It's almost like they are obligated to do so, even though some cases, not much changes is added to the final build.

[Kingshango]

Someone from vg got to play the demo at Gamelab and his impressions are somewhat positive.

(click to show/hide)

Soo...
GameLab; Barcelona
The Mirror of fate demo is there. And I played it.
It controlls really smooth, your character has more weight than the 2D ones, but you get used to it pretty quickly.
Plarforming is a bit more complex than "jumping in zigzagging stairs" and there is fall damage, so a misstep has actual danger.

I found combat entertaining. Wide attacks are weak, but it keeps the enemy away until they trigger an unblockable attack, that you either avoid or synchblock (normal block won't work)

The little skelletons throw axes at you while the armoured one melees you. the normal axes caan be destroyed with the whip but there are fire ones that you have to dodge.

I could just run away from some of the combats, but there were others in closed arenas. I guess that if you run away you won't get enough XP to buy combos and shit.

The miniboss and the boss had patternized attacks thay you have to avoid using your different moves. but they are not totally random, they chased me and tried to attack were I was.

I died a couple of times (which led me to discover the checkpoint system) mostly because I ignored the secondary weapon and the magic (blue magic to heal with every attack, red to make more damage, they share the mana bar)

This also leads me to believe that it may have been a different demo that the one at E3.

[Inccubus]

Judging by other gameplay video's, small battles like the skeletons and such can be skipped (unless a event forces you to fight to trigger a event like the fight with those bats ) and it seems that certain enemies don't respawn  after battles so that might make backtracking the castle a little less tedious.

...and boring. Balancing annoyingly tough normal enemies by simply not re-spawning them goes against every game design principal I ever learned. I really hope this isn't the case. Empty halls != fun.

[Claimh Solais]

I just hope when re-exploring early game areas in a much later part of the game, the weaker enemies (by then, of course) will be replaced with harder ones.

I'm not exactly one to complain about tough normal enemies. I actually kinda like the idea.

[thernz]

Well, there's Silent Hill: Book of Memories, but most people forget that exists.

[e105beta]

I'm still waiting to see platforming and enemies...


...AT THE SAME TIME!!!

[Munchy]

I'm still waiting to see platforming and enemies...


...AT THE SAME TIME!!!

This is exactly what has me hyped about the game. Among other things (for instance, me being in general a whore for 2D perspective games).

[Inccubus]

Well, there's Silent Hill: Book of Memories, but most people forget that exists.

I'm one of those that has blanked that abomination out of my mind.
...
...
...
What was I talking about? I dunno.

[Neobelmont]

Something just hit me right now. MoF is just like shinobi 3ds, yet I hope that MoF has a better fate than shinobi from the reviewers.

From what I hear quite abit of people did not like it.