Question (and maybe this should be it's own thread?): Who is the Lords of Shadow universe for? I thought it was made to increase Castlevania's visibility and mainstream appeal, but looking here, it seems like we're all from between the early 80s to early 90s, and I don't hear a lot of chatter outside these forums on CV compared to, say, God of War, Assassin's Creed, etc. In the old days, it came alongside Mega Man, Mario, Zelda, etc. (What is it about that roughly decade of time that makes us more predisposed to be interested in Castlevania and link it with the big franchises of that period?) Is this Lords of Shadow "change-up" really breaking through in the relevancy factor? I mean, I'd be really interested to know how big the chunk of non-Castlevania fans is that purchased LoS and/or MoF.
(Related: We all vary in our time periods of enjoyment. I think the Castlevania franchise's golden age went up through 1999. (It was still generating a surprising amount of buzz during its development going into the then "next-gen" N64 in the mid to late 90s). I was still relatively happy with it and hopeful for it through 2003. By 2005, though, I felt it had settled into some habits that were keeping it in the middling range that made me fairly discontent).