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

[VladCT]

I like my mooks this way: dispatched as easily as they can dispatch you. Enemies these days tend to simply be cannon fodder instead of actual threats like back then, and they're not fixing this by adding loads and loads of HP, making them a chore to take down instead. I think God Hand is a good example of a balanced ratio between your ability to take mooks down and their ability to take you down.

[Castlevania Crypt]

I think the game title Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate is too long. Why cant they just call it Castlevania: Mirror of Fate?

Perhaps they will call it that when it is revealed at the E3 next week.

[Reinhart77]

I think the game title Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate is too long. Why cant they just call it Castlevania: Mirror of Fate?

Perhaps they will call it that when it is revealed at the E3 next week.

Or maybe Castlevania: Lords of Fate or Castlevania: Mirror of Shadow

[Castlevania Crypt]

Or maybe Castlevania: Lords of Fate or Castlevania: Mirror of Shadow

Those sound like good titles too. If the official title really has LOS in it and is that long, then maybe they are doing it to try to try to go off the success of the Lords of Shadow name, and not just the Castlevania name.

[jimmay17]

120 pages in and lurking the whole time I'll finally throw out a few thoughts, not that everyone else hasn't already.

I've long been a griper, naysayer, hater, whatever you want to brand it towards Lords of Shadow and the Coxvania universe, but, my best efforts to remain detached notwithstanding, I must admit I'm getting a little excited about the new offerings, Mirror of Fate particularly. I swore to myself I'd never buy a 3DS just for a new Castlevania, but here I am planning to do just that. I've always resented having to buy a DS for the 'Vanias released thereto (I still, six years later, hate the system with abandon) but I feel the 3DS is a much better system overall, with far better third party support, and, as said, think MoF looks like it might just be worth it.

Credit given to MS for keeping it, we hope, largely 2D. I expected all along their hubris would insist it had to be fully 3D, and frankly, if they had, I wouldn't be interested. That said, I do have some reservation. From the few screens we've seen, I could easily see the game only being 2D or sideview while exploring or otherwise walking, and then jumping into 3D third person each and every time you encounter an enemy--bosses and lesser enemies alike--and then requiring you to grind out 5-25 combos to kill an overpowered HP tank, which will grow old very quick.

The art looks great so far, and we haven't seen any whimsical verdant pixie glen environs, so I think it might be safe to say MS took the criticism of LoS's fantasy genre ethos to heart. It's good to see both Trevor and Simon again, and I am very intrigued to find out who the other 2 characters are (although I highly doubt one of them is Alucard, I buy into the Trevor turns into Alucard theory, and therefore think that plotpoint won't happen until probably the very end of the game, leading into LoS2. Which would be a little disappointing, but they, maybe that means the other two will be other series favorites, like Sylpha, Grant, Richter, or maybe even somebody new and unique). 

I hold little hope for the music unfortunately, I couldn't tell you why, but something tells me that's the one bit of criticism MS is going to completely ignore. But if the gameplay is great, and there's a bountiful amount of exploration and secrets, I'll give it a pass.

All told I guess I'm in, but am looking forward to E3 to see some gameplay and hopefully I'll be able to relieve a nagging doubt or two.

[Reinhart77]

i just hope i'm able to enjoy the 3D effects without the visuals getting ruined every time i tilt the screen or shift my head a tiny bit in the heat of combat.

[Charlotte-nyo:3]

But that's typical of any gear system, and its separate from the combat system. Besides, all the gear really changes is attack length, speed, and damage, things that new combos in a single-weapon combo system do, and those can be used on the fly.

Right, but it DOES affect the combat of the game since it determines your attack length speed and damage and changing those changes the combat. And over the long haul if there is enough different equipment, it ends up having more various combinations of attack length, speed and damage than a single-weapon combo system typically has.

But again, those aren't things you're changing up on the fly. It's a conscious decision made in a preparation phase, not a combat phase. Sure, it adds more depth to the game than say Fatal Fury, but that's gear depth. It doesn't make the combat any more complex.

I view having a multitude of those options over the entire course of the game to add combat complexity because it still has an effect on combat--it ends up with you having more varied combat when you look at the game over the long term. For a similar situation in 3D action games, buying combo upgrades is not part of the combat itself, yet buying them does add complexity to the combat.

I thought PoR made a pretty nice stride in Metroidvania equipment layout, but the magic system didn't recharge so fast that using your main weapon wasn't more economical most of the time.

It's more economical most of the time, but most indicates anywhere from 50.1~% to 99.9~% of the time, and it can be closer to that 50.1~% than something like an 85% depending on your play style (obviously it's likely not going to be at 50.1%ish unless one's play style is specifically contrived to get it that low, but it can be lower than 85% in a game like PoR most likely).

Judging by the apostrophes you've placed around fun, I think I'm getting to the crux of the issue. You don't like more in-depth combat systems, which is, as I said earlier, perfectly acceptable, but it keeps aspects of this discussion from going past "I think..."

But I'm also not acknowledging that the combat systems there are necessarily "more in-depth," only more in depth in a certain way--depth acquired from upgrades to the existing weapon to allow more varied combat on the fly with that one weapon.

Sure, I don't want a early level fight to take forever, but I personally don't mind extended combat in the case of a boss.

Slogra and Gaibon already are extended combat compared to regular enemies in SotN--as bosses typically are of course. Generally though, I'm talking about regular enemies when I mention the potential tedium, which is why a boss example isn't entirely a good one for our purposes here. A boss is more like an outlier to typical gameplay, so if it takes a long time to kill, it isn't always too bad. It's the battles with regular enemies that determine the bulk of the gameplay.

Even with that, I still don't consider Classicvanias or Metroidvanias to have very much combat depth. Enemies in Classicvanias are merely extensions of the level design, and the difficulty of the bosses is based around your ability to platform and approach a midst patterned movement and projectile spam, rather than spacing, blocking, dodging, and combo management. As for Metroidvanias, with the platforming reduced and the introduction of long hallways and taller, HP heavy enemies, the "how much damage can I output" aspect increased without the actual means of dealing in complexity beyond gear variety. It was most effective to simply equip your most powerful weapon unless it just really didn't jive with your play style. Bosses required less platforming ability, and more "Can you dodge this attack? Good, now lay into me."

That's because you're looking at the aspect of combat depth I mentioned previous--the more varied combat moves with the main weapon. Perhaps it's more like Tactical combat depth vs strategic combat depth. Metroidvanias have an extended level of strategic combat depth because of a large roster of weapons to choose from. Beat em ups have an extended level of tactical combat depth.

As far as "you don't have means of dealing in complexity beyond gear variety," here you're not mentioning the additional points that have already been brought up--the special attacks, and some as yet unmentioned stuff like the attack items, the special moves that are sometimes present which are not offensive (backdashes, backward rolls, etc.)

As far as "equip your most powerful weapon," that really depends on your opinion a lot of the time--and there are often multiple choices that can be considered the "most powerful weapon" at any given time in the game since you need to factor in comfortable range, DPS, hitbox utility and other such factors. Someone may continue using Nebula in PoR much longer than its attack power would indicate simply for the range and homing attack for example. Most people will tend to make these choices rather fluidly and naturally, but they might find they'd like another weapon more at any give time if they give it more of a chance. I was somewhat impressed by the utility of weapons I usually passed over using in SotN during my most recent playthrough for instance.

I will agree that you could use the extra-abilities more often in the later Metroidvanias, with AoS probably being the best about this, but what it added to the combat was variety, not not necessarily on the fly versatility. You could have 1-2 active abilities equipped at once, and only a few of them weren't "forward ranged attack numbers 1-7" They adjust how you approached a situation, but not the adaptations you could make in the middle of that situation.

I agree that it doesn't necessarily add tons of on the fly capabilities. This is an extension or restatement of what I think is properly termed tactical combat complexity vs strategic.

I was leaving them out because leaving them in completely eliminates the "enemies take forever" aspect in LoS which we're discussing. Used properly, sub-weapons and magic special moves allow Gabriel to decimate normal enemies extremely quickly.

But not enough of the enemies given what is thrown at you. You're limited in how often you can use those abilities or else you'd forgo Gabriel's main combo attacks in favor of them the vast majority of the time (and even then you'd still be frequently locked in rooms and forced to kill all the enemies within as a convention). Using regular attacks and special moves, combat still takes longer in LoS than in a Metroidvania because that is the main feature of LoS and thus it is designed to take up more of the time. The enemy waves that are thrown at you are likely (I say this because one can't be inside the design team's head to know for sure) numbered assuming you will use those advantages on some of them and thus adding in extra ones for you to be forced to use regular attacks on.

Your particular statement there might help me clarify my views in my own mind though. Perhaps one could still have a 3D action game where enemies died in a couple hits and yet still have it be tedious just by the number of them it throws at you. The ratio of combat time:other time in the game, say.

The HP wouldn't still be on the level of a typical 2D platformer, but it wouldn't be to the "is this still going on?" extent of Devil May Cry, to give a 3D example.

Unfortunately, I cannot really judge from just a description of that sort of midpoint whether it would be better or worse; I'd have to see it in action.

Though thinking about it now, in the first 2D beat-em-up that comes to my mind, X-Men, enemies went down fairly fast. That diidn't make the combat any less simplistic, but compared to most of today's 3D action games, the enemies died relatively quickly.

Depends on the beat em up you look at I suppose. There will be stylistic variations between different games in the same genre. I assume they still had the enemy kill quotas in X-Men though?

That's not really an accurate reflection of LoS's combat beyond the stronger enemies and boss battles,

I'm not sure I'd agree there, but it's been over a year since I've played LoS or seen it in action.

and even the stronger enemies start going down quick once your comboing gets better.

Then they up the enemy strength once they roll out the next new types of enemies to compensate, or make some of those enemies strong vs a particular combo. They can't just let the game become easy once you get to a certain number of powerful combo moves after all.

If I wanted to, I could say that, OoE was to "X Y X Y every enemy until it's dead, and do it as fast as possible before it gets to you. Repeat ad nauseum." What made it hard was the relentlessness with which they'd throw things at you.

That shortening of the sequence needed is key. That is what makes each individual enemy less tedious. Enemies dying faster, yadda yadda. The rest of the statement isn't really at issue beyond the ad nauseum part I suppose, which sort of implied the number of enemies they throw at you is larger in say a 3D action game and you have more options when you can avoid some enemies rather than killing them.

Again, the strong enemies rooms weren't that common in LoS, and there were actually a fair few battles that could be skipped if you could pull it off,

I am taking into account that some enemies could be skipped in LoS, since not every one appeared in a locked room like some of the more problematic 3D action games out there which don't have any variation at all in their enemy placement style.

MoF should be, so while I suspect there may be a few of those rooms, I can't see it happening often.

That would likely be fine. Even something like Super Metroid has rooms that lock and force you to kill every regular enemy inside--it's just that it doesn't happen very often. Maybe 10 times in the whole game and those rooms usually aren't full of tons of enemies either. It's more about the frequency of it happening.

I'm not sure if you're trying to make fun of me, I lean towards yes, but no, no it doesn't.

No, I'm largely being serious, if said in a whimsical manner. Beat em ups are largely defined by their combat systems since there isn't much else to define a beat em up by. If your game has a beat em up combat system, the genre, even if it's a compound one, is likely going to include beat em up (at least if I classify it). Just keep in mind that a combo system alone doesn't really necessitate a "beat em up style" combat system for me. It makes something more like a beat em up but it can be missing other elements that keep it from having a beat em up combat system.

A "beat-em-up" is a game that focuses on literally nothing but beat-em-up combat, like River City Ransom and Fatal Fury of old, and they don't typically have combos. They're "Mash buttons until it dies", which Metroidvania games many times devolve into. Sure, enemies die faster, and jumping and projectile dodging is involved which is the reason why I think Casltevania games are fun. But perhaps my definition of beat-em-ups hasn't evolved with time.

Perhaps. The old NES ones were a bit more simplistic, so one wouldn't always expect to find a combo system and such. For example, though, Battletoads had rudimentary combos. Still, when you say it must focus on literally nothing but beat em up combat, you're ignoring combined genres. There are a lot of them these days. Even if something has a beat em up combat system but focuses on other things, it can still be labelled a Beat em up (X) with X being whatever else it focuses on. In fact though, I'd say that the aforementioned Battletoads itself sort of escapes your statement that "a beat em up is a game that focuses on literally nothing but beat em up combat." Battletoads had whole segments of levels that weren't beat em up combat (the jet bike and surfing segments for example), yet is still classified as a beat em up by, for example, Gamefaqs, and myself.

I also still think you're giving the "different hitboxes" too much emphasis on how much they change playstyle, mostly considering how while each weapon is equipped you're limited to 2-3 very similar hitboxes,

Don't forget the currently equipped spell hitboxes and the subweapon hitboxes in HoD (those aren't going to be very similar to a regular weapon hitbox oftentimes), the 2 chars subweapon hitboxes and the dual crush hitbox in PoR, etc. I assume you're just focusing on the main weapon hitbox there though.

I don't quite get where you'd think the main weapon hitboxes would have to be be very similar though. I mean if you set up your equips that way, sure, but it isn't always required. You could have something like Luminatio in one hand and Pnema in the other in OoE and those are very different hitboxes. You could have the Combat Knife in one hand and the Heaven Sword in the other in SotN and those are very different hitboxes. Then you have the weapon special attacks in some games like DoS which are usually a different hitbox (if not always a very different one)--maybe this is the one you mean by "very similar" since sometimes the special attack hitbox is similar in, say, SotN. But there are other times when it's not--or when it provides some other type of combat advantage like the teleport slice.

where the shorter ones are usually the weaker one.

I really disagree with that one. You may be right in DoS where the huge, slow weapons were usually the best, but that is often not the case for every Metroidvania. Something like the Nunchaku in SotN with its small hitbox and low range can still outshine some of the burlier weapons available at the same time due to speed and DPS. At the end of PoR something with a moderate speed and respectable damage can outshine a slow, large hitbox.

Thinking DoS, you've got the sword and the katana, which have the same hitbox, the knives and the fist, which are just shorter sword hitboxes, the spear, which is nice long hitbox, the axe, the hammer, and the greatsword, which all have the same over the head hitbox, and the range weapons, which suck. That's like 3 truly unique hitboxes, 4 if you count the fists as their own.

Generally DoS was not that great hitbox variation-wise for main weapons if I recall (might be forgetting some of its weirder weapons). You're definitely forgetting the guns and RPG at least. But the lack of variation in DoS with hitboxes is probably because they gave you the souls and had to make tons of hitboxes for those (more so than a more normal subweapon system that might have like 7-8 different subweapon hitboxes). Look at SotN, PoR or OoE for a better set of hitbox variation in the main weapons. Not sure about AoS, but that also had the soul system so...

It's a fair reservation, though if you can't judge it as not being a beat-em-up before you see it, then you can't judge it as being a beat-em-up before you see it.

Correct. I just pointed out that the elements mentioned in that article make me think it's likely MoF has beat em up elements. I couldn't say definitively "ITS A BEAT EM UP!" yet.

I think the game title Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate is too long. Why cant they just call it Castlevania: Mirror of Fate?

Perhaps they will call it that when it is revealed at the E3 next week.

I very much doubt that. There's apparently a very good reason it still has the LoS moniker--they're really keeping that separate from the regular timeline so as to reduce confusion. I would've been fine if they had called this LoS2 and what is now LoS2 would be LoS3 though. But I think this is viewed as more like a "side story," so they didn't want it to be LoS2.

[Inccubus]

I find myself much more looking forward to MoF than LoS2. Largely because the idea of playing as Gabriel again seems like it should have been some sort of bonus mode rather than the same game. In fact, so far the plot of MoF seems much more interesting than LoS2. This is mostly due to the idea of Gabula having to recover all his vampire powers seems a little too close to the premise of Blood Omen 2 than I feel comfortable with.

[e105beta]

So uh, hey guys, how about that whip swinging. That's pretty neato, right? We haven't had that since SCVIV.

It's something... at least.

I'm really looking forward to that, actually. It would even be cool if they added expanded on the mechanic, i.e. add grappling, and lashing

I would rather the enemies have complex pattern, than them having over9000 HP and me having to wail on them.
Patterned enemies and bosses are, after all, a staple of platforming games.


WE DO NOT NEED THIS
IN CASTLEVANIA GAMES

You don't need an enemy with ridiculous HP, just one that has a pattern that doesn't have you going to town on it all the time.

I think that, since Devil May Cry came out, people seem to think that 'ooh big room of enemies' and 'let's juggle them all in the air' is a big WOW factor, but in order for the enemies to still be alive at that point, they had to raise their HP, which means that now you HAVE to do the big flashy combo otherwise you won't get that WOW Fist-of-the-North-Star attack.  It's a huge power trip and I'm not fond of it.

I need my enemies to take 1 to 7 hits.  The ones that take 7 hits should have a block/dodge move.  That's it.
One hit = a bat or a Zombie
7 hits = a Guardian Armor with special attacks and a huge shield to block me from spamming.

You know... like 'Rondo of Blood'.

I agree, and I disagree.

I'm tolerant of enemies with a good more HP if they serve a purpose, for example, a great armor blocking a door or a couple of overlarge baddies thrown at me in a pit. If the combat is fun, I don't see why the designers shouldn't have times when they have the player embellish on it a bit.

What I agree we can see gone are the "you're locked in a room with a bunch of big HP bags, and a bunch of tiny HP bags that come in 5 different waves. Kill until dead and you can proceed." That's just a bad example of "we don't know how to integrate the combat into the level design" and I see as only acceptable very occasionally, if they must have it. Then instead of it being something that you lament about being throughout the whole game, you remember it as "Oh, remember the part of the game where they kept throwing crap at you? That was tough"

Hopefully if they do choose to include any enemy group battles, the combat will be designed around managing your spacing in relationship to the enemies and not "Alright! Sweet! Showtime!" I feel like Lords of Shadow had that, where I was focused on taking out enemies while not leaving any openings, but there were some moments when it really devolved into "Yeah, combo time!"

I view having a multitude of those options over the entire course of the game to add combat complexity because it still has an effect on combat--it ends up with you having more varied combat when you look at the game over the long term. For a similar situation in 3D action games, buying combo upgrades is not part of the combat itself, yet buying them does add complexity to the combat.

These posts are getting a bit long for my tastes, so I'm going to reply to the sub-sections where I have something to say and be done with it. Everything else we'll just have to agree to disagree. It's been nice discussing this, though.

I agree that it adds long term complexity, and so do combos, but what I'm arguing is why limit yourself to only long-term variety when you can have both long-term and short-term? i.e. a combo system like Lords added short term variety in your ability to execute various combos, and long term variety in your ability to obtain more combos, sub-weapons, and special gear.

That's because you're looking at the aspect of combat depth I mentioned previous--the more varied combat moves with the main weapon. Perhaps it's more like Tactical combat depth vs strategic combat depth. Metroidvanias have an extended level of strategic combat depth because of a large roster of weapons to choose from. Beat em ups have an extended level of tactical combat depth.

I still see it as gear planning vs actual combat, though I think there's something to the "strategical vs tactical"

As far as "equip your most powerful weapon," that really depends on your opinion a lot of the time--and there are often multiple choices that can be considered the "most powerful weapon" at any given time in the game since you need to factor in comfortable range, DPS, hitbox utility and other such factors. Someone may continue using Nebula in PoR much longer than its attack power would indicate simply for the range and homing attack for example. Most people will tend to make these choices rather fluidly and naturally, but they might find they'd like another weapon more at any give time if they give it more of a chance. I was somewhat impressed by the utility of weapons I usually passed over using in SotN during my most recent playthrough for instance.

I'm really not trying to knock the gear system in Metroidvanias. They're what make the games so fun for me, but what the different gear never really changed was how most battles that lasted over 1-2 hits became *jumpsmackjumpsmack* The Nebula allowed me to do it from farther away, the Holy Claymore allowed me to defend from projectiles, and the Vampire Killer had a bit more downward directional variety that helped in a select few encounters, but those additions helped more in platforming then the bigger fights they'd throw at you.

But not enough of the enemies given what is thrown at you. You're limited in how often you can use those abilities or else you'd forgo Gabriel's main combo attacks in favor of them the vast majority of the time (and even then you'd still be frequently locked in rooms and forced to kill all the enemies within as a convention). Using regular attacks and special moves, combat still takes longer in LoS than in a Metroidvania because that is the main feature of LoS and thus it is designed to take up more of the time. The enemy waves that are thrown at you are likely (I say this because one can't be inside the design team's head to know for sure) numbered assuming you will use those advantages on some of them and thus adding in extra ones for you to be forced to use regular attacks on.

Your particular statement there might help me clarify my views in my own mind though. Perhaps one could still have a 3D action game where enemies died in a couple hits and yet still have it be tedious just by the number of them it throws at you. The ratio of combat time:other time in the game, say.

You're absolutely right, they do take longer (this is where "too long" becomes opinion) but it's never the Devil May Cry slash fests that I've heard so many people relate the game too. You used basic attacks to dispatch the weaker enemies as they died quickly enough, and sub-weapons and magic attacks to take out the tougher ones. Proper resource management was key, and if you could alternate between regular and magic attacks efficiently, you were never too low on magic. It was very, very skill based, and frankly, how long fights took was reflective of how good you were at the game.

I can definitely think of games like that. Dynasty Warriors, for example.

Then they up the enemy strength once they roll out the next new types of enemies to compensate, or make some of those enemies strong vs a particular combo. They can't just let the game become easy once you get to a certain number of powerful combo moves after all.

But they didn't scale with you. The tools you were given were greater than the strength boosts they were given, so if you were improving your level of play over the course of the game, then the game really did get easier.

Heck, by the very end, all normal mooks died in one hit. It was like all platforming and the occasional strong enemy fight.

That shortening of the sequence needed is key. That is what makes each individual enemy less tedious. Enemies dying faster, yadda yadda. The rest of the statement isn't really at issue beyond the ad nauseum part I suppose, which sort of implied the number of enemies they throw at you is larger in say a 3D action game and you have more options when you can avoid some enemies rather than killing them.

I'll go on record saying I didn't particularly like Order of Ecclesia. They took away all the variety from the previous gear and soul systems and failed to add anything to the combat. You'd equip two weapons, mash the X and Y buttons, and proceed forward while using the occasional combination attack. It would have worked if the level design was more involved, but IMO, it was too many long hallways and floating, high damage, enemy rooms.

Perhaps. The old NES ones were a bit more simplistic, so one wouldn't always expect to find a combo system and such. For example, though, Battletoads had rudimentary combos. Still, when you say it must focus on literally nothing but beat em up combat, you're ignoring combined genres. There are a lot of them these days. Even if something has a beat em up combat system but focuses on other things, it can still be labelled a Beat em up (X) with X being whatever else it focuses on. In fact though, I'd say that the aforementioned Battletoads itself sort of escapes your statement that "a beat em up is a game that focuses on literally nothing but beat em up combat." Battletoads had whole segments of levels that weren't beat em up combat (the jet bike and surfing segments for example), yet is still classified as a beat em up by, for example, Gamefaqs, and myself.

Ah, I forget about those levels, but now that you bring them up, I think it's very telling.

Like the surfing level in Ninja Turtles. I'd wager that these levels are added in BECAUSE the combat is so boring. They need something to break up the monotony.

I'd classify Devil May Cry or Bayonetta as a modern day beat-em-up, I guess.

I don't quite get where you'd think the main weapon hitboxes would have to be be very similar though. I mean if you set up your equips that way, sure, but it isn't always required. You could have something like Luminatio in one hand and Pnema in the other in OoE and those are very different hitboxes. You could have the Combat Knife in one hand and the Heaven Sword in the other in SotN and those are very different hitboxes. Then you have the weapon special attacks in some games like DoS which are usually a different hitbox (if not always a very different one)--maybe this is the one you mean by "very similar" since sometimes the special attack hitbox is similar in, say, SotN. But there are other times when it's not--or when it provides some other type of combat advantage like the teleport slice.

Heaven's sword is a very unique weapon, but I see your point. But why would you ever use the combat knife if you had the Heaven's sword? Or let's take the Kaiser Knuckes. The didn't output enough damage to be more worth than, let's say, the Muramasa, which had high damage and a longer range. When navigating the castle, it's hard to argue that shorter range because that longer range is key in allowing you to dispatch enemies before they get close enough to damage you. The fast fist weapons required you to stop and smack the enemy when you could dispatch them much quicker with a larger weapon.

[Flame]

So uh, hey guys, how about that whip swinging. That's pretty neato, right? We haven't had that since SCVIV.

It's something... at least.

* Since Bloodlines

[Gaawa-chan]

* Since Bloodlines

Didn't LoI do something sort of like whip-swinging?  And wasn't there something like that for Julius with the Magnus thingies in Harmony of Despair?  Shanoa's Magnus ability kind of reminds me of whip-swinging, come to think of it.

[uzo]

I always forget about Bloodlines, because it's so meh. It wasn't fully functional either. Also Harmony of Despair doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned. The whip swinging in that game is terrible anyway. LoI doesn't swing really, so that's not viable, not that I was looking to include 3D gameplay titles into that list.

The only true, fully functional, whip swing in a 2D Castlevania is in SCVIV.

[Dremn]

Cannot wait for all that gameplay on Tuesday. Hope Nintendo World gets their hands on the demo, they always provide direct feed so we can hear everything in it's true quality.

[e105beta]

Cannot wait for all that gameplay on Tuesday. Hope Nintendo World gets their hands on the demo, they always provide direct feed so we can hear everything in it's true quality.

Is it confirmed that we'll be seeing gameplay on Tuesday?

[shelverton.]

I wonder when this game comes out. A wild guess is october or november since something tells me that MoF has been in production since 2010 and is pretty close to finished, though not quite. At least I hope so! And then LoS2 in...uhm... maybe april next year? Nah, april doesn't sound like a Castlevania month to me. Or does it?