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

[Inccubus]

As of now I enjoy the ride and really love that LOS-canon doesn't rely to much on the Old Timeline. There would not be fan in that and it always interesting to see another take on the old story.

I've never understood this point of view, especially coming from Konami. They could have done the whole thing using the same basic plot as the original canon, but with a properly executed script. I mean if the idea is to attract new fans that presumably know nothing about the old canon, then what difference does it make if the basic plot is the same. The new fans won't know the difference until they start going back to play the old games.

[symphonyofthorns]

I've never understood this point of view, especially coming from Konami. They could have done the whole thing using the same basic plot as the original canon, but with a properly executed script. I mean if the idea is to attract new fans that presumably know nothing about the old canon, then what difference does it make if the basic plot is the same. The new fans won't know the difference until they start going back to play the old games.

I wish they were still making games using the old timeline. There are still enough unfilled gaps to make more games.

[e105beta]

Maybe but it still makes no sense for his descendants to have it too unless the game takes place in Scotland.

Well if you're looking at it with real life logic, no, it doesn't. Like how Kratos doesn't speak Greek or how Leon Belmont doesn't sound French despite his name and potential origin.

[Maedhros]

IMO, visuals were never a problem with LoS. If there's a thing I really like, it's the graphics. The monsters artwork could see some improvement though, but the areas and heroes always looks good.

[Sumac]

I've never understood this point of view, especially coming from Konami.

It's quite simple really.
I don't want to hear / watch / play the same story as before.
For me reboot is about exploring different possibilities, not repeating the same story. Especially considering that we had this story for basically like 25 years. I, personally, wanted something different. As soon as I've heard that it was reboot, I wanted it to be different from regular timeline, because for the old story we have old games. And if I want to relive those old stories, I'd better play old games, rather than hope that developers will make another remake / remix / redux of the past story.
To put it simple - if they say "it's a new universe", then I want it to be significantly different. If it retreaded the same ground, I would be dissappointed and consider that authors doesn't have enough guts to change things and approached reboot in a lazy way, making new story in name only. I am fan of experimentations and different aproaches to the old storylines, and I am not getting angry, when I here that anotheer unvierse doing stuff differently. It is natural, the way it should be in the first place.
I think people must treat those things simplier and see possibilities in such things, instead of being angry, that developers changed stuff. It's just a game, not a matter of life and death. And it's not like Castlevania was a literary masterpiece before LOS.

Besides, if LOS wasn't reboot what it would be? Another generic battle between Belmonts and Dracula like CV64? OK, that's a good thing, but would it really stood out with the amount of games with such plot in the series? Maybe. But after all it would be much better, if it was something special. Especially after bunch of Castlevanias with barely relevant and not very interesting stories.

[Dremn]

A lot of these impressions are saying the controls feel awfully clunky. I can sort of see it in the jumping, didn't occur to me until now.

Once again, demos should be playable by the public for a limited time during E3.

[Vrakanox]

To me the most important thing moving forward is that Castlevania retains a its individuality, that uniqueness it has always had. On the nintendo there were tons of other 2d sidescrollers. On the SNES, well we all know the relationship between super metroid and SotN. The uniqueness was that it was horror themed and about fighting dracula, and the castle was always a major factor, also subweapons. Lords of Shadow would have been fine with a few more shout backs to the older games and less high fantasy and more focus on gothic horror. Is high fantasy bad? Of course not, but it brings Castlevania more into the realm of, well, everything else.

That being said Cox is moving forward and trying to retain the uniqueness of the old games. That is what I see with Mirror of Fate. He is also bringing back iconic characters, more castle exploration and more gothic horror. It's his vision of Castlevania and I'm okay with where it seems to be going. The excitement lies in that and with future installments after LoS2. The original timeline should always be the measuring stick for the series, and I think Cox understands that, as should whoever takes the helm afterwards.

[Neobelmont]

A lot of these impressions are saying the controls feel awfully clunky. I can sort of see it in the jumping, didn't occur to me until now.

Once again, demos should be playable by the public for a limited time during E3.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow -- Mirror of Fate first look

It is not the complete product, but yeah ms needs to step it up if a lot of the impression are saying this, If ms do take criticism now is a better time than never. It's off to a mixed ,but mostly overall positive response

For instance

http://gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=178698

This said it played well overall.

[Maedhros]

It's made by a team of 20 employeers, I doubt we'll see major differences between the demo and the final product. LoS didn't fixed many of the framerate problems of the demos, even though they had a lot of feedback.

[knightmere]

MS definitely needs to clean up the frame rate.  The game looked like a chug-fest whenever the player was attacking with multiple enemies on screen.

[Neobelmont]

an other one not to impressed by  the demo it seems

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/impressions/30638

This should really be told to cox and ms

[Charlotte-nyo:3]

I haven't seen Castlevania this much in the public eye since the originals. It's quite something

TBH I'm not sure the originals were ever much in the public eye. While those of us who started off with CV1-3 and were captivated by one or all of them may think of the NES like "Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Castlevania, Megaman" or something like that, I'm not sure that was so much the reality, but more of an illusion based around what games we saw quality in, rather than what games were widely sold and appealed to most demographics, etc. If one had the NES sales data, maybe we'd see seemingly ridiculous stuff, like WWF WrestleMania, Tecmo Bowl, Track & Field, and Predator outselling CV1 or something. We see all the time now that quality does not necessarily translate into sales. Perhaps that was never the case.

I've never understood this point of view, especially coming from Konami. They could have done the whole thing using the same basic plot as the original canon, but with a properly executed script. I mean if the idea is to attract new fans that presumably know nothing about the old canon, then what difference does it make if the basic plot is the same. The new fans won't know the difference until they start going back to play the old games.

But remember, the devs making LoS have their own proclivities and their own ideas. They don't want to be tied down to CV's original plot. To some extent, devs aren't just robots spitting out exactly what the market wants--they don't want to please the fans only, but also want to please themselves--to make something they like or use plot conventions they think are cool. As long as they can rangle with the shareholders and publishers and top management to get them to continue, they won't be forced to make all their choices based on market or fanbase desires. While as part of the fanbase camp, I don't like this, I think I can see enough of evidence of it to believe that it is true.

[crisis]

I can look past the framerate issues. It's the attack-damage ratio that worries me.

Seems that a lot of people are saying that Trevor's attacks don't do as much damage as they should (a criticism that applied to LoS with certain enemies). I don't want to be battling a group of skeletons for 5+ minutes. A heavy weapon such as the Combat Cross should be more than capable of taking them out in 1-2 hits, but for some reason they don't want it like that. Seriously, wtf?

What worries me even more is that they won't take this into consideration..

[MKKhanzo]

IDK if posted before, but this has very good resolution:

[Charlotte-nyo:3]

Hello, Hectocard. We welcome you.