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

[TheouAegis]

Combos are pointless anyway. You don't go for combos when you try to kill someone: you slash their neck or shoot them in the head. The only enemies that needed "combos" in Classicvanias were bosses and armored knights. Everything else died in 1 or 2 hits and nobody ever complained the games were too easy due to enemies being so easy to kill. This whole combo idea of recent games annoys the fuck out of me. It's in way too many games. I don't know if it stems from trying to attract 2D fighter players or trying to attract RPG gamers, but I don't doubt it has to do with trying to attract some fan base that doesn't really give a shit and now the poeple that do give a shit are left with little option but to play a steaming pile of shit that takes 30 seconds to kill a single fucking enemy when a simple knife to the skull would suffice in any other situation. Even first-person shooters are getting retarded these days. The game developing world in general these days is just plain retarded. ... Board games have more thought put into them nowadays, I swear.

[DragonSlayr81]

Why don't you go and help them Mr Miyamoto?



If there were more enemies traversing would be a shore. The game is an action game where long combos are preffered so the more enemies the longer it takes to kill them all the more the pacing goes to the toilet.
See?

LOL, the fact you need long, drawn out combos to take down normal enemies ADDS to the pacing going down the toilet. If it's an action game, it should be fast paced. You should be able to take down enemies quickly and efficiently because it saves time and allows you to venture on your way. It's like what I said about the whole shimmying/ledge crawling. You go from really fast based sprinting down halls, swift jumping, to instances where that pacing just stops and you have to crawl down a ledge, shimmy down to a further ledge, leap across to another ledge, then crawl up it. THAT is breaking the pace of exploration.

Now, I'm not ragging on combos as a whole, but you can have great fast-paced combos that get the job done without resulting to drawing out needless combos on enemies that just don't seem to die, and killing the pacing of the game.

IMO, what they SHOULD'VE done was do it like the IGAvanias(yes, I know some of you cringe, but hear me out). In those games, majority of the enemies you encounter die with a few hits, but there are also enemies that you have to spend some time to take down. Enemies like Final Guards, those strange Gurkha brothers and such. Balance is the keep to everything in life, and balancing weak enemies with stronge ones SHOULD'VE been a priority when deciding to make a 2D(2.5D) LoS game. Waisting time on never-dying enemies in a 3D game like LoS is more excusable, but the second you set it into another plane of exploration, rules change.

[Kingshango]

Seeing that Cox want's the Lords of Shadow games to distance themselves from the IGA games (or traditional Castlevania games in general) as far as possible, this was to be expected.

I don't expect enemies in Lords of Shadow 2 to go down in two hits either and god help us if Dracula encounters heavy armored troops in modern day.

[Flame]

I'm really looking forward to what they do With Dracula in LoS2. He will most likely play like Gabe did, IE with a (shadow) whip, but he also has a sword now, and cool Vampire powers which he will most likely need to regain as he gets stronger. Mist, etc etc, maybe even turning into that giant shadow dragon (lol probably wishful thinking)

On topic though, I didn't mind the combat in LoS, although i DID notice the fact that combos and upgrades did not really take enemies down lower in health. they were just too beefy even for the combos. Still, again, I didn't mind as much, because at least i had the combos, so I was still entertained seeing how I could best tackle an enemy. (or horde of them)

MoF seems to have slightly toned down the health on enemies from what it seems, making it not nearly as drawn out as LoS. Cox said there were parts of LoS he didn't really like. I wonder what they were?

perhaps the over abundant QTE's he initially said would not be there? XD

I'm certain at least ONE of the things he wasn't pleased with was probably the DLC chapters which were, if I remember correctly, supposed to be part of the game proper.

[darkwzrd4]

LOL, the fact you need long, drawn out combos to take down normal enemies ADDS to the pacing going down the toilet. If it's an action game, it should be fast paced. You should be able to take down enemies quickly and efficiently because it saves time and allows you to venture on your way. It's like what I said about the whole shimmying/ledge crawling. You go from really fast based sprinting down halls, swift jumping, to instances where that pacing just stops and you have to crawl down a ledge, shimmy down to a further ledge, leap across to another ledge, then crawl up it. THAT is breaking the pace of exploration.

Now, I'm not ragging on combos as a whole, but you can have great fast-paced combos that get the job done without resulting to drawing out needless combos on enemies that just don't seem to die, and killing the pacing of the game.

IMO, what they SHOULD'VE done was do it like the IGAvanias(yes, I know some of you cringe, but hear me out). In those games, majority of the enemies you encounter die with a few hits, but there are also enemies that you have to spend some time to take down. Enemies like Final Guards, those strange Gurkha brothers and such. Balance is the keep to everything in life, and balancing weak enemies with stronge ones SHOULD'VE been a priority when deciding to make a 2D(2.5D) LoS game. Waisting time on never-dying enemies in a 3D game like LoS is more excusable, but the second you set it into another plane of exploration, rules change.

Exactly.  It shouldn't take 20 hits to kill a basic skeleton enemy.  In LoS1, the skeletons were among the strongest normal enemies in the game whereas in the older games, they were among the weakest in the game next to zombies.
Rather than fight small groups of strong enemies at a time, we should be fighting hordes of weak enemies with the occasional powerful enemy.
Complex combos should be reserved for specific uniquely powerful enemies, mini-bosses, and bosses that you only fight at specific points in certain areas.  One of the best example are the final guards.  They are the elite knights and there are very few of them in the games.
If you want to fight mobs of tough enemies requiring long drawn out combos to fight, then play DmC.

[DoctaMario]

That seems like speculation. Plus I don't remember not seeing these shiny surfaces in any of the videos that ever showed ledge action. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but turning LoS from an action game into an a platformer with heavy exploration aspects like SotN is exactly the point of this game. At least that is the impression I got from Cox's rhetoric.


There was nothing stopping them from doing exactly like the old games and making them more obvious. However, I disagree about the ledges not being obvious enough. I don't see them blending into the backgrounds like that even with the crappy quality of these YouTube videos.


That's easily remedied simply by making them all look alike as they did in SCV4. "The Cave" has swing points for one of the characters and they don't even look alike in all the different area, but they simply didn't design any other background objects to look like a hook coming out of the wall for no good reason.

it is speculation, and I was speaking more about LoS1 than moF. You're probably right about turning it into more of an exploration game, but the point still stands that if the player has no idea where to go, then there won't be much exploration going on, no? Yeah yeah, we all talk about how we'd do it differently, and I agree with some of the points, but until any of us are working at MS/Konami, then it doesn't really matter, then does it? CV4 made the swing points hella obvious, but los seemed to be trying NOT to disrupt the mood too much by having something that sticks out like a sore thumb.

Combos are pointless anyway. You don't go for combos when you try to kill someone: you slash their neck or shoot them in the head. The only enemies that needed "combos" in Classicvanias were bosses and armored knights. Everything else died in 1 or 2 hits and nobody ever complained the games were too easy due to enemies being so easy to kill. This whole combo idea of recent games annoys the fuck out of me. It's in way too many games. I don't know if it stems from trying to attract 2D fighter players or trying to attract RPG gamers, but I don't doubt it has to do with trying to attract some fan base that doesn't really give a shit and now the poeple that do give a shit are left with little option but to play a steaming pile of shit that takes 30 seconds to kill a single fucking enemy when a simple knife to the skull would suffice in any other situation. Even first-person shooters are getting retarded these days. The game developing world in general these days is just plain retarded. ... Board games have more thought put into them nowadays, I swear.

I always used pseudo-combos in the classicvanias. Jump+whip, Axe/Cross/Holy Water/Daggers, Whip, etc. Knights, whip skeletons, werewolves (Simon's Quest), Bone Cannons, etc., all take more than one hit and are better put down with combos.

Thing is, as much as I love the 64 games, most people didn't. Those were probably THE BEST example of 2D CV brought to 3D, and everyone hated them. And one of the reasons people didn't like them was because the "combat sucked." So blame the CV community for having a 3D action-based Castlevania game that doesn't play like old school Cv games. LoS1 is a spiritual successor (shoutouts to SSS) to the 64 games in a lot of ways except for combat. I think that's part of why I've played LoS more than any CV game since DXC.

That said, they're doing a good job of combining the Castleroid vibe with the LoS vibe, at least from the videos I've watched. This game's got me excited and almost wanting to buy a 3DS!

[Maedhros]

Everyone knows that mainstream gamers are the problem with the games of today. This shitty handhold design that most of the modern games have is because of them.

[DragonSlayr81]

Seeing that Cox want's the Lords of Shadow games to distance themselves from the IGA games (or traditional Castlevania games in general) as far as possible, this was to be expected.

That's kinda what I dislike and fail to see the logic behind it. IGA's CVs might have some faults, but to do a 180 against it, where's the logic? Really, one would think trying to balance action with exploration so the pacing isn't shot would be far more important a priority than rebelling against a previous idea or trying to be "as different as possible", y'know, for the sake of it. Don't get me wrong, you can always try new things and introduce a breath of fresh air that keeps a series from getting stagnant, but it doesn't have to come at the cost of previous innovations that were great for the series.

I don't expect enemies in Lords of Shadow 2 to go down in two hits either and god help us if Dracula encounters heavy armored troops in modern day.

That's what I've feared since we've seen the first CG trailer. I said it way back then, but Gabe being shown as a total badass is a major cocktease, especially if you don't get to play as him with that shear power at your disposal. And to be frank, I don't anticipate playing as a weakened Dracula. I just don't. It doesn't thrill me, I could  care less. Nothing would be more pathetic than playing as Dracula and having trouble breaking open a FUCKIN BARREL!! Even with the logic of combos against enemies, I fail to see ANY logic with barrels and boxes needing more than one hit to be demolished. Fail to see it at all. Doesn't add realism, doesn't feel COOL to combo a fuckin wooden box/barrel... it's just... no. You can spin that yard regarding skeletons and convince me more than seeing Gabriel Belmont, a hulking knight, have to hit a barrel multiple times just to break it. Seeing him as Dracula doing the same would just be all sorts of fail.

[DoctaMario]

Everyone knows that mainstream gamers are the problem with the games of today. This shitty handhold design that most of the modern games have is because of them.

As much as I hate to say it, the folks playing CoD might be interested in Los .

[DoctaMario]

Stuff

It we're talking corporate things if IGA's games didn't sell as well then why repeat the formula? We got games that were passable but not amazing like the old school games were.

Honestly, MoF is the first game that seems to blend the old school with the new school, at lead beyond the 64 games and Los1.

[Dark Nemesis]

All i can say is, where is my F*****g demo already? I want to try it out for my self and not through some stupid videos.

[Shiroi Koumori]

All i can say is, where is my F*****g demo already? I want to try it out for my self and not through some stupid videos.

Maybe the demo would be released when the game is about to ship. Or it might never get a demo release....

[Maedhros]

Honestly, MoF is the first game that seems to blend the old school with the new school

Not really.

[Akuma]

As much as I hate to say it, the folks playing CoD might be interested in Los .

What's wrong with Curse of Darkness?

:I

[uzo]

Thing is, as much as I love the 64 games, most people didn't. Those were probably THE BEST example of 2D CV brought to 3D, and everyone hated them. And one of the reasons people didn't like them was because the "combat sucked." So blame the CV community for having a 3D action-based Castlevania game that doesn't play like old school Cv games.

I completely disagree.

The N64 CV's did have bad combat, and this next detail is very important, for a 3D game. It failed to take the third dimension into account in a fluid and natural manner. It instead tried to shoe horn 2D combat into 3D space, adding tweaks to make it 'fit'. It, however, is exactly that; shoehorned. It wasn't birthed from 3D design thought.

You cannot blame the fanbase for disliking such a sloppy and poorly thought out combat system. Likewise, you cannot blame the fanbase for the developers failing to deliver a combat system that works much better than what we've been getting.

Lords of Shadow does have one thing right. The dynamic between direct, and area attacks. The balance is way off, and you might as well be hitting enemies with a plastic Halloween prop as it does so little damage, but the idea of splitting the attacks into two categories of use is exactly what is needed. 3D combat, with a whip type weapon, comes down to two main types of attack; single, and multi target.

A proper 3D Castlevania game needs to fill these two requirements at the base level. 2D Castlevania by default has a more limited targeting scope, without the ability for the enemy to be around you on all sides. Instead, only four directions need to be worried about. In a 3D game like Lords of Shadow, you have, and I'm guessing based on size of attack that I remember, about 16 directions a direct attack could strike in, that would hit a different opponent each time. This multiplication of available directions for the enemy, exponentially increases your need for additional abilities to cover more at once.

In the Classic games, the sub weapons usually covered the Up and Down gaps in your attacking options. In 3D, you need more than that, since your potential enemy locations, based on direction, grew to a much higher number.

This is why the N64 CV's felt flat in combat. They didn't account for the added directions, and situations caused by them. Your ability to strike multiple targets in your range was severely limited, to the point of impracticality. This led to difficulty dealing with multiple targets, especially at close range.

To be clear, you don't need combos to fulfill 3D combat. You just need enough diverse options to cover single, and multi target combat situations effectively.