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.