Topic: My newly updated, final Legacy of Darkness review (twice as long as before lol)

[DrLight66]

DrLight66
June, 2012

Author's note: I had a Castlevania 64 and Legacy of Darkness marathon recently, playing through both games with all the characters in each.  I had written the original "draft" of this review back in 2009 but have changed my opinion on a few things which i want to address and also wanted to add a lot more thoughts and details.  This review contains SPOILERS but given how old these games are i don't think that should be any type of issue.

OVERVIEW) 
In today's era of special editions, re-releases, expansion packs etc. etc., Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness sits right up there with the best of them.  It was extremely rare back in 1999 for a console game to get re-released as a sort of "this was supposed to be the actual 100% finished product" type of game, similar to how today we have games like Ninja Gaiden Black and the Sigmas (release Ninja Gaiden Black 2 damnit!), Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 and Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition.  Back in 1999, Konami decided to take a huge risk and re-release Castlevania 64 on the Nintendo 64 as Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness.  The game was a monumental failure in terms of reviews and sales, but it took what was a mediocre 3D Castlevania debut and turned it into dare I say a masterpiece?

GAME DEVELOPMENT HISTORY) 
Ten years ago, this game, Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness, was released for the Nintendo 64 and was immediately criticized, scoffed at and subsequently kicked into obscurity.  Yet, it's one of the finest games to ever grace the Nintendo 64 and on par with Lords of Shadow as the best 3D Castlevania game.

So, why was this game stomped on and left forgotten?   Well, here's the quick history lesson.  When Konami first released Castlevania 64, they intended for it to have a lot more levels, bosses, playable characters, etc. than what ended up being in the final product.  Due to time constraints and a release date that Konami chose not to push back, Konami released Castlevania 64 with several characters, bosses, levels, music, etc. cut out.  But on top of that, the camera was godawful, the controls were slippery and clumsy, and the gameplay suffered tremendously because of this.  Did I mention that Castlevania 64 was the very first 3D Castlevania to ever be released so the hype and expectations for it were humongous? 

Take all of this into account, and Castlevania 64 ended up being a game that wasn't necessarily bad, in fact it was pretty fun to play, but it was a "Castlevania" game, a series that has put out awesome game after awesome game after awesome game.  Castlevania 64 was an above average game, but a very mediocre Castlevania game.  The reception for it was a mixed bag, and Symphony of the Night had only been released 2 years earlier so that was the type of game that fans wanted to see more of.  Plus, hardcore fans hated the idea of Castlevania being in 3D, and they pointed to Castlevania 64 as proof that 3D and Castlevania just didn't belong together.

Despite all this, Konami decided, and I cannot say just how thankful I am that they did this, to re-release Castlevania 64 in the form of a super ultra mega "Final Cut" version, which is what Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness is.  Less than a year after Castlevania 64 was released, Konami released the fully developed version of the game, Castlevania Legacy of Darkness.  But, they sold the game for $60.00, video game magazines ripped the game to shreds for being a special edition version of Castlevania 64 rather than an actual sequel, and people felt like Konami had ripped them off for not releasing this in the first place instead of the incomplete Castlevania 64.  As a result, Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness was never given a chance (include me as one of those people who never gave it a chance and only realized the brilliance of it after playing it more thoroughly several years later) and the game was soon forgotten and fell into obscurity.  Yes, the game should've been released at a discounted price, yes the title is very misleading, and yes it is a special edition version of Castlevania 64 rather than a sequel, but the extra content and major improvements more than make up for it.


Here's what LOD adds and improves:
 
MUCH IMPROVED CAMERA SYSTEM)
The camera in Castlevania 64 was a mixed bag, as it was for the most part okay for adventuring and running around but absolutely abominable when fighting enemies.  Half the time the camera would get stuck against a tree or a wall or veer off for no apparent reason or just start to freak out and you wouldn't be able to see anything.  It was also way too low in relation to the floor and often times you would get hit by offscreen enemies who were really only standing right next to you, but due to the lousy camera position you wouldn't be able to see them until it was too late.  The camera would also spin and twitch constantly for no reason and it was somewhat nauseating, if you've played any old Playstation 1 or N64 games with terrible cameras you know how they can start to make you feel sick after awhile.

In Legacy of Darkness, the developers changed the camera in a number of ways.  First of all, you can now set the camera in 3 different positions behind your character using the up/down buttons on the directional pad.  The default setting which i hate is very similar to the position found in Castlevania 64, where the camera is very close to the ground, while the 2nd position is an up-close, almost against your character's back camera view which is pointless to use. The 3rd camera position, the one that i love and find to be nearly perfect for most of the game is the one that's high up off the ground and far away from my character.  It's sorta like a bird's eye view if the bird was 25 feet off the ground and 15 feet behind my character.

I had no idea, none, that i could toggle the position of how close or how far back and high/low the camera would be with the directional pad when i first played the game back in 2000 or so.  The default camera position is too low and too close imo and is awful.  Even with toggling between the two camera modes, either battle mode or action mode, the position was lousy and it really made me give up on the game way too early.  It's almost like using the behind-the-shoulder view in the recent Resident Evil games and Gears of War, where you get a great view of what's directly in front of you but you can't see anything whatsoever that's to your sides or right behind you.

It wasn't until i picked up the game some years later after originally playing and giving up on LoD that i opened up the game manual and saw that i could change the camera with the directional pad.  The difference in zooming the camera back and a bit higher off the ground is amazing as now i get a perfect view of my character and everything around him/her that i need to see.  And if the camera did act buggy, i could always just straighten it with the R button or peel it away from a wall with the left or right buttons on the directional pad.  Only during combat do i ever use the battle mode camera, otherwise it's action mode all the time (unless the camera goes to auto mode which 99% time gives me a perfect view of where my character is and what i need to see).  Based on all the videos i've seen on youtube of people playing LoD, it seems that pretty much nobody knows that you can change the position of the camera with the directional pad lol.  Press down on the d-pad when you start out people, the far away/high up camera position is so much better than the default up close/down low camera position!

As just mentioned, you can now also rotate the camera around your character with the left/right buttons on the directional pad which you couldn't do in Castlevania 64.  If playing this game on an emulator (i do own the cartridge, complete with case and manual!) and a Playstation or XBox controller it's even better because now you can set the right analog stick to rotate the camera with ease, where you can't really do that conveniently with the N64 controller due to the directional pad position on the controller.

A third change for LoD is that now when you go to center the camera behind your character with the R trigger, you can do it while moving and the camera will automatically follow directly behind you.  In Castlevania 64, you couldn't do this while moving, instead you had to stop, then press the R Trigger and then it would center behind you.  Just stupid.

You can now opt out of the camera when it goes into auto-mode as well, where in C64 the camera would sometimes go into an unlabeled automatic mode where you had zero control over it other than going into first-person view to look around, but otherwise you were stuck with the camera position the game gave you.  In C64 there's a couple areas in the game where the camera does this and it gives you a terrible view and you can't change it, such as the first time in the Forest of Silence where you have to hop across some stone platforms that lowered down into the river and the angle of the camera is just incredibly awkward and makes jumping across more difficult than it ought to be.  In LoD, you can switch from auto-mode to either action or battle view (LoD doesn't feature normal mode view) and there's an area that comes to mind in LoD where it's better to use action view than auto-view, namely the exploding minecart sections of the Tower of Art.



TARGETING SYSTEM)

The targeting/camera system in Castlevania 64 during regular combat was complete garbage, plain and simple.  It was ok for using subweapons and hitting the opponent, but absolutely horrible for keeping the enemy within the view of the camera.  If you went into battle view and tried to lock onto an enemy, the game would do this half-assed Zelda Ocarina of Time lock-on system where sure your character would stay lined up with the enemy for the camera, but you couldn't move faster than a slow-walk when doing this and this pretty much made it pointless to use.  It made no sense at all.  Otherwise during battle mode view the camera would keep the enemy in view depending on whether or not it felt like it. 

In Legacy of Darkness, they changed it to where during battle mode, if you keep the R Trigger held down the camera and targeting box will stay on whichever enemy is closest to you while keeping you on the screen as well, so both you and the locked on target will be in view of the camera simultaneously and the camera will keep the both of you together in view just like how the camera normally acts during a boss fight.  So in LoD you can run, move, jump and attack like normal while locked onto an enemy instead of suddenly stopping in your tracks and being only able to manuever via a super slow walk like how the crappy lockon system worked in C64.


TIGHTER CONTROLS)
As I mentioned earlier, the controls in Castlevania 64 weren't exactly the best.  The main problem had to do with jumping while turning, and this was obvious for anyone during the sections in the Forest of Silence where you had to make your way down and climb back up the stone ledges that were jutting along the edges of the cliffs along the riverbank.  When you went to spin or change direction your character would run off the cliff for no reason, and if you tried jumping while turning at the same time your character would instead do an evasive sidehop and you'd end up unintentionally jumping to your death.  In LoD, you can now run turn and change direction easier, and when you turn to jump you're more often going to jump the way you want to instead of doing that little evasive side-hop and leaping to your death.

Also, when you jump and cling to the ledge of a cliff or platform or whatever, before you had to press up on the joystick in order to climb up, which was kinda annoying, and now in LoD you just have to move the joystick towards the platform and your character will automatically climb up.

[DrLight66]

NEW CHARACTERS)

- Two new playable characters, one who's a real main character while the other's a bonus game type of character.  The first, Cornell, is the lychanthrope shown on the box and cartridge covers.  He has the ability to morph into a werewolf, he swipes a long psuedo-projectile energy claw looking thing that resembles Super Street Fighter II DeeJay's projectile attack, with the attack being very powerful but having limited range, and it's kinda like having a mixture between Carrie's magic fireball attack and Reinhardt's whip attack.  When Cornell gets 10 or more red jewels, you can press the L trigger to morph him into a werewolf that's honestly just way way too powerful.  The werewolf is a bit faster, you can run and attack at the same time instead of having to stop for a moment when attacking, and you inflict twice the damage plus any damage you take is cut in half.  Also, the claw swipe projectiles travel much further.  Cornell's wolf morph is kinda like when Dante of Devil May Cry goes into Devil Mode only you can't do any new skills and unlike Dante, Cornell cannot turn the werewolf ability off until you've drained all your red jewels or get a cutscene, at which point Cornell morphs back into his human form.

With Cornell, you get a whole new intro cut scene and a whole new story which is supposed to take place some 8-10 years before the events in Castlevania 64, even though you go through most of the stages from Castlevania 64 in addition to new ones and fight many of the same bosses, but there's a lot of changes and stage redesigns.  Cornell's adopted sister was taken hostage by Dracula's army and Cornell's village was burned down, so he goes to Castlevania to save her and get revenge.  Along the way, you repeatedly encounter an old adversary of Cornell named Ortega during various cut scenes.   Plus, you go through the Villa from the first game but you have take a different path and solve new puzzles to get through it and the new story and cutscenes in that stage explain how the place became the vampiric hellhouse that it is when you go through it in Castlevania 64, so i'm really happy they tied up the loose ends for that place.  Remember those tombstones in Castlevania 64 that said things like "Here lies my beloved wife Mary."?  Well LoD let's you know all about those and they're there for more than just scenery.  There's also a couple new cutscenes involving Death and Actrise throughout the game. 

With Cornell, you go through every stage from Castlevania 64, with the exception of the Underground Waterway, the Underground Mine, and the Castle Center which imo is a good thing since it's just so tedious to go through, i mean you have to run back and forth through the Castle Center like what, three and a half times?  It's just ridiculous.  The nitro mission in itself isn't that bad so long as you know to run clockwise around the edge of the 2nd giant spinning gear, it's having to backtrack so many times for mandragora and the nitro that's such a pain.   

At the end of Cornell's game, you fight a new Ultimate version of Dracula who's just straight up awesome.  There's also a neat twist to the ending that I won't spoil. In Castlevania 64, and still so in LoD, Carrie and Reinhardt have to reach the Castle Keep (the very last stage) within so many days otherwise they get the bad ending and don't fight the true final boss.  With Cornell, you can take as long as you want as there's only one ending for him and you fight the true final boss no matter what.

After you beat the game as Cornell, you unlock a knight-looking character who's supposed to be Henry who you have to escort to safety through the hedgemaze during Cornell's playthrough.  Unlike in Castlevania 64 where you have to follow Malus through the hedgemaze, in LoD you actually have to escort and protect Henry throughout the hedgemaze while chainsaw Frankenstein (the dog statues don't appear in Cornell's mission) tries to murder Henry.  Even if you run up to Frankie with Cornell he'll just ignore you and continue to go after Henry, dunno what Henry did to piss off Frankenstein so badly but holy crap he really hates that kid.

Henry's game takes place some 8-10+ years after Cornell's story, with Henry's story actually taking place during the same time as Reinhardt and Carrie's story.  Six children have been kidnapped by the evil forces of darkness, and as a now grown-up Henry you must go through the first half of the game finding all six children before X number of days go by, i think it's 7 days but i could be wrong.  Ever play Michael Jackson's MoonWalker on the Sega Genesis?  Anyway, there's one child standing around somewhere in each stage.  For every child you save, you unlock something.  Carrie and Reinhardt's game's are unlocked this way, as are alternative costumes for Cornell, Carrie and Reinhardt, and HARD mode which is my preferred difficulty to play on is unlocked this way as well.  All of the puzzles, levers and doors requiring keys are already unlocked for Henry so you can just breeze through the stages.

Henry looks like some goofy looking knight who uses a six-shooter for a weapon which blasts and pwns everything, the enemies and bosses don't stand a chance.  Also, every time you rescue a child, you get the opening 10 seconds of "simon belmont's theme", it's the one that starts out real slow going duh nah nah duh nuh nah duh nuh nuh nah nah with the church piano.  You know the one i'm talking about right?  Once so many days pass or you rescue all the kids, you get a short little ending cutscene and then depending on how which and how many of the kids you rescued you get awarded the unlockables.



NEW STAGES)

So with the two new playable characters, you also get four new stages to play.  The Abandoned Ship, the Art Tower, the Outer Wall and the Tower of Ruins.  Every character except the knight plays on the abandoned ship, and only Cornell plays the Art Tower, Outer Wall and Tower of Ruins.  Carrie and Reinhardt both play the ship and their stage path from Castlevania 64.

The abandoned ship, aka "FOGGY LAKE" starts you out with a cutscene where you are being rowed towards the long chain of the ship's anchor by the ferryman and his little boat, then the cut scene finishes with you climbing up the anchor and the actual game starts off with you on the deck of the boat.  It's a pretty cool level full of platforming along some masts, a cool cutscene where afterwards you have to escape the ship as it's sinking (even though you can stand around forever and won't get a gameover) and finishes with an excellent boss fight against a giant sea serpent.  It's short and simple but I like this level a lot and it's a great way to kickoff the game.  After the fight against the sea serpent dragon, you end up at the forest of silence which is the first level from Castlevania 64. 

The Outer Wall is another excellent level.  You are skimming your way along the outer wall of Dracula's castle and having to jump from ledge to ledge without falling down to your death.  There's tons of platforming and you get to fight a new boss, the harpy.  In fact, i think the harpy is the only enemy on the level.  It's all platforming, all the time.  In fact, there's more platforming in this stage than in both Lament of Innocence and Curse of Darkness combined, which isn't a surprise since both of those games have practically zero platforming at all.  Curse of Darkness especially.

The Art Tower has a cool song, if you've played Castlevania Bloodlines on the Genesis it's a remixed version of the Greek Isle theme, "The Sinking Old Sanctuary".  The stage design is ok, nothing special, it's not really much of an art tower lol but the last part where you have to walk along a tightrope way up in the air as huge chandeliers swing back and forth is pretty memorable.  The downside of this stage is that it has a ton of day/night doors, doors that you can only go through if it's either day/night, so you have to go to the menu screen a ton and use the day/night cards which is just so tedious.  It doesn't make any sense at all for why these are there, i mean there are times where the game's story makes sense for you to have to do this, such as meeting Dracula for the first time in the Castle Wall (night), Reinhardt having to stop a vampire girl from stepping into a sunbeam and committing suicide (day), or the rose room of the Villa (6AM for Cornell and 3AM to 5AM for Carrie/Reinhardt).  Instead of having all of the day/night doors, the developers should've just had the doors automatically lock and you would have to defeat the knight statues to unlock the doors, at least that would've been sorta fun. 

The Tower of Ruins i like.  It has an Egyptian pyramid vibe to it that's pretty cool despite not having any mummies, i mean c'mon Castlevania games almost always have mummy enemies but there's none here??  The Tower of Ruins is split into 3 parts, a maze where you have to find three switches to step on in order to unlock gates to make it all the way through and all the while you have to be careful not to fall into the basement of the maze otherwise you have to fight a bunch of ghosts and then make your way back up to first floor.  However, if you read the sign in the basement it tells you what to do to keep from falling through the crumbling floors and if you look at the maps on the floors in the middle of some of the rooms they show you where you need to go.  The 2nd and 3rd part of the Tower of Ruins is like something out of Indiana Jones, just make sure for the 3rd part of the Tower of Ruins you explore around the edge of the room before you proceed to jump on the rising pillars that have the zodiac symbols otherwise you'll die over and over again and not understand why.


REDESIGNED LEVELS)
Many of the stages from Castlevania 64 have been completely redesigned for Legacy of Darkness and for the most part are much more enjoyable to go through. 

FOREST OF SILENCE: The forest of silence in Castlevania 64 was awful.  AWFUL!  This was a stage that was an example of developers learning how to develop and design stages in 3D for the first time and just kind of throwing crap together and calling it The Forest of Silence.  It was ugly, the design and layout were just so awkward, you'd have annoying skeleton after annoying skeleton after annoying skeleton hyperspawning nonstop after you and the stage flat out wasn't any fun to go through.  Plus, i know it's called "The Forest of Silence", but this is Castlevania, a series with some of the most memorable and kickass soundtracks in video game history so how in the hell did they start the game out with a level that doesn't have any music beyond the boss fights?  There's also a part that annoys me where you have a plaque that reads "A maiden sings a dirge", but there's no statue above the plaque, only a torch... did the developers not have time to design a cheap statue for this part?

In Legacy of Darkness, The Forest of Silence is much better designed and it's surprisingly pretty fun to go through for a change.  Also, if you still hate it, there's a not-so-hidden shortcut midway through the stage that let's you pretty much skip the last half of the stage and go right to the 2nd encounter with the giant ape skeleton.  It's difficult to explain but the original Forest felt like a beta version of a stage put together by amateurs using a map editor while LoD's Forest feels more polished and well thought out.  It also has a quiet tune playing in the background that's nothing special but at least it's better than no music at all.  I've heard arguments that the original is better because it looks more like an actual forest, but in my opinion it's like the most half-assed and ugly "forest" ever designed in a video game.


CASTLE WALL: Mostly unchanged from C64, except with Cornell you have to find a winch, er... wench.. or lever or whatever to insert into one of the mechanisms to raise one of the gates, and you actually have to go through the entire stage twice in order to make it through.  This isn't the case when you go through the stage with Carrie and Reinhardt, they just go through it like they did in C64.  The medusa heads unfortunately have been removed, which doesn't make sense to me since it seemed like they fit in perfectly with the stage.  One really nice change is that the camera during the twin bone dragon boss has been changed and is now pretty much an overhead view which gives you depth perception of how close and far away the flames are that the dragons spit at you.


VILLA: Mostly unchanged for Carrie and Reinhardt, except on HARD MODE you get an unexpected surprise boss fight shortly after helping Malus exit the hedgemaze.  Also, Frankenstein's chainsaw motor now has a constant, loud roar so the sound effects are much better than in C64.  The weather and time of day effects are much improved as well, see two paragraphs down.

For Cornell's run through the villa though, it's totally different in that you not only get a ton of new cutscenes and characters that are introduced, but the puzzles and key items are in completely different spots and you have to go through the entire stage in a totally different order to ultimately get into the vampire crypt found on the side of the hedgemaze.  As mentioned too the hedgemaze section with Frankie is different in now you have to actually escort a kid through the maze instead of just finding your way to the exit.

This stage too is an example of how Konami improved the textures and lighting for Legacy of Darkness.  There's a part where you have to go through the hedgemaze backwards and when it's nightime it'll rain, thunder and lightning for a couple hours, then when the rain stops there's this incredibly creepy ambient feeling in the air with the wind rumbling that reminds me a ton of the opening intro to Halloween 4.  I pretty much know the hedgemaze by heart and know what to expect but it still creeps the hell out of me when the time of day in the game is like that.  Even outside by the fountain or inside of the mansion itself you get these new effects when the time and weather change.  I think the new Villa for Cornell honestly is my favorite part of LoD, it's just so wonderfully done and incredible.

Some miscellaneous things about the Villa: with Reinhardt and Carrie's games, i've always wondered, when the flower falls out of the vase during the villager cutscene, did Rosa do that to help you?

Also, the invisible floating platform that you could hop up onto to avoid the attacks of the cerberus dogs has been removed, and for Cornell the secret message on one of the statues where you fight the cerberus dogs that said "Meet me by the fountain between 12 and 1" has been removed, since for Cornell there's a puzzle you have to solve in order to raise the little pillar that let's you climb up to the top of the fountain in front of the villa.



NOTE: THE FOLLOWING THREE STAGES ARE PRETTY MUCH IDENTICAL TO THEIR C64 COUNTERPARTS, EXCEPT FOR THE FOLLOWING DETAILS

UNDERGROUND WATERWAY: Carrie's stage after the villa, the part where you're jumping along the blocks in the middle of the water now have medusa heads coming at you, and at the end of the stage you fight a new boss, MEDUSA, who's freakin awesome.

UNDERGROUND MINE: Reinhardt's stage after the villa, the stone platform sections late in the stage with the water pits now feature medusa heads, and at the end of the stage you fight a new boss, the ARACHNID QUEEN.

CASTLE CENTER: Reinhardt and Carrie's stage, mostly unchanged, except now the staircase room after the room where you fight the bloodborns features zombies, you fight multiple bloodborns in the room with the bloodborn cutscene and one of the skeleton motorcyclists outside of the zombie bull room now has a sidecar passenger that shoots a machine gun at you.  Also, in the giant gear room, there's a bonedragon pillar on top of one of the gears, so for the entire nitro run to the zombie bull room, and i'm not sure cause i only played this stage on hard mode, but you now have to deal with the bonedragon pillars, zombies, several bloodborns, and the motorcycle sidecar machine gun making the nitro run way more difficult than in C64.



BACK TO THE STAGE REDESIGNS:

TOWER OF SCIENCE: The first half isn't much different in LoD than in C64, except the graphics are a little better and some of the conveyor belts move way faster.  For the 2nd half though, it's much different and in LoD at the end you have a boss fight where you have a giant crystal in the middle of a room that you have to destroy but there's a bunch of turrets surrounding it and you have to knock out some of the turrets to temporarily deactivate the barrier protecting the crystal.  Nothing too special and the stage redesign is more or less just as good as the original, although the new section where you have to jump across a bunch of platforms while laser turrets are shooting at you is pretty crazy.


DUEL TOWER: The Duel Tower in C64 was horribly terribly awfully crappy.  Just like C64's Forest of Silence, it felt like the developers just randomly put together a bunch of crap using some simple map editor and said: ok, here's the stage.  In LoD, the Duel Tower is SO MUCH BETTER, it's probably along with the Clock Tower the best of all the stage redesigns and feels like a professionally designed stage compared to C64's crappy amateur designed stage feel.

[DrLight66]

TOWER OF EXECUTION AND TOWER OF SORCERY:
These are the two stages in LoD where after playing both games back to back i find that i actually prefer C64's original designs over LoD's redesigns.  With the Tower of Execution in C64, you had one huge room with a giant column in the middle that you had to climb up and around until you reached the very top where the exit was.  Despite having tons of slowdown, it was an awesome stage and being able to see the grand scale of the entire room from so high up was really incredible for a Nintendo 64 game and it still looks pretty amazing today.  You also had blood skeletons and medusas pestering you throughout the stage and an optional tower of execution key to find to unlock a gated door which led to a special jewel which would unlock an alternative costume for Reinhardt.

In LoD, instead of having one giant room that you had to climb your way up and around, you now have a large middle room that has all of these siderooms you go into that consist of long winding hallways with tons and tons of traps.  You have swinging axes, flames shooting up from the lavapits below, giant iron balls falling and splashing lava all over the place, platforms that sink into the lava if you stand on them too long for, etc. etc.  It's still a good stage, much longer than the original, but aside from the slowdown and the fact that the tower of execution key was unnecessary to get the special crystal i felt like C64's Tower of Execution was nearly perfectly designed.  Oddly enough, in LoD the giant column that you worked your way up and around in C64 is still there but in a collapsed state, and i don't understand why this is especially since LoD is supposed to be a prequel so shouldn't the giant column still be standing?

For the TOWER OF SORCERY, i definitely prefer C64's version over LoD's version.  It's not that LoD's version is bad, it's still really good, but the C64 version of the Tower of Sorcery looked a million times better.  It had better lighting, a shimmering wall around the edge of the stage, bubbles snowflakes and frost floating around in the air, a lot more stained glass windows and as i mentioned it just looked a lot better and i don't understand why the stage's appearance was butchered so badly in the LoD version?  The only thing i can think of, and same for the Tower of Execution, is that the game would crash if it tried to process these two stages under HIGH-RES mode and the developers couldn't figure out how to solve the problem? 

But anyway, the LoD version of the Tower of Sorcery still looks nice and it's still a really awesome stage, but the design layout of the C64 is a little bit better.  You had to jump across to some out of the way platforms to destroy these weird floating tic-tac looking things which once destroyed would lower previously unreachable platforms, while in LoD the stage is completely straightforward.  And as mentioned, graphically the C64 version blows the LoD version out of the water which is really the main reason why i prefer the C64 version over the LoD version.


CLOCK TOWER: The Clock Tower in C64 was pretty much in-game proof that Castlevania 64 was unfinished when it was released.  It starts out fine for the first two rooms, but then the third room looks only half developed and when you make your way up to the end of the room, that's it, the stage is over and you find yourself at the last stage, the Castle Keep.  I remember playing the game back when it first came out and thinking to myself "What kind of clock tower was that!?"  I couldn't believe how short and tacky it was.

Well in LoD, the developers gave us a Clock Tower that's like 2 and a half times as long as the one found in C64.  The first two rooms are the same, except in LoD even on hard mode the blood skeletons and medusa heads are unfortunately absent (just like in Tower of Execution again!), but once you get to the third room, holy crap it's like an even crazier version of Tick Tock Clock from Mario 64.  The room is twice as big, then when you make your way to the end of it you're thinking well that's it, but nope that's only half of the Clock Tower.  There's an entire 2nd half where the goal is to find a switch which turns one of the hands on this giant ass clock on the face of the tower so that you can cross it to reach the exit.  Now this is a Clock Tower, but if i have one complaint about it is that it could've used more enemies, cause all you fight are those lame frog people (new enemy in LoD) and the bonedragon heads.  But still, the level feels very epic and is so much better than the short, underdeveloped version in C64. 


VERY IMPORTANT TO NOTE, THAT CARRIE AND REINHARDT GO THROUGH THE SAME PATH AS THEY DID IN CASTLEVANIA 64 (but start out at the abandoned ship aka Foggy Lake), BUT THE STAGES THAT THEY GO THROUGH IN LoD AREN'T THE CASTLEVANIA 64 VERSIONS OF THOSE STAGES, BUT THE REDESIGNED VERSIONS THAT CORNELL GOES THROUGH INSTEAD WITH THE EXCEPTION OF WHAT I MENTIONED FOR THE CASTLE WALL AND VILLA.  So what i mean is, when you first play the game as Cornell, the Forest of Silence is different and much better than it was in Castlevania 64.  When Carrie or Reinhardt go through the Forest of Silence, it's not the Castlevania 64 version, it's the redesigned LOD version of the stage, the one that Cornell went through.  That is an excellent improvement.  However, i really wish that Reinhardt and Carrie went through their original versions of the Tower of Execution and Tower of Sorcery, as those two stages were more awesome in C64.

So not only are most of the stages redesigned and redesigned for the better (well, except Sorcery and Execution Towers), there's also a lot more save crystals about in the game.


SUB-WEAPONS)
In Castlevania 64, it didn't matter if you picked up the same sub-weapon over and over again.  In Legacy of Darkness, they changed it for the better.  Pick up an axe once, you get an axe.  Pick up another axe while already having the axe, you get a "2" next to the sub-weapon box and now when you throw the axe it creates a lightning bolt where it lands.  Pick up another axe for the third time and when you throw the axe at level 3 it will not only create a lightning bolt when it lands but it will also create a huge shockwave around it. 

Holy Water: flames will change color and explosion will be bigger

Knife: Blue flame around it at level 2, red flame at level 3, still sucks as bad as ever.

Boomerang Cross: Does more ricochet hits?

You don't spend a higher number of red jewels when you use the powered-up subweapons either, you just use the same amount of red jewels that each subweapon normally requires regardless of whether they're at level 1, 2 or 3.  If you die, the subweapon falls back to level 1 and if you change subweapons you lose the level 3 status of your subweapon and whatever you just picked up will be at level 1.

Also, the holy water subweapon has been further buffed in that even at level 1 you can now throw it super far at enemies who you've locked onto from a distance, whereas before in C64 you could only ever throw the holy water just a few feet in front of you.

So.... Konami deepened the sub-weapon system and made it a lot more fun and cool and gave the player more reason to smack torches and iron maidens in hard to reach places.  For Cornell, it's probably better to use your red jewels to morph, except in the hedgemaze where holy water owns during that part.


MORNING STAR POWER-UP SYSTEM)

For the power-up system, you start out with your regular attack at level 1.  When you pick up a morning star powerup, you get a neat yellow flash around your character for a second that's cool looking.  Reinhart starts off with the bullwhip, then gets level 2 chainwhip, then level 3 awesome laser/light/flame looking whip.  The whip isn't any stronger than how it was in Castlevania 64 but the new whip appearances kick ass.  Die and you start off again at level 1.

MISC. note: For Carrie's primary attack, in Castlevania 64 while she was running she would have to stop when she threw her fireball, now in Legacy of Darkness she doesn't have to stop momentarily while running to shoot her fireball.

[DrLight66]

NEW BOSSES)

Who doesn't love boss fights in Castlevania games?  They're a huge part of the series and every game (except one crappy game in the series that will go unnamed) always has lots of crazy monstrous bosses that you have to defeat.  Well, Legacy of Darkness basically doubled the number of bosses, and they are...

Exclusive to Cornell: Boss fight inside Villa mansion that i don't want to spoil, Gilles De Rais in vampire crypt of Villa, Harpy in Outer Wall, giant mutated werewolf at end of Duel Tower, Chimera above ROOM OF CLOCKS, Ultimate Dracula at end of game

Carrie: Medusa in Underground Waterway

Reinhardt: Arachnid Queen in Underground Mine

Cornell and Carrie: Giant crystal in Tower of Science

Everybody: Sea Serpent Dragon thing in Foggy Lake

Carrie and Reinhardt: surprise boss fight in the hedgemaze on HARD MODE




NEW MINOR ENEMIES)

LoD features many new but disappointing minor enemies.  Mudmen (variants of bloodborns and the crystal sludge monsters found in Tower of Sorcery), slow stupid zombies, annoying hopping frog people, fishmen, sidecars on some skeleton motorcycles, bonedragon pillars, crystal shards that shoot lasers at you in Tower of Sorcery, snakes, and... invisible suits of armor.  Pretty lame stuff.  The stained-glass knights have been made tougher in that they now take more hits, they're twice the size as before and they have a new attack where they can send their sword flying around in the air and it'll chase after you.  Also, the death animation for the mudmen, bloodborn and crystal sludge monsters has been improved in that when you kill them they'll spray their "guts" all over the place. 


NEW MUSIC)
There's quite a few new tracks in LOD, i think there's about 7 or 8 new songs in the game, with the best of course being the remixed version of The Sinking Old Sanctuary.  That song actually reminds me a lot of the music that plays during the orgy scene in the original Conan the Barbarian movie, the scene where James Earl Jones/Thulsa Doom morphs into a giant snake.  You also get very brief remix samples of Vampire Killer, Bloody Tears, and Simon's Theme, and no these aren't part of the 7 or 8 new songs that i'm talking about.


BETTER GRAPHICS/SOUND EFFECTS)
First of all, if you have the expansion pack in your N64, when you start up the game it asks if you want to play in high res or low res.  Pick low res, because the framerate skips like crazy under high res mode and is pretty much unplayable.  If you have the expansion pack in your system and pick low res, i don't know if it makes the graphics any better than if you didn't have the expansion pack at all. 

Anyway though, the graphics in LoD look sharper than in C64 even under LOW-RES MODE.  Textures look smoother and less blocky and muddy, there's new and better lighting effects and you get new weather effects when outside as time passes.  If you play this game on something like Project64, to which you should only ever do if you own the original cartridge, the graphics are pretty amazing because Project64 will automatically run the game under the game's HIGH-RES mode but with a smooth framerate, and since Project64 runs games at higher resolution anyway LoD ends up looking like a Dreamcast or Playstation 2 game, it's pretty incredible.

There's small changes with the sound effects like Frankenstein's chainsaw motor now constantly rumbles and when he swings at you the sound effect is different and more loud than the weak sound effect in C64.


COMPLAINTS THAT I HAVE ABOUT LEGACY OF DARKNESS)

While LoD is way better than C64, there are some things that i have to criticize it for.  Some of these are changes that the game made while others are flaws that were in C64 that LoD failed to correct.

-  First of all, the difficulty.  Cornell is ridiculously overpowered, particularly when he morphs into a werewolf.  Even on hard mode, you can annihilate pretty much every single boss in less than 30 seconds when morphed with the exception of Ultimate Dracula.  If the game made a change to the red jewel system, being that whenever you load a save or die and restart you would start out with 0 red jewels, this problem would be greatly reduced but instead you keep the same amount of red jewels no matter how many times you die.  Many of the bosses are somewhat to very challenging for Reinhardt and Carrie though, especially Carrie since her primary attack needs to be charged up to do any decent amount of damage so she can't do a lot of damage quickly unless she has a boomerang or axe, which require i think 5 and 3 red jewels to use respectively each time.

-  Final Dracula for Reinhardt is still way too easy.  You can stand right next to him and whip the hell out of him a bunch of times and before Dracula knocks you away you'll have already easily taken off half his health.  The developers should've given Dracula for Reinhardt a barrier or something where you can only run up and attack Dracula after the barrier is somehow disarmed, kinda like with the giant crystal boss in the Tower of Science.

-  The medusa heads in the Castle Wall, Tower of Execution and Clock Tower should've been kept in.  Some people consider them annoying but i enjoyed having to deal with them in the parts in C64 where they were featured.  Instead, in LoD the medusa heads have been demoted to brief appearances in the Underground Waterway and the Underground Mine, so you don't even fight them during Cornell's game.

-  The voice acting from Castlevania 64 is gone.  Sure it was bad but why remove it?  There is voice acting during cornell's opening story narration but that's it.

-  Henry's bonus mode... i think honestly i wish this playable character and his bonus mode just never existed in the first place.  His appearance is laughable, the six-shooter is fun to use for a few minutes but the novelty grows old extremely fast.  Instead of having Henry's bonus mode, the developers should've had Cornell have the task of optionally finding the children as he goes through the game.  It would make a lot more sense from a stage design point of view.  For example, there's a part in the Art Tower as i already mentioned where you have to walk across a tightrope with swinging chandeliers.  Directly below the middle of the tightrope, there's a pillar below with a bunch of items on the top of it that you can only reach if you decide to fall down.  Now... do you really want to risk missing the top of the pillar and dying for just $500 and a roast chicken?  No, you don't because the game gives you so much money and and so many health items that it's just not worth it.  But what if there was a kid there instead and saving him would unlock something when you completed the game like with Henry's bonus mode?  That would make more sense.

Or, here's what really comes to mind, how about this. In the LoD version of the The Tower of Execution, there's a part where there's two impaled skeletons side by side along a walkway where the walkway is opened up, and you can run in-between the two impaled skeletons to walk across an invisible bridge which takes you to the top of the collapsed column that's in the very middle of all of the lava.  When you smack the torch, all you get is a lousy roast beef, woohoo (sarcasm).  Why not put a kid there to rescue instead, that'd be better.  You'd have more reason to explore and adventure and take risks around the stages instead of just heading right to the exit.

-  To tie in with the above complaint.... Reinhardt and Carrie's alternative costumes from Castlevania 64 have been omitted from the game.  Why not have in their respective missions the special purple jewels to unlock those other alternative costumes?  I mean yes, the alternative costumes in N64 sucked and the new LoD costumes that you get to start out with are better, but it'd still be nice to have the option to use them.  Put a special purple jewel in the part i just mentioned in the Tower of Execution, and the platform with the invisible walkway in the Tower of Sorcery is still there in LoD so put a special purple jewel there instead of having just a stupid morning star pickup for all that trouble.

-  Or... Do what i just mentioned, but let Carrie and Reinhardt play their original versions of the Tower of Sorcery and Tower of Execution instead since those stages kicked ass and have the special jewels to unlock their C64 alternative costumes be in their original destinations.  That would be awesome.  But anyway, that's all i have to complain about.  Oh, and the crescent moon that appears up in the sky when you fight Death at night is no longer there.  It was cool looking, why remove it?



-   
So let me summarize how LOD is a better, way more enjoyable game than Castlevania 64:

THE GOOD:
+ 2 new playable characters (well, ok Henry barely counts)
+ New stories, new cutscenes/characters
+ 4 new stages, plus many of the original stages from C64 have been redesigned and are for the most part improved
+ 9+ new bosses
+ new minor enemies (disappointing yes, but it's better they exist than not)
+ new music (sinking old sanctuary remix, oh yeah)
+ new sub-weapon system
+ better targeting/lockon system
+ better graphics
+ tighter controls and better jumping/platforming mechanics
+ more responsive, more customizable, more reliable, less dizzying camera with better angles
+ Reinhardt's cool looking whip upgrades

THE BAD:
- Malus' Violin song from the original is missing
- Tower of Execution and especially Tower of Sorcery redesigns aren't as good as they were in C64
- Cornell is just way too powerful
- voice acting from C64 is absent
- Medusa heads have been demoted
- Alternative costumes from C64 aren't available
- opening skeleton scare scene from C64 is absent



So here we are over 10 years after Legacy of Darkness' release, and I must say that it's by all means an absolute classic and still holds up after all of these years.  Legacy of Darkness is what Castlevania 64 should've been and had Konami waited to finish and then release the much more polished, complete, improved and fun Legacy of Darkness and never released Castlevania 64 in the first place, who knows what Legacy's legacy would be today? (see what i did there?  hahaha ok sorry).  Overall, the game has tons of fun boss fights, lots of platforming, a wide variety of awesome stages, cool music, awesome atmosphere, a pretty good story/cut scenes for a Castlevania game (EDIT: VILLA YES, REST OF GAME NO LOL), a wide variety of playable characters with different paths/offensive ability/cut scenes, and overall the game feels so much like an old school Castlevania game that's been successfully brought into the world of 3D.

Btw, i had originally planned to only spend about half an hour to update my original review... and now here I am 5 hours later lol.  Anyway.. that's the end of my review.  Feel free to comment!

[vyck_st.judas]

I enjoyed your review. Got me all nostalgic. Think I'll play again in the morning, Maybe work on a Cornell sprite set... Probably use that "Roberto" guy as a base.

[davidwesterlund]

Very well written!

However, I just played through both games too, and I have to say that even though some improvements were made in LoD, all the new flaws that came along ultimatly made it a worse game than the first one.

I will list briefly what I felt got downgraded in LoD:

* Castle wall - already a horribly annoying stage, that got stretched out even longer, forcing you to go up the towers several times in a trial & error-fashion to solve a crank-puzzle.

* Villa - Loved the original one, but with all the new extended puzzles it's a real pain to run around. It sucked the joy out of it. And the new garden maze chase is nowhere near as scary as the old one.

* The Art tower is garbage, a really poorly designed stage that adds absolutely nothing to the game (except a good remake of the track sinking old sactuary). Should have been removed before the release.

* Tower of Ruins is the new stage I hate most of all, sooo long, confusing and boring, so many platforms that break under your feet...the whole level is just an endless trial & error, where you fall to through the floor over...and over...and over...until you turn the game off. This is actually where I bailed the last time about a week ago, I lost the motivation to go on (i have finished the entire game before thought, and Henrys quest too).

* Uninteresting charcters and plot. I don't care about this werewolf dude and his friend. I liked the vampire hunter Reinhardt with his whip and Rosa subplot. It had some romance and some interesting dialogue, for instance when Rosa says: "why wont you kill me? arent you a vampire hunter?" or something like that. It had drama.

To sum up, some of the new stages are good, but many of them just plain suck. It's especially funny, since I remember that the jumping control was a big source of critisism in the first game, that they would add EVEN MORE PLATFORMING JUMPS in the new game! Why would they do that? The perfect game for me would be the original Castlevania 64 + the foggy lake stage, the new bosses, the new tower of execution and the new final dracula form.

[DrLight66]

Very well written!

However, I just played through both games too, and I have to say that even though some improvements were made in LoD, all the new flaws that came along ultimatly made it a worse game than the first one.

I will list briefly what I felt got downgraded in LoD:

* Castle wall - already a horribly annoying stage, that got stretched out even longer, forcing you to go up the towers several times in a trial & error-fashion to solve a crank-puzzle.

* Villa - Loved the original one, but with all the new extended puzzles it's a real pain to run around. It sucked the joy out of it. And the new garden maze chase is nowhere near as scary as the old one.

* The Art tower is garbage, a really poorly designed stage that adds absolutely nothing to the game (except a good remake of the track sinking old sactuary). Should have been removed before the release.

* Tower of Ruins is the new stage I hate most of all, sooo long, confusing and boring, so many platforms that break under your feet...the whole level is just an endless trial & error, where you fall to through the floor over...and over...and over...until you turn the game off. This is actually where I bailed the last time about a week ago, I lost the motivation to go on (i have finished the entire game before thought, and Henrys quest too).

* Uninteresting charcters and plot. I don't care about this werewolf dude and his friend. I liked the vampire hunter Reinhardt with his whip and Rosa subplot. It had some romance and some interesting dialogue, for instance when Rosa says: "why wont you kill me? arent you a vampire hunter?" or something like that. It had drama.

To sum up, some of the new stages are good, but many of them just plain suck. It's especially funny, since I remember that the jumping control was a big source of critisism in the first game, that they would add EVEN MORE PLATFORMING JUMPS in the new game! Why would they do that? The perfect game for me would be the original Castlevania 64 + the foggy lake stage, the new bosses, the new tower of execution and the new final dracula form.

The story with Rosa and Reinhardt reminds me a lot of Devil May Cry 1 and what happens between Trish and Dante, where SPOILERS:

(click to show/hide)

When Trish and Rosa meet Dante and Reinhardt, they come across as friends only to betray them later, but Dante and Reinhardt are unwilling to kill them after fending off their attacks.  Later, both Trish and Rosa show sympathy for being spared and sacrifice themselves to save Dante and Reinhardt by jumping in front of their puppet masters attacks that would've killed Dante and Reinhardt, Mundus' laser thorn eyeblast projectile attack and Death's flying sickle attack, then later on are reincarnated as normal humans and given a 2nd chance at life

  The parallels between Rosa and Trish are so similar it makes me wonder if the writer for DMC had just finished playing C64 as Reinhardt before writing the plot for DMC lol.

What I like about Legacy of Darkness over C64 is that if you do hate Cornell's game, which includes what you mention about
- the Castle Wall (sorta agree)
- the Villa (totally disagree with, except hedgemaze chase being much less intense),
- Art Tower (mostly agree with but not that it should've been omitted),
- Tower of Ruins (mostly disagree with, plus the sign in the basement tells you to stay along the edges of the rooms so the floors won't collapse, but the 2nd part of the stage is mostly as you said trial and error but if you keep hopping you won't fall even if the section of the stone bridge breaks underneath you)

- For the platforming, i think with the better camera and controls that the platforming in the game is great.  Even if you screw up a jump, the game is extremely forgiving in that as long as you're holding down the jump button your character will automatically grab onto the ledge of whatever you were jumping for so long as you are anywhere near it.  I rarely fall to my death in the game unless i'm jumping and get hit by something like the rotating spiked beams in the EDIT: Duel Tower (not Tower of Execution lol)

For your last paragraph, LoD contains what are essentially Carrie and Reinhardt's games from C64 but with the redesigned stages, the Foggy Lake stage, Medusa, the Arachnid Queen, the better camera, better controls, the new subweapon system and Reinhardt's whip upgrades.  So if you don't like Cornell's game or his exclusive stages, you can just play Carrie and Reinhardt's games once you unlock them and think of Cornell's game as just being a bonus.

[RichterB]

I read your original review, so it took me a while to find the updates within it, but this is an amazing overview. Maybe the most complete comparison of the games I've seen. Thank you very much. Quite enjoyable. Though your claim of LoD being on par with LoS is likely to raise some eyebrows with some people here. (I personally feel the N64 era is still by far the best 3D efforts).

Anyway, it was good to see you revise your thoughts on some of the Castlevania 64 stages. While 64 is perhaps less expansive and complete, it has its own charms that make it worth playing and pretty darn fun. I liken it to the relationship between Rondo of Blood and Dracula X. I didn't know that Hard Mode added new things. I've mostly played CV64, as it's the one I own, but when I get around to LoD again (which I keep promising myself I will), I'll have to try Hard Mode. It's a shame the Tower of Execution's meat hooks for [rumored/early tech-demoed] Castlevania IV-style grapple-swinging were still not implemented in LoD. I still get the feeling that LoD only packed in about 85-90% of what was originally planned, while CV64 was more like 50-60%.

[DrLight66]

I read your original review, so it took me a while to find the updates within it, but this is an amazing overview. Maybe the most complete comparison of the games I've seen. Thank you very much. Quite enjoyable. Though your claim of LoD being on par with LoS is likely to raise some eyebrows with some people here. (I personally feel the N64 era is still by far the best 3D efforts).

Anyway, it was good to see you revise your thoughts on some of the Castlevania 64 stages. While 64 is perhaps less expansive and complete, it has its own charms that make it worth playing and pretty darn fun. I liken it to the relationship between Rondo of Blood and Dracula X. I didn't know that Hard Mode added new things. I've mostly played CV64, as it's the one I own, but when I get around to LoD again (which I keep promising myself I will), I'll have to try Hard Mode. It's a shame the Tower of Execution's meat hooks for [rumored/early tech-demoed] Castlevania IV-style grapple-swinging were still not implemented in LoD. I still get the feeling that LoD only packed in about 85-90% of what was originally planned, while CV64 was more like 50-60%.

Thanks for the compliments =)

Lords of Shadow is a really good game, but I have a big problem with the game's combat.  The control setup is a mess and whipping the tougher enemies over and over and over and over and over again for what seems like an eternity while they barely flinch as you hit them really annoys me.

For my original Legacy of Darkness review, i wrote it with the intent of having it be featured in the Gamefaqs reviews section so that casual gamers could read about what the game was and why it was so much better than C64.  That's why it was extremely generic.  When i wrote my revised and updated review, i wrote it really for this message board and hardcore Castlevania fans who had most likely played at least one of the two N64 games so that's why i decided to make the review as detailed and specific as possible.  Also having played both games back to back i noticed so many changes and differences that i wanted to mention them while they were still fresh in my mind.

It's not that you have a feeling only 85% to 90% of what was originally planned for Castlevania 64 made it into LoD, it's fact lol as seen here: http://www.unseen64.net/articles/castlevania-64-beta-analysis/

I don't mind that Coller was omitted, since the developers basically turned him into chainsaw Frankenstein in the garden maze which is one of the best parts of both games.  Henry demonstrates how cheap and boring it is to play as a character with a gun anyway.

It would've been cool to have a lot more rpg elements in the game, where you could find new armor, whips for Reinhardt and spells for Carrie.  Even Sypha in Castlevania III had more than one magic attack. 

For the whipping across the meat hooks, i dunno if i'm happy or not that that was left out cause i could see lots and lots of cheap falling deaths from that.  You know come to think of it it is funny though that a lot fo the stuff that was planned for C64 but ultimately left out was later implemented in Lament of Innocence.

[CrashDiary27]

I remember beating CV64 when it came out without a guide or anything. I had no idea you can get a bad ending...I wonder if I got the good or bad one. Anyway, awesome review...good read. Makes me want to pic this up and give it a whirl.

[DrLight66]

Last thing I have to say, and i swear i'm not intentionally bumping my own thread lol, but at the start game menu in Castlevania 64, Konami screwed up and made a huge mistake that was later fixed in Legacy of Darkness.  When you beat the game and save your data after beating either Castlevania 64 or Legacy of Darkness, you are given a "New game" file that contains whatever unlockables (new costumes and hard mode) that you have earned.  In Castlevania 64, let's say you go through the game as Carrie, collect both her purple jewels and beat the game.  You now have a NEW GAME FILE that includes Hard mode and Carrie's alternative costume.  Let's say you select that file and begin playing as Reinhardt on hard mode and save.  Unless you made copies of that initial New Game File, you CANNOT play as Carrie again on hard mode or use her alternative costume unless you go all the way through Reinhardt's game and beat the game again and then save your data to create a new game file all over again, or go through Carrie's default game and unlock the stuff all over again.  Basically, once you select a character and save during his/her game, you are stuck with that character and whatever you selected for difficulty and costume and aren't allowed to begin another game using any of the unlockables until you go through the game all over again and create another post-game credits new game file.

In Legacy of Darkness, when you select any game file, it gives you the option of "load game" or "new game" when you select a file.  So let's say you've unlocked everything, and began playing the game as Reinhardt and saved during his game.  When you select his saved game file at the game menu, you now have the option to either load that game file OR begin a new game to play as any of the other characters with their alternative costumes and/or hard mode.  You aren't stuck having to do another loop of the game and create another "new game file" post end-game credits to be able to use whatever earned unlockable costumes or hard mode difficulty should you want to begin another game with one of the other characters.  Hope that makes sense lol.

[Phoenix7786]

Honestly I liked CV:LoD. I saw it as an honest attempt to fix what was wrong with the original, and at least give us more of the planned content. I liked the new characters (although Henry's gun makes Cornell look like a damn poodle with its instant-hitting, unlimited-range effect). Your review of why the game is better than people give it credit for is right on the money.