Topic: Opinions on Lords of Shadow

[Nightale]

LOS is obviously good game, I didnt make it to the end but I guess I was quite far at least at half of the game. I am old school myself, raised on NES castlevania and I don't know I think this affected me.  I prefer every 2D (SOtN, GBA versions, DS versions) over LOS for some reason and I finished all of them.

I think I missed classic leveling, exp for monsters in LOS, but it was fun to play game.

[Rugal]

My opinion is LoS is a pile of shit that should never have existed, a stain on a otherwise legendary series.

What this guy said, but I'd also like to add: This game fuckin sucks.

[X]

My opinion on LoS still hasn't changed in all this time. I'm still butt-hurt from the first time. And when I say that it's: Square peg through a round hole kinda butt hurt. 'Lords of Shadow of Colossus of War' is a far more accurate title for this game then Castlevania would ever be. Especially since that's where both the combat (GoW) and titan battles (Shadow of the Colossus) came from. The game did not utilize them in any way to make them unique. It felt tacked on and somewhat lazy. And don't even get me started on the use of QTEs. That was stupid. They were done in such a way that I couldn't figure them out. Took me who knows how long just to finish that first QTE fight because the enemy would regain its health if I failed (strike 1 on the game mechanics). Also didn't care for the sponge enemies. One or two hits for them to die should have been enough. But they wanted it to be more like GoW. The first titan battle was ridiculous. The whole Hollywood in your face moment really gave me trouble as the camera was right down that Gab's feet and he was mostly blocking my field of vision. so much so that I couldn't tell when the titan's projectiles were coming at me. I failed who knows how many times in that one fight alone. When I finally did get on by that part I was doing the whole Shadow of the Colossus thing; climbing all over the titan and stabbing its weak point sigels (strike 2 for poor implementation of camera usage and lack of originality on the fight itself). Strike 3 would be had on the Dracolich fight itself. Couldn't figure out where to go or where the weaknesses were. I had had enough at that point and never looked back. Either at that game or it's gone-downhill sequels.

The only plus side to LoS was the detail of the environments. Definitely a high score on that field. But even then it was still lacking something that would have made it feel just that much more like CV. But I guess that's what happens when the graphics are outclassed by everything else that had gone wrong with the game.

[Belmont Stakes]

For me there are some things that really move me enough to say that it's not a failure or say it's total suckery. There are indeed some very big flaws in the game to which I understand the gripes of some people.

First the bad.
1.There are some issues with collision detection. Watch Gabriel when he dies sometimes he will bump off the ground and it really looks sloppy. Also you can get caught in corners or little nooks and crannies making it difficult to ward off baddies which ties into my next point.
2. Poor camera, the ghost of CV64 strikes again. This game would have benefited from the improved camera in LOS2 (which also had it's good points) but sadly they couldn't get it done until the second game.
3. Some of backgrounds were just boring. The Land of the Lycans was something you had to overcome rather than take in as to get to the prize of the vampires castle which was very well done but could have been better.
4. Lack of classic enemies. Yes you had werewolves, vampires, spiders, ghouls (GHOULS!!!!) headless zombies, knights (should have thrown axes too but they were great anyway) coffin monsters, skeleton knights etc. all well done. But there were no fishmen, bats(that you can kill but can get hit by), skeledragons/bone pillars, the dreaded Medusa's and she was terrible in the second LOS. A little bit of LOI or COD's enemies would have fit nicely updated graphics of course. You don't get to fight the actual Reaper and it seems like it suffered from the exploration/combat conflict (Egoraptor).
5. The platforming namely the rappelling and swinging was for the most part fail proof.
6. Sometimes the control seems to stick. Maybe that was the controller itself but as an example the clocktower was a pain when jumping from moving platforms only to have the controls stick and you walk off the edge. Or you are hanging from a wall want to get down and you immediately jump back up to cling to the wall.
We all know how cutscenes, QTE's and DLCs sometimes detract so onward and upward.

Now the good stuff
1 I liked the music. There were some really nice pieces in this, Belmont's Theme, Midst the Chaos, Relics of the Brotherhood, The black knight, the silver warrior, the swamp troll and a few others. No Yamane but Oscar Arujo did a marvelous job.
2 The combat had its high points. They could have tweaked the sync block to make it a bit more balanced it seemed way to easy at times but it worked. I liked some of Gabriels combos, the boots, gauntlet and wings had some really cool aspects to them as well.
3.I loved the Castle it made it feel closer to a Classic Vania. It was a nice dark atmosphere. Although the mirror puzzles could have been done a little better I liked them. The transition into night once you are in the main hall was very unnerving and the music for entering the hall and the sunset was very fitting.
4. Though many might say the puzzles broke the pacing of the game I did not feel that way with maybe the exception of the chess game. I thought for the most part they were enjoyable.

It seems like with all games I wish they would have expanded on the stuff that I feel was working but oh well.

[Belmontoya]

LOS was one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences I've ever had.

I loved the motivation of Gabriel and how his fault was his inability to accept the loss of Marie.

The power of love to a fault is at the root of this game and that is what is so beautiful about it.
Grief can become an all consuming poison. That is a trait of the real Dracula and it's a nice parallel made in LOS.

MS could have done things to make this game feel more like an assumed Castlevania game. But I'm comfortable letting it be what it is and loving it for that. the sequels were dire... But that first LOS was magical.

It borrowed from games that borrowed from other games like CV. So I don't really care about that argument. It was a beautiful work of art and it should be appreciated for that.

[Gecko]

I love the LoS games overall. The first game was PERFECT as far as I'm concerned. I thought it perfectly melded the combat style from LoI (another game I love in the series),  with more believable and interesting stage design and platforming mixed with some puzzles. The story, I thought was brilliant, and the voice work superb. Easily the best voice cast in the series.

Mirror of Fate is a shorter and simpler game, but I love it! It slightly simplified the combat from the first game, and adjusted it for a side scrolling perspective. I liked the story, and although the story is told through three different characters, gameplay wise it feels constant between them, with your levels transferring, and similar abilities being present in following characters. I enjoyed the classic feel of fighting through a moody castle and fighting Dracula at the end. It was really refreshing for the LoS games.

LoS 2 started strong, but got really stupid later on. It would be cool if later Dracula could take on the Golgotha Guards instead of having to sneak. He's powered up Dracula! He doesn't need stealth at that point! Plus the ending was pretty blah, and unsatisfying. I was pretty disappointed upon first beating it. There are fantastic mo.ents, but it ended up being the weakest game to me.

1 and then Mirror of Fate are near perfect to me though. I like the LoS universe overall.

[beingthehero]

I found the weird arrogance of Cox-kun and MercurySteam to be the most fascinating thing about the Lords series, really.

I had fun with the first game, but it never "felt" like a Castlevania title at all despite the name-drops.

[TheTextGuy]

I found the weird arrogance of Cox-kun and MercurySteam to be the most fascinating thing about the Lords series, really.

I had fun with the first game, but it never "felt" like a Castlevania title at all despite the name-drops.

I feel the same way.  It's a decent game in its own right, but it didn't feel Castlevanian in many places despite the team's insistence that they took inspiration from the classics  (especially Super Castlevania IV); I felt the similarities are superficial at best and tenuous at worst.  The name drops do not help when many of the characters are in name only or only share surface elements of their namesakes.

[Guy Belmont]

I think it was a breath of fresh air, as IGA  Ran AD in to the ground with his arrogance  and thinking  he knew best for a franchise that he never started even though he acts like it.

And I never felt like I was out of the games world, unlike Most of IGA’s games. It’s like LOI  there we are it’s 1094, look at the gothic architecture wow, I’m in the mood now and… I just found a can of tomato soup that looks like it came out of a Japanese convenience store. But ok let’s move on to COD its  1479, ok I’m here its all so old and gothic .... and there’s a Pachinko machine right there, so it’s sort of hard to really believe in his games after that.
As LOS you always felt that you were in that world.  And it even made sense of the things that were odd, like heats filling your sub weapons.  Cox tried to save AD.
Would I have liked to see an AD game with a  Belmondo who Uses the real Vampire Killer ,
Yes  But LOS Was By far  better origin story, then all that with stones and Mathias Cronqvist, it was just paretic  , and what happen to the whip being holy  and all that with death, I mean it was like he was drunk and high when he came up with that.
 This was meant to be the origin of the Belmondos vs Dracula, and  the whip. But instead  what we got was just a Pathetic  excuses for a Story, and I find it odd that it was not the end of IGA dealing with AD, as it was really bad.
 Unlike LOS that seemed to get better and grow the more  time went on.
 And unlike IGA Cox seemed to know more about his world, unlike IGA just Jumping from one idea to another, and giving us shady details.  Like the demon Caste war, best idea he ever came up with,  he just threw it to the ground and for an event that was meant to be HUGE we really got nothing.
 I’d be lying if I didn’t think IGA had some Great Games and some really good ideas but he just kept making the same game over and over, and kept pushing the Belmondo out in favour of his little pets Alucard and Soma.
The thing is most saw LOD For the first time and the Fan Boys  were all like “It no IGA me mad” But then that's fan boy logic.
 But the thing was AD didn’t belong to IGA he just borrowed, It’s like Cox said “AD belongs to everyone not just one person”

 And I will agree he saved it when AD was dyeing by giving us all something new SOTN, but then he started killing it by just doing SOTN over and over. And Cox gave us something new, the game play was better most of the story was better than a lot of his games.  And yes others say it stole From God of war, and But after playing the first God of war it felt and played very much Like LOI, so pot this is kettle?
Los was Amazing set of games and I for one would have loved to see them handle the main timeline, but sadly it will never be.