Topic: I knew it! Castlevania: Lords of Shadow!(SPOILERS HERE, PLZ USE THE SPOILER TAG)

[Ahasverus]

Wait for it! They can't run out of monsters in the first game... monsters are more than in the most of modern action games, that's a fact, and their location actually made sense . I think it's something to congratulate for.

[Sindra]

Wait for it! They can't run out of monsters in the first game... monsters are more than in the most of modern action games, that's a fact, and their location actually made sense . I think it's something to congratulate for.

But they couldn't have at least made them look unique? I'm serious when I say they looked almost dead-on like they were pulled from LotR.

I'm hoping they steer more towards straight horror-fantasy for the next game, rather than adventure fantasy with some gothic tones.

[Rugal]

Maybe in the next game they'll have a new boss fight with Bilbo and Frodo Baggins tag team.

[thernz]

It's not exactly difficult to make enemies fit their location anyway. It's only an issue with re-use and even then, it would only pop up if well, they were that lazy or didn't care.

[Thunderbrand]

I actually watched LotR's over the holiday weekend, saw the ogres and wargs and was like "Hey....those look.....exactly like the LoS ones. Dammit.That's just lazy."

Shouldn't be a surprise at all that certain enemies are lifted right out of the Tolkien world. There have been MANY references to LotR creatures, weapons, and items in past games, especially SotN: Orcs, Trolls, Wargs, Elven capes/robes, Hador, Feanor, Varda, Nauglamir, Mim, Gurthang, Crissaegrim, Draupnir, Fist of Tulkas, Mablung, Narsil, Tyrfing, etc. List goes on & on...

[Nagumo]

Most of the fantasy monsters are from the first part of the game and they probably put them in because they didn't know for sure if there game was being greenlighted to become a Castlevania game or something. Kind off a shame because the game would probably be more of a Castlevania game if that hadn't happend.

       

[Wallachia]

Haha, lol@ Bilbo and Frodo tag team fight )) And the spider design in the game, though great and creepy, is straight up Shilob from RotK. But yes, as someone said, I think Cox is pacing himself.. so that he has plenty of other monsters and bosses to use in future games... Mummy, Frank, Giant Bat, Slogra (who I am betting will be in the DLC), Gaibon, Legion, Final Armor/Giant Knights, Peeping Eye, Puwexil, Doppleganger..

actually, there aren't a whole lot more than those, I think..

[Ahasverus]

Most of the fantasy monsters are from the first part of the game and they probably put them in because they didn't know for sure if there game was being greenlighted to become a Castlevania game or something. Kind off a shame because the game would probably be more of a Castlevania game if that hadn't happend.     

I think it's unanimous the opinion that the game's first chapters are the weakest (in my opinion, the game starts with Cornell)

[Sindra]

I think it's unanimous the opinion that the game's first chapters are the weakest (in my opinion, the game starts with Cornell)

Which further backs up my theory that LoS was meant to be it's own game until around 1/3rd of the way through or so when Konami somehow snatched it up and decided to make it a Castlevania game. Then it was a scramble of "Ok, lets shove all these things in there on top of it and see what we can do!"

And I have no problem with Tolkien being a reference for anything, really (like names of objects). But being a reference and being copy pasta from the film is a bit different, don'tcha think?

[X]

I agree. The first three chapters of the game were a real drag...in a very bad way. Oh, how many hiatus' did I go through before I finally knuckled down and get through them..? About as many licks as it takes to get to the tootsee roll center of a tootseepop!

-X

[Dremn]

Plus, the scene at the end of Chap 5 level 1 where you see the castle for the 1st time, the music changes and you head down the snowy path...that scene alone makes the game an instant win in my book 

Yea, I had to stop and stare at that scene for awhile. It just looked incredible. :,)

[DragonSlayr81]

And I have no problem with Tolkien being a reference for anything, really (like names of objects). But being a reference and being copy pasta from the film is a bit different, don'tcha think?

Agreed. I love mythology, but what I love more is different takes on mythology. There are many different depictions of what elves look like. It's a much bolder move to try to add a bit of personal flair when designing monsters than deciding to stick with a popular look. I mean, they could've done some cool things to make the Ogre look unique. They could've given him horns, a third eye, make him half-undead(like a zombie ogre, which probably would've fit better within the CV series), tusks, two pairs of arms, and so on. I mean, the CV series has done that type of thing for a long time. They "re-imagined" the look of the demon Leviathan(which looks nothing like mythical description). Death's "other forms" like in SothN, CotM and HoD are pretty imaginative too. I think Dracula's "take" and transformation into his demon forms is also pretty imaginative(he doesn't just turn into a giant bat, but a DEMON). You don't always have to style literally close to the popular source material(or A popular source material). Persephone, which is a demon/godess of lore could be depicted as an evil, demonic maid. Be as hokey as it seems, the fact that they had the balls to say, "Let's make her a maid and go against any mythological stereotype just to show a NEW look to this mythological figure!", has gained more respect from me than "Oh, let's just design a monster based on the most basic description of the monster! And when we design something like, say, a goblin, do something really Tolkien-looking!".

[Inccubus]

Shouldn't be a surprise at all that certain enemies are lifted right out of the Tolkien world. There have been MANY references to LotR creatures, weapons, and items in past games, especially SotN: Orcs, Trolls, Wargs, Elven capes/robes, Hador, Feanor, Varda, Nauglamir, Mim, Gurthang, Crissaegrim, Draupnir, Fist of Tulkas, Mablung, Narsil, Tyrfing, etc. List goes on & on...

The only reason I don't use that as an excuse myself is because about 90% of those references were added by the localization team in the west and don't exist in the original Japanese release. Still, there isn't anything fundamentally wrong with the use of some of these creatures. I think it's pretty clear the problem for the older fans is the fact that they were used in place of perfectly good castlevania enemies. Enemies who's inclusion would have gone far in making the game feel more castlevania-ish.

[Kingshango]

To this games credit, at least we got a diffrent design of Satan.

Every other game I've played with Satan in it he has the exact same design, this is actually the fist time I've seen Satan in a game look like a fallen angel. Mercurysteam could have easly used the basic generic devil diesign use everywhere else but didn't and I have to applaud them at least for that.


Even if Satan looked like a hellish cross between Orochimaru and Sephiroth.

[Thunderbrand]

The only reason I don't use that as an excuse myself is because about 90% of those references were added by the localization team in the west and don't exist in the original Japanese release. Still, there isn't anything fundamentally wrong with the use of some of these creatures. I think it's pretty clear the problem for the older fans is the fact that they were used in place of perfectly good castlevania enemies. Enemies who's inclusion would have gone far in making the game feel more castlevania-ish.

True, but then again, enemies like Orcs, Wargs, Trolls, Goblins, etc. are pretty common in many, many action/adventure/fantasy games. They have basically become generic enemies that are widely used in all kinds of games/books, etc.