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

[thernz]

Well, yes I love the Jiangshi too. It is reason enough for Large Cavern. I would love to see more stuff like bonus bosses in the games.

With SoTN, I thought that despite reworking itself with an inverted castle, that castle was still better than PoR or OoE's "new" areas. With SoTN, the level design was pretty much completely different. The way you traveled it was completely reversed. The game became even more open-ended with a ton of optional paths and the enemy placement in the level design was significantly different from the regular castle. With PoR and OoE, the new areas were more or less rearrangements of old areas. Of course, with SoTN, the new interesting layouts were probably accidental, but it still lets on a ton of more interesting enemies and bosses in terms of placement and atmosphere than PoR and OoE did.

[Ridureyu]

SOTN's inverted castle was a nice idea, but failed on many levels. Because you could trvael everywhere, difficulty (except in Galamoth) had to be "even."  Thus, the difficulty really drops to practically nothing very soon, making about half of the bosses immense pushovers.  Then we have the problem of music - Inverted Castle has what, five tunes, max?  Four?  Not to mention that it reaches one of the banes of all metroidvanias: "Wow, you're at the halfway point! Okay, we're done with the plot now until you reach the boss."

Try not to look at it with nostalgia.  SOTN is probably the best of the Metroidvania games, but right about the time you reach the inverted castle it starts to get pretty shakey.  At least in POR and OOE, they're simply reused textures, not the entire map.  You could make a case for the topsy-turvy circus level being the same both ways, but note that it's the weakest of the "new" stages.  Dark Academy has much less outside space and more complex structures, and even 13th Street is even structured differently than City of Haze.  It also features the best werewolf since Chronicles' She-Wolf.  And yet, in spite of this, PoR's four levels feel weak.  It certainly doesn't hel;p that they also got hit with "The plot's over now. Lulz!"

But yeah, 99% of the problems with SOTN somehow originate in that inverted castle.  And why, why are Shaft and Dracula such pushovers?  Shaft is less a boss fight and more a contest as to whether you can kill him in under two seconds.




And wow. We went off-topic.  Uh, um, hu uh...


IN LORDS OF SHADOW, WHY ARE ALL THOSE ROMANIANS SUDDENLY SCOTTISH?

[paulstanley]

Most bosses are pushovers in the Inverted Castle, but you can't deny that the pure novelty it brings to traversing the castle is at all a bad thing. The same goes for the truly open-ended progression it provides. Now you have all the powers, and the whole castle is waiting to be explored, and now you choose where to begin and end this exploration. The inverted design actually is very clever (probably accidentally, like thernz said), because it allows you make extensive use of previously almost unused powers (such as the super jump and bat form), not to mention that there are new, deadlier enemies (I'm probably the only one who thinks that the Inverted Castle, minus most bosses, is an actual challenge), all of which significantly change previous areas so they might as well be new. The only remaining things are the layouts, and the tiles, which have had various colour filters applied which is quite effective at changing the atmosphere (with help from the new music, of course).

The lack of tracks is the only real problem I can think of in the Inverted Castle. I don't mind less plot, because we already know all that we should by that point, and plot isn't all that important anyway. Besides, the last scenes with Alucard and Dracula are great enough to make up for any lack of plot.

It shouldn't be comparable to Portrait of Ruin, which had horrendous level design to begin with, and just regurgitated that level design to make four new (somewhat altered) stages. The werewolf wasn't bad, but otherwise, the stages really had no redeeming value, unlike Symphony's Inverted Castle. I don't particularly like Ecclesia's reusing of some stages, either, but at least it did good with them by having significantly different layout and enemies/enemy placement (the swamp was basically Ruvas Forest, but it had those segments that slowed you down and the hills, besides the different enemies; they at least tried to make it different enough so that it isn't a total retread).

Zero nostalgia in this post, by the way.

[Renonsgoods]

Same with LoS.  We CV fans like to complain too much......and argue over things that basically boil down to personal preference.

[Flame]

IN LORDS OF SHADOW, WHY ARE ALL THOSE ROMANIANS SUDDENLY SCOTTISH?

I recall only the abbot speaking of all the people... And Carmilla is from wherever Gabriel comes from. Laura theres no explanation for, but shes a vampire. that explains anything.

[thernz]

SoTN has a general flaw with bosses. They're all pretty badly designed, though yeah, Inverted Castle's have mostly even more so simplistic designs. It's probably better they all quickly die. Still a flaw, but nyoho, not really level design-related. The fact that Alucard has a slew of abilities that are more than enough to dodge anything a game boss would give him just makes it easier. I can't really think of a way to accommodate the mist. I guess in that case it would've been better to just have the bat and have mist stay as a quick-dodge move.

In the Inverted Castle, the drastically different enemy placements were more than enough to compliment the radically different structure of the layouts. And because of how good SoTN's architecture is, even when flipped, the layouts were interesting. They were in distinct contrast to the normal castle. With SoTN, the new areas at least force you to use your abilities in vastly different ways. The alien structuring of the inverted castle gives off very rugged, interesting terrain and flow, distinct from the normal castle. Traveling through PoR's and OoE's later map layouts in comparison is just more the same. Theoretically, if you cobbled up those inverted segments up and painted them in new visuals, they would be far more "new" than PoR and OoE's attempts.

In PoR and OoE, they may be new maps in some sense, but they are basically the same layouts in principle, and the fact that those were mostly boring in the first place doesn't help much! Both 13th Street and City of Haze use the same dull hallways, the same dull vertical rooms with minor tweaks here and there. While you are traveling in a new map, it's arguably the same affair. The enemy placement still isn't sufficient enough to cause new challenges and ways to approach the environment, unlike SoTN's inverted castle with the Clock Tower being the most obvious example. PoR and OoE is basically concealed cobbled copy and paste. SoTN does its thing earnestly and with different, intriguing enemy placement, well.

can you really play any regular and inverted area in sotn then one in por and say the one in sotn is less new in layout and enemy placement/design

Does LoS even take place in Wallachia? I mean, it doesn't look like Wallachia at all. LOL

[Flame]

Takes place in generic Mc fantasy land methinks.

I dont think there really is any way to place LoS' setting on any map. though "somewhere in Europe" is a good guess.

[Kingshango]

Somewhere in the remote lands of southern Europe?

[DragonSlayr81]

IN LORDS OF SHADOW, WHY ARE ALL THOSE ROMANIANS SUDDENLY SCOTTISH?

It's the same joke with movies that depict ancient Rome and Greece. Why are Romans, Spartans and Trojans all speaking in in various Brittish accents? LOL!

[Flame]

You know, you may hate Mel Gibson all you want, but you've got to admit- he's just about the only one who got the right idea.

A whole movie, spoken in freaking Aramaic, Latin, and Hebrew. NO BRITISH ROMANS HERE!

[Ahasverus]

You know, you may hate Mel Gibson all you want, but you've got to admit- he's just about the only one who got the right idea.

A whole movie, spoken in freaking Aramaic, Latin, and Hebrew. NO BRITISH ROMANS HERE!

And Mayan! (Apocalypto)
Think LoS takes place in various countries, I think Agharta was Portugal or Spain, the vampire land wuold be Wallachia of course and the Necromancer's land... the necromancer land, you know, the otherworld

[darkwzrd4]

And Mayan! (Apocalypto)
Think LoS takes place in various countries, I think Agharta was Portugal or Spain, the vampire land wuold be Wallachia of course and the Necromancer's land... the necromancer land, you know, the otherworld

No, I think the land of the dead where the necromancers are is on earth.  I mean in the stage load screen, it says that the land of the dead is Hell on earth.

[DragonSlayr81]

Part of it taking place in Spain would make sense, considering the team is Spanish. 

[Munchy]

Length is such a good measure of quality, guys. Oh wait, no it's not. Lords in particular is at least twice as long as it ought to be, considering what kind of ideas and mechanics (read: none) it has to offer. Even if you liked the game, don't tell me you didn't feel it dragging in places like Agharta.

Yep. They could have easily made a quality game that was only one disc long (see Bayonetta), but the way it is, it feels incredibly bloated at points. It's a shame because it feels like a huge chore to replay. Not as much as, say, Curse of Darkness, but oh man, I would not complain at all if the sequel forgot Agharta existed.

"Takes place in generic Mc fantasy land methinks."

Yeah, this was another problem I had with the game. I don't give a crap about this Agharta shit; give me Wallachia, Transylvania, any of Eastern Europe.

[Tanatra]

"add more"
-cv fans

*Developer adds more*

"Whah, whah! This game is way too long!"
-CV Fans