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

[Ridureyu]

Are you trying to claim that all DLC is terrible and inferior?  Just checking, because that seems to be the tone.  "Hey look, there were some great expansion packs" doesn't mean "All expansion packs were better than all DLC."  Especially when the difference is usually, I dunno... driving to a store.

And the DLC I mentioned? Those all cost as much as the original game.  One new town type and about five new creature types in Heroes 3 cost $20.  The same thing as DLC would have been $10.  Wheeeee.

[Vampire Killer]

It would have been better if it were only 8 hours long, LoS had so much boring filler and was so poorly constructed I just wanted it to end. Look at Portal 2. That game took only 6 hours to finish for many people, and it has incredible attention to detail and offers a much more memorable experience. Quality of quantity.

Portal 2 and LoS are COMPLETELY different games. What is good for one game is not necessarily good for another.  That's like me saying that I can play through a game of Pac-Man DX in about 10 minutes, and so since I enjoy Pac-Man DX so much, LoS should follow suit.

Not to mention that LoS is the most beautiful game I've played this gen sans Red Dead Redemption. LoS has "incredible attention to detail" in spades. In the environment, character models, menus, story, ect..., LoS is incredibly detailed.

Honestly, I think this one just comes down to opinion, or maybe just attention span.  There were so many wow moments throughout LoS where I was not only impressed, but in truly awe of it's beauty. Saying a game like LoS would've "been better if it were only 8 hours long" means an enormous amount of the game simply wouldn't be there, and thus I would've missed out on some serious enjoyment.

Just out of curiosity, how many games do you play, and how often? I ask because most of the people I know that play a large amount of games (meaning they frequently are playing games new to them), tend to miss out on most of the details I notice when I play some of the same titles, as well as being more likely to get bored easily with a game if it goes beyond the 8 hour mark.  Although, perhaps you're just a busy person, and don't have the time. But then, for me at least, that would mean I would just be able to play the same game longer, which I enjoy. So once again, attention span seems to be the culprit.

[Munchy]

In these days of devs selling single player games for $60 that take little more than 8 hours to complete, it was refreshing to see LoS be such a long game.  Kind of like Resident Evil 4.

I agree about Claudia though. She really made me want to choke a bitch.

The difference between RE4 and LoS for me was that there were few if any aggravating bits of RE4; it was a blast to play the entire way through. On the other hand, LoS had so much wall-shimmying and grind-to-a-halt puzzle nonsense that there were few parts I really enjoyed, those being the Castle and the parts just before and after it (Veros Woods, Baba Yaga's domain). It simply does not have the pacing or well-planned design that RE4 does. Not that it's a fair comparison, considering how long RE4 took to make and that MercurySteam is new to this genre of game.

In the end, yeah, it's opinion, like you said.

[Ahasverus]

@Vampire Killer: I agree with you, if LoS had been 8 hrs long I'm sure it wouldn't feel that massive and surely praise would be less. Some games just NEED to be large to fully embrace their scale, like Red Dead and castlevania

[Renonsgoods]

Outside of maybe the Lycan's section in the first act, I really didn't feel like the game dragged on much if at all.  There are a few chapters early on that could easily have been cut, but once the proceedings moved onto the Dark Keep I found that everything flowed very well.  Then again, of course,how much one enjoyed his/her playtime in-game is what ultimately decides whether or not the 15-20 hour playthrough was "Awesome!" or if it "dragged on WAAAY too long".  As such, it's my opinion that play-through length generally plays very little part in determining whether or not someone likes this game.

[Ahasverus]

Yeah we all agree the Agharta section was not the best one, it became dull really fast and some levels were plain bad (first three levels, I'm looking at you) but I think since the stone titan it just became better (the two towers was great and then cornell and then.. yeah you know, the rest of the game was awesome)

[darkwzrd4]

Yes, chapter two dragged.  It shouldn't have been so long.  They could have left out certain parts.  Also, they could have left out two stages in chapter six (the castle gate and the maze garden).  Those two levels were meaningless.  I mean at the end of the maze garden level you wind up back in front of the castle entrance where you were at the beginning of the previous stage.  When I finished the maze garden and realized where it ended I thought to myself: "those two stages were entirely meaningless.  All that for the key to the front door?  Why not just break through the door using shadow magic?"

Aside from the dragged out chapter 2 and those two levels in chapter six, the game was fantastic.

By the way, this Saturday is April 30th, which I believe is when Resurrection is suppose to come out.  Any news on whether that has changed?

[Ahasverus]

I thought i was the only one that felt the gardens and the Castle gate bad :O Even if the gate was visually stuning it really bothered me, and the gardens' camera was a mess, I think they wanted to revamp the 64'vania's gardens atmosphere but it just didn't work this time. And why would Carmilla hide the key to her fortress in a statue with the easiest puzzle in the country? Not very smart for the queen of vampires.

So, in conclusion for Cox and Team (Who just confirmed to a spanish magazine they are working in "A new, ultrasecret triple-A game that will be da shit "--With those exact words, only in spanish- ) most of Agharta was bad, the first two levels were bad and the castle gate and gardens were bad, the titan graveyard was not brillaint either. Besides that, you are in the right track

Am I the only one that thinks they really should make the narrative more-in game and less "cutscene-only"? If you skipped the cutscenes you wouldn't get more story than CV1  videogames are really moving forwards storytelling you know? Nowadays the characters are developed also in-game, a great example is Arkham Asylum,. sure it has great cutscenes but the narrative NEVER abandons the game even during the fights.

[Munchy]

Am I the only one that thinks they really should make the narrative more-in game and less "cutscene-only"? If you skipped the cutscenes you wouldn't get more story than CV1   videogames are really moving forwards storytelling you know? Nowadays the characters are developed also in-game, a great example is Arkham Asylum,. sure it has great cutscenes but the narrative NEVER abandons the game even during the fights.

I agree here. It would make the story feel far less intrusive on the game. So long as Gabriel doesn't have some head-set equivalent that causes him to be unable to fight like in Gears of War, I'm down with that idea.

Also, MercurySteam, don't kill off cool NPC characters so quickly! (Excluding Claudia. She sucked.) Baba Yaga and Pan should have stuck around a while more.

[Vampire Killer]

And why would Carmilla hide the key to her fortress in a statue with the easiest puzzle in the country? Not very smart for the queen of vampires.

Meh, that's just a videogame being a videogame. It's one of those types of things, as found in 99% of every other videogame ever made, where you have to kind of ignore the silliness of it. It's made to give you a goal and a sense of accomplishment, and so that you have to actually "play" the game, instead of just running through it.

I thought i was the only one that felt the gardens and the Castle gate bad :O Even if the gate was visually stuning it really bothered me, and the gardens' camera was a mess

At first, the Maze Garden's camera really annoyed the heck outa me, but I eventually realized that it was probably made so "annoying" on purpose. Fact is, the Maze Garden's actually felt like being in a maze. Granted, it's a small one, but it still made us all feel lost for a bit, which is what a maze is supposed to do.  If the camera had been simply top-down or had a map been offered the maze aspect itself would have been ridiculously easy. So you had to wonder around a maze trying to find the way out/forward? Cox and team would probably say "mission accomplished". Hooray for unexpected challenge I say!

My most hated part of any LoS stage? That freaking area in the Titan Graveyard, where you had to find the second crest fragment. The one where you have to find that cave by blindly pushing right at the end of that path. I was lost here for several hours due to some part of the character model getting stuck on the opening and not letting me into the hidden cave, so I thought there was nothing there. F-U for that one MS!!

[Flame]

Titan graveyard had some very annoying platforming too. And THOSE DAMN CREEPING COFFINS...

[crisis]

F-U for that one MS!!

[Harrycombs]

So once again, attention span seems to be the culprit.

I strongly doubt that. I play lots of RPGs that are by far longer than LoS, its just that LoS feels like its far too long and padded. And really, I was never in "awe" of the game's beauty. It was a cliche tolkeinesque fantasy world with little originality. It really didn't look particularly good. Devil May Cry 4 is still a significantly better looking game in my opinion, just because the art direction was more interesting. Speaking of Devil May Cry 4, I happily spent dozens of hours playing and replaying that game. It was far from perfect, but even when it cheaply reused its earlier levels it never reached that level tedium LoS had. Perhaps it was because the combat was actually fun.

LoS has "incredible attention to detail" in spades. In the environment, character models, menus, story, ect..., LoS is incredibly detailed.

The character models were pretty poor in my opinion. Claudia looked especially terrible. Gabriel looked great, but it felt like they neglected everyone else, because the rest of the cast looked significantly worse than he did. The scenes where he is talking with Marie are almost laughable because of how bad Marie looks (and how bad the script is).

Some games just NEED to be large to fully embrace their scale, like Red Dead and castlevania

Why does Castlevania need to feel huge? You never really get that feeling when playing the classics, they are all very tight. CV64 seemed to have the right sense of scale.

[Munchy]

So once again, attention span seems to be the culprit.

Yeah, in my case I wouldn't deny this. There are many RPGs and longer games that I have no patience for whatsoever; it's why I hate things like Warhammer, WoW, and so on.

But then again, that is a bit of a blanket accusation, though it would thoroughly apply to me. There are many games I've heavily enjoyed beyond the 8 hour mark (God Hand, RE4, Breath of Fire 3, Secret of Mana games) and many more I'm sad didn't last past that point (the new Splatterhouse). I think it comes down ultimately to the enjoyability of the parts that comprise the 12+ hour game. Again, in LoS's case, there were a lot of little problems that added up and kept me from enjoying the game, such as the puzzles that grind the game to a halt and the way excessive use of wall shimmying instead of actual jump-platforming.

[Flame]

Why does Castlevania need to feel huge? You never really get that feeling when playing the classics, they are all very tight. CV64 seemed to have the right sense of scale.

As far back as 3 we were trekking through the Transylvanian countryside to reach the castle. And Bloodlines alone spanned almost all of Europe. And one could MAYBE argue Simon's quest. Thing is, they never feel as "huge" because they are, especially since IGA took over- confined entirely to the castle. He has never once tried to tackle OTHER places like bloodlines did. Even in Bloodlines sequel, Portrait, he cleverly slithered around that by using the portraits which took you to different areas and shit. A really shitty substitute for Bloodlines' traveling.

I myself like a Castlevaia game that is about the journey to the castle, and THEN the trek through it to Dracula.