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

[GummiCandyful]

I'm not a big fps fan, and i found modern warfare quite good.

The only FPS games I like are BioShock and Resistance. Modern Warfare 2 on the other hand, the story is great, but I've seen so many people praise it just for the multiplayer, which I dislike greatly, because my brother is always hogging the PS3 and plays with his friends, even though he is Prestige 10 level 70, already. Also, I really liked the Special Ops mode, as it's more challenging than the Campaign, IMO. So I guess you could say I don't really hate MW2 itself, just the online mode.

[Aridale]

I think what you mind is that its not you playin it... =P

[Kingshango]

The latest episode of Invisible Walls talks abut Lords of Shadow. No new footage, but there's one spoiler in it.. If you don't wanna know the name of one of the lords of shadow, don't watch it. (At least I think it's new information cause I didn't know about it before..)

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/episode-123-invisible-walls/704060

The episode is 44 minutes long but they talk about Castlevania at the very beginning. The guy who played it doesn't sound overly enthusiastic and he mentions God of War a lot, though maybe it's just his voice that makes him sound like...dunno... a stoner.

Just watched it, totally not surprised that they aren't gonna like it since this is the same site that gave Uncharted 2 a 9.3 for not being innovative and going on the record of saying "No game will get above a 9.3 unless it's innovative." Then weeks later give Modern Warfare 2 a 9.5 and then giving it numerous awards including GOTY.

Also GT is known for spoiling games and Im not surprised that that character is a Lord of Shadow.

[shelverton.]

At the same time, Gametrailers have been fairly generous with their scores on previous Castlevanias, giving Dawn of Sorrow a 9.1, Dracula X Chronicles an 8.4, Order of Ecclesia an 8.8. Heck even Curse of Darkness scored a whoppin 7.9 which it totally does not deserve, not to mention Harmony of Despair which received an equally surprising 7.8.

I don't know who the people behind Invisble Walls are, maybe they're not even the people doing the reviews? Gametrailers have lots of different people - such as Screwattack - doing their own stuff, it seems. I predict Gametrailers giving Lords of Shadow somewhere between 8.0 and 9.0, but I may very well be wrong.

[Kingshango]

One of the IW guy's(Shane Satterfield) is editor and chief at GT so he gives all the reviews a final look before posted on the site.

As for the potential score at GT, they seem to be generous to the Castlevania series including the sub par game's(Judgement and Curse of Darkness)so a 8.0/9.0 score is a safe bet.

Hopefully

[RegalX7]

I usually agree with GameTrailers (in contrast to IGN, GI, etc, which I can't stand most of the time), though I admit I haven't seen a terribly large amount of their reviews... Can't believe they gave HD that high of a score.
This "Invisible Walls" thing is probably a different group than the one that does reviews.

[shelverton.]

The best thing about Gametrailers reviews is that I can actually stand the narrator. I'm really sensitive to annoying voices...
Anyway, I may not agree with all of their reviews, but they're definitely better than that of Gamespot or IGN. And even if I don't agree with their scores sometimes, I like watching their reviews cause they're quite exhaustive and usually tells me everything I need to know about the game.

[Kale]

Yea... afaik, Invisible wall is just a group of people who uploads their vid there, and pretty much became a group. I only like listening to screw attack's stuff and GT's review.

All the invisible wall stuff sucks.

[Nagumo]

I like how they laughed away that having the main character using a whip makes it a Castlevania game.

Also, I never played Shadow of the Colossus, but I think they mean LoS is copying that game not because the bosses are big, but just the fact that the way they are fought against is pretty much the same, only less well done. I mean, if you can admit this game is pretty much using the God of War engine for the battles, then why are people moaning when it is compared to the other? Even the developers are making excuses, like that they are just taking all these stolen elements back, which is the biggest nonsense I ever heard.

During the final boss battle, Gabriel is going to use tear Dracula's head off during a quick time event, totally not stolen from God of War 3 because everyone knows the art of decapitation in video games has been invented by Simon Belmont.

Names are half of Castlevania. You change to many names and it becomes John Randeer the vampire hunter and his sidekick Bobby Grey, who is hunting Dalkas Stockovich. It stops being Castlevania and starts being a cheap ripoff.

The only names that really matter are the surnames, its not like they couldn't have called the main character just Gabriel and make a few references to the Bemonts here and there. Who cares if you play with a guy named Belmont.   

[JR]

The strategy guide is now available for pre-order at a few places (Gamestop, Amazon UK site). Wish the freaking Europe LE would come out already.

I really do hope this game isn't as derivative as some sources are saying. I want a fun Castlevania, but the last thing I want is an unoriginal one. The series hasn't seen much in sales over the years, but it's as if it's somehow maintained an unspoken respect among the industry (especially reviewers) this whole time. Hopefully that doesn't change if people think the game borrowed too many ideas from other franchises. If that happens, it could still be a success...kind of the same way Darksiders was.

[e105beta]

Okay then, they could keep the original names, doesn't change the fact that it could've still fit inside the canon..

You don't know that. Not if Gabriel becomes Dracula. Not if Cornell is really the old beastman. I can already see a fair amount of things that contradict the canon. The argument, "well those can be changed to fit into the canon" is exactly my point. That's the restrictiveness I'm talking about. I have no problem if a developer WANTS to use the continuity, but they should have the freedom to not use it as well.

Now you're starting to exaggerate a bit..

Not really. Take Dawn of Sorrow a few more steps in the direction it's going and you could get really far from Castlevania.

You can say the same for just about any other game series..

Most game series don't have an absolute canon that spans 11 plus games. Every game adds more restrictions.

Origin stories are exciting, I agree, but having game after game being a "reboot" isn't what I envision Castlevania to be like. Castlevania is unique enough to not have to do that.

You're strawmanning what I said. The freedom to make reboots doesn't mean that every game is going to be a reboot.

Ac!d says something along the lines of "join Snake in this brand new stand-alone story in the MGS saga!" and possibly a few others.

I'll give you this one, though I will say it's HARDLY common.

It'd be unnecessary for reasons I've already stated. I think what I'm saying is perfectly reasonable; they can continue the main timeline, while also producing stand-alone projects like LoS so it doesn't get too clustered & everyone is happy. As opposed to making each game from now on in it's own universe, so to speak. Something like that would work if the CV license didn't belong to Konami anymore & various other companies could have their take on it. If that was the case, then that idea would be excellent as we would see many varied games in different styles.

I never claimed that every game HAS to be in it's own timeline. I argue from the point that if a developer wants to build in the current timeline, they should be able to. If they want to make their own one-shot game, they should. If they want to make a sequel to a "stand alone" then they should be able to. The point is, once you have 2 or 3 games in the Gabriel Castlevania universe, it stops being "stand alone" and becomes its own continuity

At the end of the day, none of what we say really matters, since Konami is gonna do what they want with the series anyway. All we can do is sit back & see what they come up with.

True.

[DragonSlayr81]

The only names that really matter are the surnames, its not like they couldn't have called the main character just Gabriel and make a few references to the Bemonts here and there. Who cares if you play with a guy named Belmont.   

Yeah, as long as there are Belmonts and Dracula, it's easy naming for the CV series. I mean, most of the names other than the Belmonts and Dracula(and known historic/literary references) were "original names". Joachim Armster, Cornell, Charles Vincent, Walter Bernhard, Sypha Belnades and such don't sound "un-Castlevania-ish". It's not like they started to use characters named, "Wargraf Thulegood" or "Elimodius Fraggenthog". THOSE would be un-Castlevania sounding names. Given the names we have, it's easy to see what type of names would fit, and which name wouldn't. Perhaps some names inspired by Biblical characters(Joseph Belmont, Gloria Belnades) or generally common European names, (Victor, Edward, Steven, Abigail, Gretchen, Leonard, Marcus, Dominic, Alexander, Diana). You could also research some historic/litarary figures to add into the series(Clara Geisslerin, Fritz Haarmann, Lord Ruthven). It's not hard, actually.

[GummiCandyful]

At the same time, Gametrailers have been fairly generous with their scores on previous Castlevanias, giving Dawn of Sorrow a 9.1, Dracula X Chronicles an 8.4, Order of Ecclesia an 8.8. Heck even Curse of Darkness scored a whoppin 7.9 which it totally does not deserve, not to mention Harmony of Despair which received an equally surprising 7.8.

Well, for me, CoD is worth somewhere around the 7.0-7.8 range because it was playable, and I found it to be a pretty solid game, despite what other people may think. HoD, however, does not even deserve that score, as I've heard some pretty bad things about the gameplay and whatnot.

GT, IW, and even Screw Attack have some pretty lame reviewers, especially Studdering Craig whom I cannot stand. Also, Game Informer is now on my hate list because some of the games that got pretty good review scores that I own/want scored lower than a 7 or 8, plus I haven't forgotten about that quip of how 'LoS was just another GoW clone'. All I can say is, good thing I didn't renew my subscription to them.

[shelverton.]

Curse of Darkness is certainly not "broken" in any way. I don't think it's unfinished or rushed or anything like that. It does pretty much exactly what the developers wanted it to do, which basically is the problem here. IGA and his team most likely thought they were making a great game and they clearly couldn't see that the level design was lackluster with a capital L. Someone should've taken notice that the game wasn't all that fun to play, but I guess they thought it was. Curse of Darkness is fantastic on paper; Simon's Quest in 3D with the leveling system from the Metroidvanias. The soundtrack is also one of the greatest I have ever heard in my entire life. The lack of fun makes it a 6.5 in my book though. Sooo much wasted potential. But yes, it was definitely playable. I hope the concept is revisited again someday but with a whole lotta more "OOMPH"!

[GummiCandyful]

I totally agree. I mean, even to this day, despite it being five years since then, I have this wishful thinking where Konami might redo the game and improve all of the level designing flaws. But if that doesn't happen, and they end up revisiting Simon's Quest, I'm fine with that. too, though I am still praying for a remake of CVIII.

As for the soundtrack, that was probably my favorite thing about the game (aside from Trevor's appearance), and I know this is a pretty uncommon thing to be heard of, but I honestly find the music better than SoTN's OST. Heck, SCIV and CV III are also better, IMO, but I often see that being said.