Topic: Lords of Shadow Opinions (has Spoilers)

[Thunderbrand]

wow your trying sssooooooooooo hard to establish this as part of the main canon when Cox HIMSELF said that this takes place in a SEPERATE UNIVERSE.
sure you can "try" to connect it but bottom line its in a seperate universe and thus you really shouldn't read to much into this and call BS on stuff

Yes I know. Again, I'm not ignoring the fact that the official word is that it's a separate universe. I get that. I just don't fully agree with it. I always analyze every aspect of CV, and in this particular case it's hard for me personally not to draw parallels between the two timelines. I think it would've been much easier and no questions asked if they just used all new names/characters instead of reusing several.

[Vampire Killer]

Yes I know. Again, I'm not ignoring the fact that the official word is that it's a separate universe. I get that. I just don't fully agree with it. I always analyze every aspect of CV, and in this particular case it's hard for me personally not to draw parallels between the two timelines. I think it would've been much easier and no questions asked if they just used all new names/characters instead of reusing several.

I know what you're saying. Although I know it's all completely new, the fact that it ended the way it did makes a vania fan automatically piece it into the original cannon.

[Thunderbrand]

As far as the game itself, I agree with what many others have said, that it definately starts feeling CV-like around chapter 4, and bigtime in chapter 5. Hell, that one shot at the end of 5-1 where you're running toward Wygol and the castle is looming in the distance with the storm above it...that is just...beautiful. I almost didn't want the level to end. I just stood there for the longest time, just staring.

[crisis]

^
I agree Thunderbird, that part was incredible. I was walking instead of running, tho 

[Thunderbrand]

^
I agree Thunderbird, that part was incredible. I was walking instead of running, tho 

I keep imagining the same exact scene, only with THE castle in the distance. While Carmilla's castle is certainly huge, dark and creepy, it just dosen't have quite the same design/layout/feel that THE castle does. I'd love to see it somehow be in the sequel.

[Akira]

Yay! I finally had the time to beat the game today. Overall I LOVE this game.
Awesome, AWESOME graphics, smooth gameplay; great artwork, character design and voices; fresh and great story, good music... Yep, I'm in love with the game
I got also a new favourite Belmont in my list other than Simon and Leon, although now I don't know if I still can consider Gabriel as a "Belmont".

Yet the game has some faults and things I didn't like tho, i.e. frustrating QTEs. I'd need to record my gameplay or maybe have someone else to play for me while I watch what is happening sometimes, like against Satan, I was paying more attention to those crazy "click while circles are aligned" buttons instead to the fight
Also, music is very good but it was too much "movie-esque", I got nothing memorable for me at least, maybe 2 or 3 songs, like Agartha Waterfalls (that reminded me of The cave/waterfall from CVIV), Belmont's theme and the one in Satan's stage.

Said that... Someone please help me to understand some stuff, because I am still confused about the storyline O_o

Previous timeline (IGA) and Cox timeline are really different? I read some say Cox said his story is not connected to original storyline/timeline, and others say that it is.

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I know this is a "rebirth" of the series but so this means all we knew in previous Castlevanias will be lost?
Do we have two Draculas in CastleVania now? (Mathias and Gabriel?)
I like Mathias as Dracula, maybe since I am a Mathias fangirl, but I liked Gabriel as Dracula too, because everything fits for it on the game story; same as happened with Mathias in Lament.

I know we have references here (Cornell, Gandolfi (just in last name at least, not Rinaldo himself, I think?), Carmilla...), but still...
Maybe I am understanding things wrong, but this may mean Simon, Trevor, Richter and everyone else from old Castlevanias will be "lost"?
I was thinking that maybe this "alternate universe" could be made in two games, this one as the begninning and probably the next could be what happened after the ending in "modern age", like having Lament+Aria/Dawn, but if this ends like that, it may mean as well we will get some characters "lost" in the franchise (Gabriel/Dracul and the rest of the gang).
And that would be like "no more CastleVanias" (lolwut?), or "let's continue new timeline, forget everything about past games" (QQ), or, "take old storyline and fill black holes" (if this, I'd like to see a Julius game )

Ok, sorry, maybe I rant too much, but that was bugging me since I finished the game today and watched the epic ending.

[crisis]

(click to show/hide)

I know this is a "rebirth" of the series but so this means all we knew in previous Castlevanias will be lost?
Do we have two Draculas in CastleVania now? (Mathias and Gabriel?)
I like Mathias as Dracula, maybe since I am a Mathias fangirl, but I liked Gabriel as Dracula too, because everything fits for it on the game story; same as happened with Mathias in Lament.

I know we have references here (Cornell, Gandolfi (just in last name at least, not Rinaldo himself, I think?), Carmilla...), but still...
Maybe I am understanding things wrong, but this may mean Simon, Trevor, Richter and everyone else from old Castlevanias will be "lost"?
I was thinking that maybe this "alternate universe" could be made in two games, this one as the begninning and probably the next could be what happened after the ending in "modern age", like having Lament+Aria/Dawn, but if this ends like that, it may mean as well we will get some characters "lost" in the franchise (Gabriel/Dracul and the rest of the gang).
And that would be like "no more CastleVanias" (lolwut?), or "let's continue new timeline, forget everything about past games" (QQ), or, "take old storyline and fill black holes" (if this, I'd like to see a Julius game )

It's Rinaldo, it says so in the inventory. I don't think the classic timeline is done, as there's room for both 2D & 3D Castlevania. MercurySteam can handle the 3D games while IgaSteam handles the portable titles. Everyone's happy.

[ShinAkumaXX]

AWESOME! Just beat the game tonight! I loved it. Strange the most trouble I had on the game was the fight against Cornell 'The Dark Lord of the Lycans'. But generally I guess I, and probably most people have more trouble early on when figuring out how to master the game play. Super cool ending and can't wait to play a sequel! Hope it's not too long till it's out. Now to collect a few last crystals and try the game on Knight mode.

[Akira]

It's Rinaldo, it says so in the inventory. I don't think the classic timeline is done, as there's room for both 2D & 3D Castlevania. MercurySteam can handle the 3D games while IgaSteam handles the portable titles. Everyone's happy.

Oh, thanks for the hint. So it was Rinaldo.
I didn't pay too much attention to texts, not that I didn't want to, but it was my TV's fault. The texts look really small and weird on it and I wasn't able to read them complete

So we would have two kind of Castlevanias? Not only 2D and 3D, but regarding to timeline/story? o_o (LOL IgaSteam XD)

[Valtiel]

So we would have two kind of Castlevanias? Not only 2D and 3D, but regarding to timeline/story? o_o (LOL IgaSteam XD)

That would be the entire idea I guess.

Of course commercial success will determine which one gets pushed further and gets the biggest budget.

Lords of Shadow isn't getting amazing sales so far (very hard to tell worldwide, due to the recent NPD debacle and the US market becoming basically impossible to assess), but my theory is this:

- Lords of Shadow was planned as a reboot for quality reasons. I don't think Konami was too concerned about commercial success - honestly I think they weren't concerned about it at all. There was zero marketing for this game. Konami did nothing to sell it. It's not pushed in stores, there's no ads anywhere, nothing at all. Now, their caution was probably quality-based. They bombed with 3D Castlevanias before, and while Castlevania isn't a mainstream saga, it's still a font of revenue for them. If MS' game was bad from a quality point of view, they could just dismiss it and keep going with the IGAvanias.

- at this point, they saw that LoS was matching their quality expectations. Metacritic scores were good and all. Once again, sales weren't amazing, but budget for this game is rumored to be extremely low and Konami is used to fairly low sales - most DS installment struggled to reach 300k units worldwide and we're talking of a 100 millions units platform. It's hard to imagine LoS selling less than that worldwide.

- this leads to possibly Konami giving MS a less conditioned access to the saga's assets in the next game. It also will allow MS to possibly cater to the core CV userbase more. Actually getting to put full fledged remixes on the songs in, having a game featuring Simon Belmont and so on. MS was probably being conservative on trying to lure in the IGAvania fanbase into the game because that was Konami's mandate (that of making a different game that could capture a new audience). From a quality perspective the foundations are set - and if they're smart, for the next installment they will applish some Vania polish to the next game to make sure they can win over the most reluctant fans and build from that.

[eternal night]

Heck, Cornell posed more of a challenge than the final boss, seeing as how you have a constant replenish of light & dark magic at your disposal and you *should* have both Ultimate Light and Ultimate dark abilities by then, making the fight even easier...

Anyways, I was thinking how nice it would of been to be given a weapon upgrade or new ability purchased with XP points that allowed Gabe to launch/juggle the larger enemies in the game, adding a little bit of depth to the fights.

[RegalX7]

That reminds me. I have a question about Rinaldo.

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I read in one of the scrolls that he's disguised as a beggar, or something, but never ran into him. Did I miss him? Where is he?

[Vampire Killer]

That reminds me. I have a question about Rinaldo.

(click to show/hide)

I read in one of the scrolls that he's disguised as a beggar, or something, but never ran into him. Did I miss him? Where is he?

I'm curious about that myself. DLC perhaps.

[OmegaDL50]

I don't know why people are coming to this conclusion that Carmilla's Castle is some entirely different castle that it is entirely impossible to conclude the possibility that Gabriel could decide upon himself to inherit it and claim it as his own.

Even especially with the one of the Brotherhood scrolls that state the Castle constantly changes and is impossible to map a trait not dissimilar to what was established in IGA's Timeline in that the Castle that constantly changes it's shape.

It certainly can happen and why such texts implicated in the game it's certainly not out of the question it could happen for Gabriel to claim ownership of it.

[kinjo]

did anyone get stuck in the clockwork tower tryin to use that crappy 1st lever, the camera makes it well difficult to turn it properly, must of spent about 30 mins tryin to turn that thing, gave up in the end...is there a trick to it?
other then that its really tough and enjoyable, apart from the fact that most of the combos are made redundant simply by there being so many and some unworkable in most combat situations as your generally overwraught with enemies...