Topic: Castlevania Legends - The Right and the Wrong

[Puwexil]

What's good about a turd like Legends? Music I guess, though this is faint praise at best; it's a little too cacophonic and screechy to be truly and honestly good, to speak nothing of the levels its direct predecessors reached.

The rest, though - hoo boy what miserable dreck. A godawful visual style across the board with dead and empty stages, as well as horrific enemy designs and sprites. Stages drag on like nothing else in the series, full of obnoxiously concocted platforming that would make the worst of The Adventure blush, complete with shamefully utilized enemy respawn rates and placement. Sonia swiped Simon's crouching crawl from CV4, but there's never a situation in the game that would necessitate its inclusion, aside from the occasional TRAP CANDLE zombie pit, another brilliant idea. A tepid attempt at explorative substance is made in the sub-weapon collectibles, the acquirement of which rewards with... one more uninspired stage to wade through. Boss encounters are robbed of all suspense because of the BURNING MODE, a win button in practical use.

I have a lot of venomous bile for this game, but it's all I can do when it's just so amazingly vapid in nearly every aspect of its being. I mean, I hold up the two earlier Game Boy games near and dear to my heart, and then this abomination, after six years, appears and drops the bar so low you can't even reach down and pick it up again. It's just gone. Symphony was hot shit for breathing life into the stagnated series and these jokers at KCEN grab its star character, shoehorn him into a game and attempt to capitalize with a quick rushjob. It only made their motives clearer when they handled the equally inept porting of Symphony a little later. There's no respect for the material they worked with.

[Reinhart77]

Hector is still forced.

Yeah, its forced.  If you want Legends to fit in the timeline, you "have" to force "something".  Its kinda like an ill-fitting shoe.

[Claimh Solais]

@Puwexil
I understand a lot of your hate for the game, but some of it just seems... like too much hate. Legends is, in all honesty, a good game. So what if KCEN was milking Alucard for all he's worth? That doesn't mean anything to me. He's only in one part of the game anyway. The game stands on its own as a pretty good game overall.

So what if there was particular use for the crouch-walk? It's still a nice addition to have, and is helpful for evasive maneuvers to an extent. Just like how wolf-form in SotN was pretty useless, yet it's pretty good to an extent.

It's not as good as Belmont's Revenge, I'll admit. But saying its worse than The Adventure, now that's just trollin'.

[uzo]

Jack has a bunch of good points though. Especially trailing SotN, it seemed like a shameless money maker riding the hype wave SotN created.

There's small bits and concepts here and there that may have been good ideas if executed properly, but it really was just a reuse of Adventure/Revenge's engine after a long period of time and slapped together haphazardly.

That said, I did play and beat it.

[Puwexil]

But saying its worse than The Adventure, now that's just trollin'.

Okay? I dig The Adventure. It has great music, imaginative and compact stage design, a really unique set of enemies, and a minimalistic yet memorable visual style. It doesn't fuck around with badly-executed story hooks, either. My only complaints are the occasional pixel-precise platforming bits and button input lag. I think it's just swell otherwise.

[Claimh Solais]

I didn't say that Adventure was a bad game. Cuz I like the exploits of Chris. What I'm saying is I find Legends a much more solid, fluid game.

[Flame]

Juste is also an Alucard wannabe and that needs an explanation too.

He has Belnades genes which make him have white hair and an aptitude for magic. There.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Genetics wouldn't work that way, though.  Plus his grandfather is Simon, so Simon would have to have some magic mysticism.  Or Simon or his son had verrrrry magical wives.
Mmmm... magic wives... with sacred gifts... Giggity.

[Flame]

Dormant genes maybe?

Like that one trait that doesnt show up for generations but suddenly appears?

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

You mean recessive genes.  Yes, that would be how.
But any Belmont after Trevor 'could' have it.  It's not like "Well Juste has more Belnades in him".  It doesn't really work that way.  Anyone could pass that trait.  Helll, it might be what allows ItemCrashes to happen with the peeps after Richter.
Of course, videogames follow their own funkatronic logic.

But yes, you're right in that that's one way to do it.

[Flame]

Well another explanation is simply that Harmony is one of the biggest Symphony wannabes, therefore its character is an Alucard wannabe.

But he is excused on the grounds that he is a Belmont, and not some nobody who just so happens to be able to defeat Dracula (in true chewtoy fashion) like another certain Alucard wannabe. *coughHectorcough*

[X]

But he is excused on the grounds that he is a Belmont, and not some nobody who just so happens to be able to defeat Dracula (in true chewtoy fashion) like another certain Alucard wannabe. *coughHectorcough*

I agree with this.

[Munchy]

Right: Music, alternate stage route

Wrong: Needed more stages/ alternate stage routes, Alucard and Sonia hooking up is stupid

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Why is it stupid?

No one seems to elaborate on this other than "Because they just can't!" or "Belmonts should be pure" (which is easily disproven by the Belnades blood and them having other last names eventually).

There needs to be a more concrete reason other than "'cuz I don't like it", otherwise it's just WHARRGARBL.

[thernz]

i think it's more like alucard going on about how his bloodline is cursed in sotn, and wanting to just sleep after cviii rather than continue living because hhhh SON OF DRACULA
then it's implied he bangs sonia
(and he ditches her so he can sleep instead of helping her raise her child)

great character consistency there
probably didn't know about the pregnancy but a bit of a jerk too