Topic: Curse of Darkness

[Ridureyu]

I can think of some games that were TEH AWESOME for me when they were new, but nowadays I wonder what I was on.

[Ahasverus]

Care to expand on that? I'm having difficulty thinking of how a one-gen difference could make something go from "not bad" to "unplayable."

When you've played games when silk-smooth movement (Assassins Creed) good animations (Uncharted) good Storytelling (Arkham Asylum) interesting traversable moody level design (Bioshock) non restrictive RPG elements (Oblivion/fallout/skyrim) an of course responsive combat system (Lords/Bayonetta) and ZAP! No loading times every door (EVERY OTHER GAME *sans DMC4*) COD becomes a SHORE. The greatest fault of them all is Hector's combat.. hey Trevor mode was WAY better because the whip had awesome combos and it has sense of recoil (that hector lacks).

And a platformer game without platforms? come on!

[thernz]

I thought Curse was a shore before all that.
If you compared it to other games of its generation, it still had robotic animations and movement, and a slew of other action titles had much better level design. Plus there was Morrowind, which neither Skyrim or Oblivion really improved upon for freedom.

[Ridureyu]

Kind of like how, although a lot of the boss fights in Lament of Innocence are fun, it's too tiring to slog through identical rooms and hard-to-see jumping puzzles to get to them?

[darkwzrd4]

Were the LeCarde's ever confirmed to be Alucard's in-laws? I dunno if that was ever cleared up. ;_;

Actually, I believe that they're actually off-shoots of the Belmont family like the Morris family.  Or, at least that is the way it is in PoR.  They have Belmont genes, but they're thin and thus not as powerful.  This is why the member of the Morris family can use the whip's power with the help of the LeCarde family.  The only problem that it drains away their life with every use.  Only the members of the Belmont family can use the whip's power without any negative effects.  The only reason the LeCarde family is associated with Alucard is because the weapon they wield is the Alucard Spear.  This all comes from PoR I believe.

The thing about the spear comes from Judgment.  In Eric's story, when he faces Alucard, he asks Alucard why his family was given the spear.  Alucard says that it complements the whip.  Implying that the Morris and LeCarde families were meant to work together as one.  Of course, I could be mistaken.

[X]

The thing about the spear comes from Judgment.  In Eric's story, when he faces Alucard, he asks Alucard why his family was given the spear.  Alucard says that it complements the whip.  Implying that the Morris and LeCarde families were meant to work together as one.  Of course, I could be mistaken.

Judgement's story may or may not be true since the game itself is somewhat stand-alone. I don't know myself however it sort of makes sense. In terms of Eric going after Dracula, that was not the case. Eric only went along with John in order to exact his revenge on Elizabeth for turning his love into a vampire (which he was forced to slay). John had no choice in the matter as it was his blood-calling (Destiny) to kill Dracula. In the Bloodlines game you play either character and go kill Dracula, but story-wise that does not happen.

[Nagumo]

One of the LoI offical guides has a family tree and it states that Eric is a distant relative of Mathias. It seems that he is a descendant from a different branch of the Cronqvist family. This apperently conflicts with Judgment, but the opening of Eric's storyline says the spear "was given to the Belmont relatives of house Lecarde", so I'm not sure what that is supposed to imply. I don't know what the Japanese version says.  Perhaps they are descendants of both?

[KaZudra]

Here's something you may not know about eric, If you use a vertical attack (Up+Attack), you can press left or right mid animation to twirl is spear around.

[Koutei]

One of the LoI offical guides has a family tree and it states that Eric is a distant relative of Mathias. It seems that he is a descendant from a different branch of the Cronqvist family. This apperently conflicts with Judgment, but the opening of Eric's storyline says the spear "was given to the Belmont relatives of house Lecarde", so I'm not sure what that is supposed to imply. I don't know what the Japanese version says.  Perhaps they are descendants of both?

From which company was the "official" guide published? Bradygames guide is the only English official guide which I know.
And, Although I have almost all Japanese guides, there is no such description.

EDIT: I found this. "Elizabeth Bartley (Count Dracula's niece)". Aren't Eric and Elizabeth misunderstood?

[Nagumo]

You're right. I confused Eric and Elizabeth. Sorry. 

[Koutei]

Oh, I understood.

[Reinhart77]

I was thoroughly engrossed by the stages in Curse of Darkness - until I reached the  Machine Tower.  There's certain things you come to expect from a clock tower, and CoD certainly did not deliver.  Dracula's Castle was also a dismal disappointment considering how much I was thrilled with the Abandoned Castle.

But I enjoyed the game for the most part. 

[Mystic Myotis]

Nobody is invincible in this series, after all; even Alucard, IGA's favorite character, is defeated by Dmitri before Soma gets there.

Didn't Dmitri use some sort of magic to reverse Alucard's powers or something?  They didn't actually fight per se.

Did anyone catch Christopher lee narrating Lament and Hayden Christensen(anakin skywalker) as leon belmont, or was that just me? Sure as hell sounds like them anyways?

You're very, very, VERY wrong.

Leon's VA is Kakashi from Naruto and Kefka in Dissidia.  David Wittenberg.
The narrator was also Rinaldo.  Can't remember his name... *looks up* Michael McConnohie

Were the LeCarde's ever confirmed to be Alucard's in-laws? I dunno if that was ever cleared up. ;_;

I'm going to hazard a guess and say that at the very least, they probably aren't related by blood. Now, this is a 50-50 chance but considering Alucard believes that his blood is cursed (which is sorta is) and that the world would be better off without it, I find it difficult to believe that someone like that would willingly breed.  >_>


Now, to the topic at hand:

Yet for some reason, and I have no idea why, I always get the urge to play it from time to time. And just as well, I actually have a decent amount of mindless fun.

Same here.  I don't think it's a 'bad' game, though.  It's mediocre, but you can get a lot of fun out of it if you are into a certain style of gameplay (I'm a bit of a completionist/grinder, so...)

The game's greatest challenge is forcing yourself to slowly power-jog through every samey hallway.

Chaining cartwheels make you move a lot faster, but they really, REALLY should have put in some sort of 'Wolf's Foot' like they had in Lament of Innocence. The areas were too repetitive and needed platforming/puzzles to break that up.  And just like Lament of Innocence, the areas needed more visual variety.

What leaves me disappointed with it is that Hector is able to kill Dracula.......

I agree.  It would have been better if they had changed things so Hector fought Isaac, then Death used Isaac to revive Dracula, then Trevor showed up to fight Dracula while you fought Death or something like that.  Then in Trevor Mode, he could have had his own cut-scenes and you could have fought Isaac in the ruins and instead of Death, Dracula would have been the final boss only for Trevor Mode. That would have been very cool, since many alternate modes in CV don't have changes like that.

I also found the lack of breakable walls and power-up items to be a disappointment too.

That's what the IDs were supposed to replace, but I agree that they should have at least had more accessories.

I'd personally would rather just steal from them and be done with it

Waiting for the AI to do what you needed it to do was so annoying at times.

The dual tower segments I feel have no real purpose what-so-ever. They don't contribute to the game as anything really important. It's just a fight fest that could've easily had it's own separate selection in the start menu.

I disagree here.  The towers are nice for completionists who want a copy of every piece of equipment in the game.  They can also be fun for various challenges the player imposes upon themselves, and if you don't like them you can get through them very easily with certain IDs.

[VladCT]

Personally, the boss fights were too easy (unless for some reason you feel the urge to steal from every single one of them, then it becomes tedious) since dodging gives you invincibility frames and there's no stopping you from spamming them.

[Rugal]

I thoroughly enjoyed Curse of Darkness.