Topic: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate 3DS (Discussion Thread)

[KaZudra]

Talking about them being playable. Stop being stupid. Making every game with Belmonts being the only playable characters would be stupid as fuck. Good thing they made other characters and actually gave new playstyles for them.

I see the point, would the game be any enjoyable with character "change" as in every character is a clone?
no.

[Akuma]

Talking about them being playable. Stop being stupid. Making every game with Belmonts being the only playable characters would be stupid as fuck. Good thing they made other characters and actually gave new playstyles for them.

I'm eager to hear your innovative idea's.  I for one would love to play as a Dragon and just wreck the castle.  After all these humanoid characters and lack of intelligent monsters I just can't see how much farther we can go.

[Shiroi Koumori]

I'm eager to hear your innovative idea's.  I for one would love to play as a Dragon and just wreck the castle.  After all these humanoid characters and lack of intelligent monsters I just can't see how much farther we can go.

I think dragon mode might be available in LOS2 if the trailer does not deceive.

[DragonSlayr81]

So the argument's become whether or not playing as a Belmont is essential to Castlevania game? I have to side with whom ever say it's not. While Belmont presence is nice, I've had no problems NOT playing as Belmonts. For me, the overall feeling of "Vampire Hunter vs Vampire Lord" is more essential than any specific mandatory Belmont. I do think they could've reboot this game series and establish a whole NEW cast of characters if they wanted to.

Interestingly enough, while I gripe about aspects of LoS, the overall story and characters aren't them. Though, I've honestly made a point of this, I would've probably liked less nods to the original series via name placing. I would've loved it better if they just went and did their own thing, establish NEW characters(and that doesn't mean Belmont and Dracula more than it does the *wink wink* Cornell, Carmilla, Brauner, Olrox and such). They could even do what CV did, as pull references from lore, history(Arnold Poale, Clara Geisslerin, Antoine Leger)and literature(Francis Varney, Lord Ruthven).

The only problem I have with LoS is mainly gameplay related. I don't like the long, drawn out combat, nor do I like titan crawling, shimmying, plank-walking or such. I prefer a more fast paced game and, IMO, that breaks the pacing of quick action/exploration and is just not fun. A game's story could be sweet as hell, but if the gameplay isn't fun to me(yes, chain heavy combos that do little to enemies, damage-wise, just ain' t my cup of tea), there's really no reason for me to play it. (Interestingly enough, I find this one of the main reasons I dislike the FFXIII games. I think the whole Stagger thing breaks up the flow of battle, especially when you have to timely switch paradigms to break common enemies just to win the battle faster. Maybe for bosses, I can swallow that tripe, but normal battles should be instant and shouldn't take minutes to complete. Though, unnlike LoS, the FFXIII have crap stories, so that's really ultra strikes against those games!!).

Also, I'd LOVE to see a "Dragon Mode" in the game. As long as, in dragon form, it doesn't take you forever to kill normal humans. That would be insult to injury! "Look at me, I'm a fucking badass dragon! DAMMIT, why do these normal humans take so long to kill? WTF, it still takes me 3 hits to break a damn CRATE! NOOOOOOOOOOO!".

[Akuma]

I think dragon mode might be available in LOS2 if the trailer does not deceive.

Everything you saw in the trailer can be done in the game.  Dave Cox confirmed that.

[KaZudra]

Dragon mode only in the Last level, im calling it!

[Gecko]

I still don't get the problem people have with the combat. It's like Mercurysteam took the Lament of Innocence combo system (something that existed before God of War), and improved it by giving the whip more range, more combos, etc. I can see a little inspiration from God of War in the way that the range was applied, but ultimately, it is a dramatically improved version of the LoI combat system. A few of the combos are even the same. Besides, I think there was an interview somewhere with the original developers for God of War that stated that they were greatly inspired by Castlevania.

Either way, I think that Lords of Shadow's whip combat feels more Castlevania-like than the up-close beat-em-up way it was handled in LoI. LoI felt more like I was handling a whip, but LoS has the range and power I would expect to feel while swinging a whip in a Castlevania game.

Plus, they got all innovative with the whole light and dark magic thing. It really makes combat feel tight. After you unlock enough combos/subweapons/magic, enemies stop seeming like such tanks, and go down fairly easily. It's all about actually using what they give you. Mirror of Fate will be interesting in that each character has a different set of powers and subweapons, though the whip is consistent between each character. I have a feeling that actually will change how the game is played with each character, if you're actually using what they give you well. I'm really looking forward to seeing how that feels as a player.


Just thought I'd get my thoughts on that out there.

[VladCT]

Dragon mode only in the Last level, im calling it!

Or the taste-of-power prologue. :x

[Inccubus]

... the only think that bothered me was the interpretation of Vincent Dorin ... why he was given such a bad name when Portrait of Ruin came before LoS. That for me a little insulting because the creators of LoS should've think of some other name of the stupid priest not the helpful/greedy guy that lived in the 19th century. I also thought that Wygol Village was founded by father Nikolay(I loved that there is a character in the game with the same name as mine ) was before Gabriel became dracula ... I know that there are different timelines or smth like that but just taking stuff and remaking them like that is stupid.

That is exactly the sort of thing that made some people dislike the game. They just threw in names haphazardly without any account of the history attached to those names. They were trying to create a new vision for the series, but the names were a rather half-assed attempt at fan-service. The people that passed on the game soley for that reason may be characterized as "close-minded", but that's their prerogative and there's nothing wrong with it inherently.

There were plenty of things in the game play itself that people didn't like either. In particular I didn't like the over excessive use of shimmying and balancing. That in conjunction with a considerable lack of platforming put some people off ans I get that. I had the same problem with LoI and CoD to varying degrees.

While LoS did go back to a lot of the conventions of Classicvania it went far into left field in other ways that are alien to classicvania or any other 'vania for that matter. And none of this makes it ABSOLUTELY a proper castlevania or not one. That's the problem with this whole argument is that there are no absolutes much less in the identity of a video game series.

It's fun to argue the points of what makes castlevania's core, but it is all opinion on our part and it changes from game to game. Sometimes it changes more than at other time and sometimes they take it too far for what some of us are comfortable with. However, everyone is entitle to like or dislike any of it at any time. Hell, here's a castlevania confession for you; when SotN was first reviewed I thought the idea of only playing as Alucard was retarded and I didn't even want to play the game at first. However, time passes and opinions change. I still don't much like the idea of a castlevania brawler, which is what I consider LoS to be, but that could change some day.

[crisis]

[Akuma]

Winner

[BushidoViking]

I still don't get the problem people have with the combat. It's like Mercurysteam took the Lament of Innocence combo system (something that existed before God of War), and improved it by giving the whip more range, more combos, etc. I can see a little inspiration from God of War in the way that the range was applied, but ultimately, it is a dramatically improved version of the LoI combat system. A few of the combos are even the same. Besides, I think there was an interview somewhere with the original developers for God of War that stated that they were greatly inspired by Castlevania.

Either way, I think that Lords of Shadow's whip combat feels more Castlevania-like than the up-close beat-em-up way it was handled in LoI. LoI felt more like I was handling a whip, but LoS has the range and power I would expect to feel while swinging a whip in a Castlevania game.

Plus, they got all innovative with the whole light and dark magic thing. It really makes combat feel tight. After you unlock enough combos/subweapons/magic, enemies stop seeming like such tanks, and go down fairly easily. It's all about actually using what they give you. Mirror of Fate will be interesting in that each character has a different set of powers and subweapons, though the whip is consistent between each character. I have a feeling that actually will change how the game is played with each character, if you're actually using what they give you well. I'm really looking forward to seeing how that feels as a player.


Just thought I'd get my thoughts on that out there.

Well Said! This is one of the points I wanted to get across. Its not like LoS is A shameful God of War clone. Hell, Id say God of War is A lot more like DMC..I hardly see any similarities in the combat system. Even if it ws similiar. God of War has proven popular and it works. I wouldnt have an issue with it.

[Maedhros]

Credibility -1

Also, I don't recall people complaining about the 13 or so Whip/Belmont centric games that came before SoTN. (Except Simon's Quest, but people complain for other reasons there)

Who are complaining about the old games? They are fucking awesome. I'm just saying a playable Belmont isn't necessary to make a Castlevania game. Hence SOTN, COTM, AOS, DOS, POR, OOE...

I don't really care if the game fails even to actually say the name Belmont on the game (which never happened or never will), the game still have enough Castlevania staples to be considered Castlevania. Hence the name Castlevania on them. Same with LoS: It IS a Castlevania game, no matter what anyone says. If it's a good game or not, now THAT'S another question.

You know, being against something new doesn't automatically make you conversative. There also exists things like "bad ideas".       

This. It's not like I don't want the series to evolve or change the playstyle at all. I don't know where the hell some of you guys got the idea.

If I complain about LoS, it's because I didn't liked the changes they made, not the fact that it actually changed. Changes are good and welcome.

I'm eager to hear your innovative idea's.  I for one would love to play as a Dragon and just wreck the castle.  After all these humanoid characters and lack of intelligent monsters I just can't see how much farther we can go.

Dunno. Having 4 characters wear a fucking whip isn't variation, no matter what people here says. Yeah, there are the other habilities, but the main weapon is still the whip. Give one a gladius, a sword, a spear... anything. See my point?

Playing as a Dragon would be amazing, if it's restricted to only some parts of the game. Something like a Musou.

Well Said! This is one of the points I wanted to get across. Its not like LoS is A shameful God of War clone. Hell, Id say God of War is A lot more like DMC..I hardly see any similarities in the combat system. Even if it ws similiar. God of War has proven popular and it works. I wouldnt have an issue with it.

If it was Kratos doing ANY of the moves in LoS, I would say it was a God of War game. Common guys, lot's of similar movements.

I don't think LoS combat resemble LoI in any way. They're pretty different. In LoI, enemies never felt like sponges like here or GoW for that matter.

[Munchy]

I think people have read enough of my posts to know where I stand on LoS. The combat was fine, but I seriously hope the enemies are smarter and have more attacks than Swipe, Unblockable Swipe, and Ubiquitous Ground Pound Shockwave.

And for Christ's sake, lock the framerate.

[Kingshango]

And for Christ's sake, lock the framerate.

That at least has been done for LOS2 from what I've heard a while ago, everything else is up in the air.