Review: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

[John Funk]

Review: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

When a vampire comes along, you must whip it.

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John, how were the controls while platforming? On GTTV they harped on a bit that the controls and camera angles left players sometimes jumping to their doom, how was your experience with that?

If I ever had a problem with them (and I may have), it wasn't anything that happened often enough to bother me - or rather, if it bothered me then, it wasn't a big enough bother for me to remember now.

 

[WOPR]

Castlevania LoD was a decent 3D one

and this looks kinda like Judgement, only NOT a fighting game, better graphics, and so on, the moves look similar

and I'm pretty sure when Yahtzee eventually reviews this he'll break out his "LIKE GOD OF WAR BUT" stamp again

all that aside
I'm SOO looking forward to this game, this is one of the reasons I'm buying a 360

 

[Traigus]

I'm ok with it.

I was doing really well, until I got to the big stone guy at the end of Chapter 1. Haven't gone back for a few days. A lot of the timing windows (as said before) are not very wide.

A friend of mine had enough trouble dodging the worg charged attacks that he quit even earlier. The cameras in the "off horse" battles in the forest (Chapter 1)are horrible, and you can get hit by guys leaping in from off screen easily.

It is an ok game, but it somehow doesn't seem as "fun" as the games it is based on (both story and mechanics-wise).

Most likely I'll grind through it in chunks as time permits.

 

[Ghengis John]

Review: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

When a vampire comes along, you must whip it.

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NICE pun. Made me watch and read your review infact.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

I'm at the Crow Witch fight in Chapter 4, and can't bring myself to keep going. I haven't even started the fight with her, actually. I just entered her lair. Some of the enemies and bosses are annoying. The bosses have very small windows to dodge/block attacks, leading to cheap hits. I was fighting the Chapter 3 boss' second form, and dodging his ground pound was near impossible, because the execution time is so short. The claw swipe and charge attack had enough time to be dodged, though. I had to REALLY slowly chip away with "2 hits, dodge roll, jump", basically acting like he was always going to use the ground pound, even when he didn't. And it doesn't even give you full health when you restart from checkpoint!

I would ask what difficulty were you playing the game on? Because I always play a game on the easiest setting to get the lay of the land and then I try the other difficulties. I'm playing on the easiest setting and if I die in a boss battle it gives me all my health back.

I'm not really looking forward to playing it on the harder settings, because even in Squire mode, I still die a lot.

I would play the game everyday to finish it, but I can't because of college. Though I'm not going to complaining about the length of the game because I know Castlevania games are usually quite long. Though I would have to say Lords of Shadow will actually turn out to be the shortest Castlevania game I have played.

Hey! Both Lament of Innocence and Curse of Darkness (the 2 3D PS2 Castlevania games) were good games. Not great, and not classics by any sense of the word, but good.

Totally agree. I never played Curse, but Lament was a good game for its era. And yes, it did chain weapons in a 3D game before God of War did, even if GoW did it better. Near as I can tell, Lament was condemned mainly for not being a 2D Metroidvania game.

I also see that as complaint that people give Lords of Shadow, that it isn't a 2D game. Since I have never had the chance to play the other 3D Castlevania games, Lords of Shadow has been a nice refreshing change compared to the past Castlevania games that I have played.

Castlevania LoD was a decent 3D one

and this looks kinda like Judgement, only NOT a fighting game, better graphics, and so on, the moves look similar

and I'm pretty sure when Yahtzee eventually reviews this he'll break out his "LIKE GOD OF WAR BUT" stamp again

all that aside
I'm SOO looking forward to this game, this is one of the reasons I'm buying a 360

I wouldn't, but of course the PS3 people will chide you that you are using Castlevania as a reason for buying a 360, because Lords of Shadow was produced for the PS3, but also converted to be on the 360, hence one disc for PS3 and 2 discs for the 360.

I highly recommend getting Lords of Shadow.

The one thing I didn't like about this review was the comment about how the game doesn't feel like a Castlevania game until later in the game.

I have played several Castlevania games, and I would say that LoS, feels like a Castlevania game from the start.

--------------

I'm only one-third of the way through the game, and I'm not tired of it. I just killed the Crow Witch.

The part of the game that annoyed me was the second titan battle. The area in which the battle took place was too small. It was really hard for me to get back to a place where I could properly toss the boulder back at the titan; a majority of the time, the proper spot was so far back that the boulder kept breaking against the scenery behind me. Oh and the worst part was Claudia's annoying voice and pointers, if I heard her spout, "That's it, pick your moment Gabriel!", one more time, my ears would have started bleeding.

If you haven't beaten chapter 2 yet, don't press the spoiler.

Spoiler

I was so happy that Claudia died shortly after the titan battle. I actually laughed with joy, "Yeah!!! I don't have to listen to the annoying *****, again!"

At the point I'm at, I would give the game a 4.5 out of 5. The titan battles are cool but annoying.

 

[Nieroshai]

The demo I played was fun, but felt like DMC and GOW had a kid. Not a bad thing, but too familiar to feel original. It was fun though, and that's what counts. As long as there's platforming elements.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

I'm ok with it.

I was doing really well, until I got to the big stone guy at the end of Chapter 1. Haven't gone back for a few days. A lot of the timing windows (as said before) are not very wide.

A friend of mine had enough trouble dodging the worg charged attacks that he quit even earlier. The cameras in the "off horse" battles in the forest (Chapter 1)are horrible, and you can get hit by guys leaping in from off screen easily.

It is an ok game, but it somehow doesn't seem as "fun" as the games it is based on (both story and mechanics-wise).

Most likely I'll grind through it in chunks as time permits.

I've only gotten to do 2 titan battles so far. I actually like the first one(The Ice Titan) now, I go back and play it over and over to get the thousand points to upgrade combos. I've gotten good with it, but I don't think I will ever beat the 1 minute 30 second time trial for it.

If you think the Ice Titan was bad, wait until you get to Stone Titan near the end of Chapter 2, it makes the Ice Titan feel like loads of fun.

I do agree the cameras in the game are way too rigid. It is actually pretty annoying in the Stone Titan battle, because the camera is always fixed on the Titan, when at times it would help if you could see where you are running when you are running from the Titan to get a good position.

I would try to play the game as straight through, because I could do it, but my college schedule doesn't allow for it. Especially now that I am also playing Minecraft.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Im a huge fan of God of War and Devil May Cry and found the combat on the demo rather dull

I wouldn't base your thoughts on the demo. It probably didn't let you use all the combos and moves that are in the game. I think there are at least 30 combos in the game. I haven't played the whole game, but I do remember an achievement for buying 30 combos.

I have never based a decision on a demo, I have found that every demo I have played has never show me enough of a game to truly decide on what it is like. The reason behind this line of thinking is that I have made decisions like that based on demos, and then when my friend gets the game and I borrow it, I find out that the demo was a very wrong example of what the game was like.

 

[Vyper1X]

Im a huge fan of God of War and Devil May Cry and found the combat on the demo rather dull

I wouldn't base your thoughts on the demo. It probably didn't let you use all the combos and moves that are in the game. I think there are at least 30 combos in the game. I haven't played the whole game, but I do remember an achievement for buying 30 combos.

I have never based a decision on a demo, I have found that every demo I have played has never show me enough of a game to truly decide on what it is like. The reason behind this line of thinking is that I have made decisions like that based on demos, and then when my friend gets the game and I borrow it, I find out that the demo was a very wrong example of what the game was like.

It didn't have loads but it did have a few standard combos like square + square + square or triangle etc. My main problem with the combos they had is that they all felt the same, looked the same and made me realize its the god of war chains but boring.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Im a huge fan of God of War and Devil May Cry and found the combat on the demo rather dull

I wouldn't base your thoughts on the demo. It probably didn't let you use all the combos and moves that are in the game. I think there are at least 30 combos in the game. I haven't played the whole game, but I do remember an achievement for buying 30 combos.

I have never based a decision on a demo, I have found that every demo I have played has never show me enough of a game to truly decide on what it is like. The reason behind this line of thinking is that I have made decisions like that based on demos, and then when my friend gets the game and I borrow it, I find out that the demo was a very wrong example of what the game was like.

It didn't have loads but it did have a few standard combos like square + square + square or triangle etc. My main problem with the combos they had is that they all felt the same, looked the same and made me realize its the god of war chains but boring.

I got it for the 360, but still, it is really just replacing the shapes with letters, though I never really got why they have and X button when all the rest are shapes, hmmm, maybe Sony should change it to the rhombus button. Right now it is one of these buttons is not like the other, lol.

Anyway, you are right that some of the combos are pretty similar, in button pressing, like many of the different combos, when you buy upgrades of those combos, it just adds one or two buttons to the combo, but the same button. With the 360 there are ones like 5 X's, then when you upgrade it, you get two extra X's, another upgrade it goes up another 2 X's. The same goes for the Y button combos, but while the buttons in the combo aren't varied with those basic strong and light combos, it is the changed look of the attacks, the spectacle that looks great. Of course you get your grab, dodge attack, and block attack combos that get progressively more complicated. But the combos that are more complicated are the ones that use the special tool/power abilities. If I remember correctly there is one where you turn on shadow magic, charge it, jump, strong attack and light area attack: Right bumper, left trigger, A, X, Y. Moves like those can make it exciting, but I'm only telling you a third of it, because I have only gotten third through the game and haven't bought all the combos. Plus I glossed over a lot of the attack combos that I have learn for brevity's sake of this post. I could probably go on for 4 or more paragraphs like this.

 

[Vyper1X]

Im a huge fan of God of War and Devil May Cry and found the combat on the demo rather dull

I wouldn't base your thoughts on the demo. It probably didn't let you use all the combos and moves that are in the game. I think there are at least 30 combos in the game. I haven't played the whole game, but I do remember an achievement for buying 30 combos.

I have never based a decision on a demo, I have found that every demo I have played has never show me enough of a game to truly decide on what it is like. The reason behind this line of thinking is that I have made decisions like that based on demos, and then when my friend gets the game and I borrow it, I find out that the demo was a very wrong example of what the game was like.

It didn't have loads but it did have a few standard combos like square + square + square or triangle etc. My main problem with the combos they had is that they all felt the same, looked the same and made me realize its the god of war chains but boring.

I got it for the 360, but still, it is really just replacing the shapes with letters, though I never really got why they have and X button when all the rest are shapes, hmmm, maybe Sony should change it to the rhombus button. Right now it is one of these buttons is not like the other, lol.

Anyway, you are right that some of the combos are pretty similar, in button pressing, like many of the different combos, when you buy upgrades of those combos, it just adds one or two buttons to the combo, but the same button. With the 360 there are ones like 5 X's, then when you upgrade it, you get two extra X's, another upgrade it goes up another 2 X's. This same is with the Y button combos, but while the buttons in the combo aren't varied with those basic strong and light combos, it is the changed look of the attacks, the spectacle that looks great. Of course you get your grab, dodge attack, and block attack combos that get progressively more complicated. But the combos that are more complicated are the ones that use the special tool/power abilities. If I remember correctly there is one where you turn on shadow magic, charge it, jump, strong attack and light area attack: Right bumper, left trigger, A, X, Y. Moves like those can make it exciting, but I'm only telling you a third of it, because I have only gotten third through the game and haven't bought all the combos. Plus I glossed over a lot of the attack combos that I have learn for brevity's sake of this post. I could probably go on for 4 or more paragraphs like this.

Yeh but all the animations for the attacks look really similar as well, does that ever get any better?

Do you ever get any other weapons apart from the cross-whip-thing because one of the worst parts of Dante's Inferno in my opinion was only having one weapon.

 

[Mr.Petey]

I actually really like this game and I'm having alot of fun with it, I just haven't had the time to sit down and play it propperly (blame my work for that) but I'm about to finish up the second chapter and I only have one complaint.

I wish the mute girl (who you hear at the end of the review video) would shut the fuck up.

I know I'm looking for the shadow crystal to activate the ancient mechanism. I know I only have one more to go. I know I should keep looking. I've come this far, I'm hardly going to give up am I?
Dumb *****.

Ok hatred is over.

The best thing in this game, is the one button dodge, hold down the block button and then flick the left stick and you zip away. It keep combat flowing alot faster than other dodge systems where maybe you have to hold block, hold jump and then move in the direction you want to dodge. (And since this is a large game that your going to play for hours on end if you really like it, the one button dodge will prevent your hand from hurting in a long gaming session.

The titans are ok but I just don't think they fit in with this type of game, as you said the game should do what it does best, which is large fights with almost human sized characters.

Its a shame that you didn't pick up on how surprisingly colourful the game is.
For a game that is about storming the castle of dracula the levels always seem to have a large amount of colour and some kind of light in them. It would be too easy to hide most of the game world in shadow but Castlevania shows what it's got, its a gutsy decision but it looks great.
Take for example the swamp level.
Think about how many games would have just done that level in murky browns, greens and greys. Castelvania goes all in with luminous green water and its a fantastic style that works really well in showing the supernatural element of the setting.

If I get to play more of this game then I will post something on the forums about more detail but until I stop working 12 hours a day you have my first impressions.

I certainly agree with whasername....the mute girl who was reminding you every minute or so about the crystals did a number on my head too. I was fully aware ALL the time on how many remained and where they were (thereabouts) on a second playthrough. So it's warranted hatred and it gets my thumbs up to you!

Plus the dodging and attacking. I can't be the only one who's tied of a gamepad being worn down due to overuse like that and this game's blend of defence and offence like so was incredible. Large-ish enemies proved to be a challenge each and every time I fought them. It's a game you have to be awake for really as opposed to "sleepwalking" through each familiar level, regardless if you've been there before.

The colour injected into some of the areas...quite frankly I'm both staggered and relieved that they didn't leave it in the annoying gritty brown, grey hues seen in modern games as of late. I literally had to just stop and walk Gabriel slowly through some glades and areas to take in the sight of the water, the sound effects and sights of birds around and running on the ground before flapping away into the sky. It made me want to get out there into the realm of the game to explore more sights and sounds AND they were all varied. So there were a lot of ruined ancient cities? We're not here to migrate from town to town like an MMORPG are we We're daring to go deeper into dangerous uninhabited areas away from civilisation.

It may not be the usual castlevania we've been playing in the past but for once I'm enjoying this reboot of the series. I find it a decent challenge that does away with regen style health (unless you count the light magic, in which case you have to bloody fight for your health back) but still retains that "go off the beaten track to explore some areas for secret items and return later once you've mastered some more skills to access new areas upon that"

 

[Stoic raptor]

Hey! Both Lament of Innocence and Curse of Darkness (the 2 3D PS2 Castlevania games) were good games. Not great, and not classics by any sense of the word, but good.

Totally agree. I never played Curse, but Lament was a good game for its era. And yes, it did chain weapons in a 3D game before God of War did, even if GoW did it better. Near as I can tell, Lament was condemned mainly for not being a 2D Metroidvania game.

I also appreciated that Lament tried to explain why Dracula left all these power-ups scattered all around his castle.

I never played Lament, but I did play curse, and I loved it. I still play it many times, and so do my friends. I never played any of the 2d castlevania(except i did try symphony of then night recently, that was rly fun) so I wasn't biased against it.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Yeh but all the animations for the attacks look really similar as well, does that ever get any better?

Do you ever get any other weapons apart from the cross-whip-thing because one of the worst parts of Dante's Inferno in my opinion was only having one weapon.

Yes the attacks do progressively change in look, well the look gets added onto, making the attack go faster and look amazing, and having more movements in the action.

Well you don't get other primary weapons, the combat cross will always be your main weapon, though it progressively gets upgrades to it over the game's length. Of course you get the grappling hook upgrade near the beginning, but so far I have gotten another which is the chain gets spikes added to the links, which does more damage. I know there is at least one more upgrade to the combat cross but I don't know what it is yet.

You do get other side weapons/tools as you go along, other then the daggers, you have the fairies, and the demon crystal thing, and I would say the fourth one I haven't gotten yet is the holy water.

Other than that, some ways into the game, you do get a gauntlet that lets you do power punches and break down certain walls and doors when you use shadow magic along with it.

Now you mentioned in your first post in this thread, about the Devil May Cry games. I have played the those games, and I would say I like Lords of Shadow better. I haven't played the God of War games, so I can't use that as a comparison, though I would probably still like LoS a lot, because I am not the type person that draws my opinions of games based on comparisons to if it is like other games.

 

[just ban me]

yeah the game rips off ideas from other games in the action genre but I loved the game myself and the titan fights for me were fine, only a few in the game so not a big deal to me.I did like the boss fights were frantic and kept you on your toes, God of War 3 sometimes lacked in that if you ask me.

I to love the levels on how many of them looked like the Mountain Fortress before you go in looking out to the mountains, was awesome.

Overall a great game for a Castlevania fan if you ask me and for most anyone who likes this style of action game

 

[starwarsgeek]

To be completely fair, God of War style combat seems like the natural move. Had GoW been on the NES, it probably would have played similar to the 2D castlevania titles.

 

[matrix3509]

Yeah, they should really leave Castlevania in 2D. It really comes off as a God of War clone with the move to 3D.

 

[Vyper1X]

Yeh but all the animations for the attacks look really similar as well, does that ever get any better?

Do you ever get any other weapons apart from the cross-whip-thing because one of the worst parts of Dante's Inferno in my opinion was only having one weapon.

Yes the attacks do progressively change in look, well the look gets added onto, making the attack go faster and look amazing, and having more movements in the action.

Well you don't get other primary weapons, the combat cross will always be your main weapon, though it progressively gets upgrades to it over the game's length. Of course you get the grappling hook upgrade near the beginning, but so far I have gotten another which is the chain gets spikes added to the links, which does more damage. I know there is at least one more upgrade to the combat cross but I don't know what it is yet.

You do get other side weapons/tools as you go along, other then the daggers, you have the fairies, and the demon crystal thing, and I would say the fourth one I haven't gotten yet is the holy water.

Other than that, some ways into the game, you do get a gauntlet that lets you do power punches and break down certain walls and doors when you use shadow magic along with it.

Now you mentioned in your first post in this thread, about the Devil May Cry games. I have played the those games, and I would say I like Lords of Shadow better. I haven't played the God of War games, so I can't use that as a comparison, though I would probably still like LoS a lot, because I am not the type person that draws my opinions of games based on comparisons to if it is like other games.

I just mentioned God of War and Devil May Cry in my first post because Jonh Funk made the connection to Castlevania in his review.

I'll probably end up buying it but i'll wait till its a bit cheaper first.

 

[My1stLuvJak]

Hey! Both Lament of Innocence and Curse of Darkness (the 2 3D PS2 Castlevania games) were good games. Not great, and not classics by any sense of the word, but good.

Totally agree. I never played Curse, but Lament was a good game for its era. And yes, it did chain weapons in a 3D game before God of War did, even if GoW did it better. Near as I can tell, Lament was condemned mainly for not being a 2D Metroidvania game.

I also appreciated that Lament tried to explain why Dracula left all these power-ups scattered all around his castle.

True, that: Lament of Innocence was a great game, I still have to go back and re-play it. Never played Curse, heard it was rubbish. I honestly loved the story in 'Lament', like how it explained why the Belmont clan has the power to slay Dracula (and only them). Most of the bosses were fun, too, from what I remember, with a couple segments actually freaking me out (walking down the spiral staircase, hearing rattling intake of breath from some unseen beastie)

 

[Sonic Doctor]

I just mentioned God of War and Devil May Cry in my first post because Jonh Funk made the connection to Castlevania in his review.

I'll probably end up buying it but i'll wait till its a bit cheaper first.

I usually buy at full price, because I usually only have the money to buy about 2 or 3 games a year, so right now I am actually buying the limited, collector, or special editions of games, because of the extra stuff. I use to not do that, but I started getting jealous of all the neat stuff my friends were getting.

I got the limited edition of Lords of Shadow. First off, it was released on my birthday. Second, I had gotten a nice amount of birthday money early from relatives that don't live near me. Third, I had a $20 Amazon game credit that I received from when I pre-ordered Halo: Reach, so instead of paying $80 for the limited edition of Lords of Shadow, I paid $60.

That is also the reason I pay full price and pre-order doing it. Most pre-orders besides getting extra stuff, they usually offer cash credits towards your next game purchase. Last year it was only $10 credits with pre-orders, but this year it seems the big name companies, Amazon, GameStop, and Wal-Mart, are offering $20 dollars now. I guess it is because of the economy, they are deciding that a $10 credit isn't enough.

Sometimes they even listen to customers. I was waiting to pre-order Fable 3's limited collector's edition, because Amazon wasn't offering a $20 credit with the L-C edition, but was offering it for the regular. I did see that a user had started a conversation thread about that on the Amazon page for that edition of Fable 3, they basically told Amazon they wouldn't pre-order it from them because they weren't offering the $20 credit for the L-C edition like other retailers. Low and behold, after I waited on it a week and a half, I go back to think about pre-ordering it from them, and they had smartly caved and started offering it for the L-C edition as well. So, I finally pre-ordered it from them, and took a screen shot to make sure they honor it.

Lastly, if I wait to buy a game until the price goes down, I usually forget about it and don't get it. Or by the time that happens, I don't have the money to get it even then, so I buy at the time that I know I will be able to get it.

Sorry, I tend to ramble.