Zero Punctuation: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

[Jon Shannow]

dude what the fuck is you main problem cant you just have fun when playing games wich are the main poitn and after all the piece fucking garbitch of shadow of colossus what nothing more than a patetic waste of time and speace it had nothing interesting to do and you only fight so little this game had more of a better story.

You really are missing the point of Yatzhee's reviews

 

[Scars Unseen]

Honestly, I think that the best way to go with 3D Castlevania would involve the stamp, "like Prince of Persia, but..."

 

[PurplePlatypus]

The whole fart joke is pretty hilarious. It?s become pretty questionable to even reference portal now never mind someone putting it in a game. It?s an old joke, especially when Portal 2 will be coming out soon with some fresh ones.

Even still, it?s staying on the Christmas list; I imagine it will be pretty fun even with its faults.

 

[Testsubject909]

Hmm... well, considering that it was intended to be a remake of the original Castlevania or more specifically a remake of the remake (Castlevania 4, but hey, Castlevania 1 and 4 are basically the same plot so...)

Faulting it for not having free roaming is rather off. It's a staple nowadays but if I try to re-create a stage by stage game by making it a fully free roaming event, I'm missing the point, aren't I?

Aside from that, every other complaints have been detailed extensively and debated massively.

The game is good, at times great, at times not so. Is it a good castlevania? That depends on the interpretation and also what sort of Castlevania fan are you (Castlevania 1-4, or Castlevania SOTN-OOE)

 

[esperandote]

A little more gross than usual wasn't it?

I liked his voice when he said "On my face please"

I thought he would said that God of war plus Colossus equals God of war 3

 

[Vinticore]

Bit-o-fact: Dragon age, Origins had a reference to how the pastry is false, deliverd by the ever stoic Sten, make of that what you will. *smugface*

Do agree on it not feeling like a castlevania game though, so why bother?

 

[Sixties Spidey]

I never knew he liked Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, but he should probably try Super Castlevania IV, that game was the best in the "classic" Castlevanias and a linear game as well.

 

[Mangroth]

Nice video as always! Pretty hard on the poor game. I'm still going to try it.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

dude what the fuck is you main problem cant you just have fun when playing games wich are the main poitn and after all the piece fucking garbitch of shadow of colossus what nothing more than a patetic waste of time and speace it had nothing interesting to do and you only fight so little this game had more of a better story.

You don't know how this works do you?

 

[Gamurga]

i think you should stop using the whole "like god of war...but" joke...its getting old.

I agree, however it is still relevant

I disagree. Sure, Castlevania plays and feels a lot like God of War and every other game that supposedly "ripped of" God of War, but I don't see it that way. God of War invented (or perfected) a new genre, that is (like all other genres) defined by its gameplay.
Of course Castlevania, Dante's Inferno, Devil May Cry, God of War, Bayonetta and so on seem very similiar, but thats simply because they are all games of a certain genre.
Frankly, I'm bothered by the "like god of war but" joke (and it's not even a joke, it's actual criticism!).
So, how about a "like wolfenstein but" stamp for every shooter, or a "like Dune 2 but" stamp for every RTS?

 

[Madara XIII]

BWAHAHAHA I Lol'd my way through this review XD

The Like God of War but was definitely needed for this game and I just love how they gave almost no Screen time to Dracula whatsoever.... -_-

oh Btw... THE CAKE IS A LIE!! Srsly why in god's name would you feel the need to pull that in a game in 2010!?

 

[Jikuu]

SotN at least broke the franchise out of its side scroller rut...

That's a funny thing to say considering the previous game, the side-scrolling Rondo of Blood, was so good.

It was, and don't get me wrong, I don't necessarily think any of the sidescrollers or MetroidVanias were "bad" or anything. I liked them both a lot. They just probably get it in their heads that after 6 or so iterations, they want to pursue new ground. Only this time, they totally didn't.

As for the previous 3Ds, the 64s did have a rough start, but I thought the PS2 versions were nifty. I think in the end, Konami doesn't know where to go with ol' Drac and the Belmont clan.

 

[Mangue Surfer]

Apparently, Darksiders 2 is already out.

 

[Unhappy Crow]

Yep. The first thing that came to mind when I saw the gameplay was God of War and later on Shadow of the Colossus with the boss fight.

 

[Sephiwind]

Good Lord Yahtzee I seriously think you dropped the ball on this one. For starters the "Like God of War but.." stamp is getting old. If you are going to do that then you might as well give every FPS a like "Wolfenstein 3d but..." or "Like Doom but.." stamp. Hell while we are at it we can give every turn based RPG the "Like Final Fantasy but..." or "Like Dungeons & Dragon's but.." stamp. Honestly just because God of War started that style does this mean that every game of that style is just coping God of War? There is all ways going to be some game that started a style of game play that became popular then others copy it. Personally I think that's the only way they they really could have done a 3D Castlevania game.

As for there being no Dracula this kind of gave me the feeling you either didn't beat the game or didn't bother to sit through the credits, because if you had you would have realised why there was no Dracula.

I love your reviews but this was very disappointing.

 

[RagnaThePig]

Actually there are two Portal references. Near the end of the game, someone talks about "Aperture" magic. So yeah.

Is Yahtzee alergic to semi-fixed camera angles ? In this one, I never had any problem with the camera. Maybe the occasional awkward angle but nothing frustrating.

The 2 DVD thing is only on Xbox, PS3 user get only one blu-ray, so no swapping for them.

Also, th first Castlevania games did not have any free roaming, they were linear games. Since this is sort of a reboot thing, I guess they were trying to go back to that kind of structure.

I do agree that Dracula thing at the end was ridiculus.

Other than that, yeah it's pretty much a God of War rip-off, but not a bad game in itself. It's much better than Dante's Inferno for one thing. The pacing is solid, the monsters are many, the scenery is very nice, and the gameplay flows nicely.

The only thing I really did not like were those colossi. Nowhere near as interesting and awesome as Shadow of the Colossus since those fight are basicaly a big pile of fucking quick time events.

 

[dennett316]

i think you should stop using the whole "like god of war...but" joke...its getting old.

I can't agree with this. If the joke is getting old it just shows you how stagnant the games industry has become in terms of the outright theft of successful formulas and the repackaging of the same damn game for the seventy squillionth time. People keep buying them though, hence the need for the joke.

 

[Silven]

Mmmeh. Meh.

The PS3 version has only one disc, which makes it a lot more bearable (take that, brother of mine!), and it appears to be slightly more easy to play.
My personal experience with the game are a bit different than what Yahtzee describes. I instantly played it on Knight difficulty, which makes it reasonably challenging. And I have to say the bosses are not bad. Much better than the GoW bosses, and I am not counting the cheap SotC-ripoffs (agreed there). And LoS has the possibility to go back to previous levels, which I believe GoW lacks.

I have to admit I was a bit too hyped for this release, and slightly let down once I got my hands on it, but I can't say it's 55 euros thrown away. It's a good game, if somewhat mediocre. Good to keep one's mind off of things for a week or so.

 

[RowdyRodimus]

How dare the developers try something new with a series that has been doing the same thing for over 20 years. Not only that, why did they have to use the tired cliche of a whip with different attacks? God of Bore created that and dammit, only they should be able to use it.

Ok, now that I have that typical Castlevania hating 13 year old type quote (which this "critique" sounded like) out of the way. I'm beginning to think that Yahtzees problem with games isn't so much as they are bad as much as he sucks at playing them. If you have trouble using the light and dark magic in this game while keeping the action going, you have a problem with dexterity or one hand. It's no wonder he loves stealth games so much, that way you can just hide or run away.

Also, wasn't the Portal reference part of Patrick Stewart's narration and not one of the journal entries?

 

[snow]

i was thoroughly disturbed by some of the analogies in that video

Does anyone get the title

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
Lords: Damn cant think of anything
of: God of war
Shadow: Shadow of the Collussus

Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.......

Lord of the rings? Lords of thunder? Either way trying to fit the title into other games it's mimicked simply because it has the word "Of" In it is silly

This all has made me want to go back and play the original castlevania... Before smacking the controller at the screen in frustration.