Zero Punctuation: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

[The Great JT]

No Dracula? Oh Castlevania, what've they done to you? That's on par with what Captain N did to Simon Belmont.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Here's hoping for another handheld Metroidvania.

Those games are fantastic.

 

[WaderiAAA]

I hereby make the prediction that in seven years all franchises that have gone crappy since they turned 3D will have downloadable and remotely good 2D games - like what Sonic just did.

 

[TheThirdChild]

Everything you said was what I thought of it.

Although it was nice to fight werewolfs instead of undead legionnaires.

 

[WoulfeLoung]

Am I the only one that realized that he messed up in the text? When he did 'The Count From Sesame Street' backwards, he started it with HTE. And his stamp is technically backwards the first times.

 

[Zudarkness]

Well the fart joke was funny but I actually do like the game fighting elements. it makes you think Metal Gear for a reason..probally cause it was made by Hideko. There will be a sequal.

 

[PrinzMegahertz]

I really had to laugh about the "pile of miserable little secrets! Ah, ah, ah!". It shows your nerdiness ;-)

 

[Legendsmith]

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

it's not a joke, it's sadly true.

 

[archvile93]

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.

Been watching AVGN huh?

 

[Hawk of Battle]

Man he kicked it. He kicked it HARD.

 

[Joshimodo]

The end of that review nearly killed me.

Unless they manage to make a Metroid Prime-style leap to 3D, Castlevania will NEVER work in three dimensions.

 

[Darkrain11]

I really liked LoS actually. The story was solid (but cliched, I know), the enemy variety was plentiful without being ridiculous, and the combat was overall satisfying. Also, it really is annoying that people are still complaining that it is "like God of War but...", I guess because one game did something no other game should ever do it again and the really upsetting thing is if Gabriel used a different weapon, like a sword, people would have just said "like Ninja Gaiden but...". Games are going to copy things off one another, its a fact and it is inevitable, so people should not be AS upset as they are when it happens. BTW I loved both GoW and SotC so this game was like having two of my favorite icecream flavors at the same time.

 

[radioactive lemur]

I'm a little disappointed he didn't mention the immersiveness murdering glitches and the save issue. Everything else he mentioned are minor issues compared to those two kicks to the crotch.

 

[duchaked]

oh that is so cheap Yahtzee! cracking me up with a fart joke...hurr hurr good one
nice move, and with the Count from Sesame Street too ah ah ah...

 

[Serphalerph]

You do realize that the 3d Castlevanias with similar play style came out long before God of War 1 right?

 

[Manicotti]

Left 4 Dead 2 has a Portal reference and that game's awesome.

Really? Where? Is it on some saferoom grafitti? I've logged almost 200 hours on that game and I can't think of where Portal might have been referenced.

On topic, this was about what I expected, given the underwhelming response from the official Escapist review. Solid humor if a little grosser than usual, but the "pile of secrets" thing in the credits had me cracking up.

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

Disk swapping argument is invalid - PS3 version is on one disk.

Game is crap anyway though...

 

[tautologico]

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.

The problem is the degree of similarity. Most FPSs that came out shortly after Doom (Wolf 3D wasn't as big as hit) were actually called Doom-clones, because they mostly copied the Doom formula wholesale. The genre actually evolved a lot since then, and a current-day game like Halo or CoD has very little in common with Doom except for the most basic tenets, like "it's in 1st person, and you shoot things". The same for RPGs and RTSs and other genres.

For some games, the similarity to GoW is too much and they get labeled as clones, as the Doom-clones did in their day. I didn't play Lords of Shadow much, but my impression from the little I played was that it ripped from GoW just a bit too much.

 

[Misho-]

Logic time:
If (a) good Castlevania games follow the "metroidvania" structure,
and (b) Metroid Prime was a good 3D adaptation of a "metroidvania" game,
Then if you wanted to design a good 3D Castlevania, isn't the obvious solution to model it like the one of the Prime games?

I don't really understand this logic, but that means a First Person Castlevania "Mirror's Edge with Whips"?

 

[dudeman0001]

Castlevania, huh?

I wish this never left SNES.

Why? I'm playing SOTN right now and making me blow my load.

OT: Thanks Yahtzee for touching on the fact that this game is NOTHING like castlevania, which was the main reason I didn't get it...
I saw some guy who calls himself SP review it and when they didn't even notice that it's nothing like castle vania, really jostled my flaps... rockband 3 next and GH6? maybe fallout?