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.
Zero Punctuation: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
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.
I really had to laugh about the "pile of miserable little secrets! Ah, ah, ah!". It shows your nerdiness ;-)
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.
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.
You do realize that the 3d Castlevanias with similar play style came out long before God of War 1 right?
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.joemegson94 said:
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.
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.Sephiwind said:
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.
Why? I'm playing SOTN right now and making me blow my load.minimacker said:
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?
Honestly I found this game more of a homage to other great games (without lingering too long on any aspect) and not so much of a ripoff.
Sure the basic combat feels like God of War initially, but once you get new moves and light and shadow magic the combat becomes very different. I'm also going to assume Yahtzee played this on the easiest setting, since attacking and dodging only does not work on higher difficulties, and really requires you to block and manage your magic more as a result. That's another thing, you gain more magic power by attacking repeatedly without being hit and critically timed blocking pretty much negates out any downtime if you do get and stuns your foes for a second or two. Light magic restores health and has defensive effects like a damage reduction shield when used with holy water and exploding fairies. Shadow magic increases your damage significantly and causes your daggers to explode on impact (required for some puzzles to hit switches from a far). Both have unique moves that become available when active.
Anyway the main reasons you should play this game is the story, visuals, Patrick Stewart, and the awesome triple twist ending. The gameplay is enjoyable and nowhere close to bad, but it's not the primary selling point of this game.
EDIT: for those who say this is nothing like Castlevania, sorry you're wrong on that note. The enemies, settings, and characters are all pulled from supernatural folklore and previous Castlevania games. We get all the same themes that Castlevania is known for on a much more refined scale and the reason Dracula doesn't appear til the Outro makes perfect sense when it is revealed.
Sure the basic combat feels like God of War initially, but once you get new moves and light and shadow magic the combat becomes very different. I'm also going to assume Yahtzee played this on the easiest setting, since attacking and dodging only does not work on higher difficulties, and really requires you to block and manage your magic more as a result. That's another thing, you gain more magic power by attacking repeatedly without being hit and critically timed blocking pretty much negates out any downtime if you do get and stuns your foes for a second or two. Light magic restores health and has defensive effects like a damage reduction shield when used with holy water and exploding fairies. Shadow magic increases your damage significantly and causes your daggers to explode on impact (required for some puzzles to hit switches from a far). Both have unique moves that become available when active.
Anyway the main reasons you should play this game is the story, visuals, Patrick Stewart, and the awesome triple twist ending. The gameplay is enjoyable and nowhere close to bad, but it's not the primary selling point of this game.
EDIT: for those who say this is nothing like Castlevania, sorry you're wrong on that note. The enemies, settings, and characters are all pulled from supernatural folklore and previous Castlevania games. We get all the same themes that Castlevania is known for on a much more refined scale and the reason Dracula doesn't appear til the Outro makes perfect sense when it is revealed.