Zero Punctuation: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

[Mykayel1]

The game is basically a hybrid of Shadow Of The Colossus, Super Castlevania 4, a bit of Devil May Cry (the combo buying part) and Prince Of Persia (the platforming IS taken straight out of the Sand of Time trilogy)...so I guess it is like God Of War since that's basically what God Of war is. But calling it a God Of War knock off is like calling God Of War 3 a Dante's Inferno knock off because D's I came before GOW3 on the PS3. And as for mounting monsters....it's just a coincidence that both GOW and LOS did it. If you insist that one must of copied off the other (I don't believe that is the case though) you got it backwards, the fact that you can mount enemies was announced for LOS long before it was for GOW3 and I doubt Mercury Steam had inside information on the fact that Santa Monica Studios where doing this (seriously, look it up). Besides, they control completely different.

EDIT: I also noticed a lot of people think this wasn't meant to be a Castlevania game...it was. The original Lords Of Shadow trailer was shown to Konami as a 'prototype' of what Mercury Steam wanted to do with the franchise, but they didn't know if Konami would like it so they just called it LoS until Konami responded giving them permission to make it.

 

[cefm]

"The Castlevania franchise is like Sonic in that whenever it gets into bed with 3-D it blows its load 30 seconds in and has to sleep in the wet patch"

Genius. And true.

 

[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.

Been watching AVGN huh?

Nope. I got my hands on that game years back. It's damned awesome.

 

[Neferius]

What... no Devil May Cry references? Come on!

 

[RockyMotion]

PS3 version is a single blu-ray disc, chalk it up to Xbox fail on that one.

Pretty much, and the position of the analog sticks are symmetrical on the dualshock, so you don't have any trouble absorbing the magic orbs.

 

[Nocturnal Gentleman]

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...

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.

Wow. Thank you for putting in words exactly what I though about the game.Espescially gameplay wise. I have no idea why it's getting so much hate. In fact, I have to give them credit for trying to give answers to parts of castlevania that never made much sense to me. Questions like why the hell am I the only one trying to stop nightmares from taking over, why greater monsters (hell even gods) would follow and serve dracula, where did these monsters really come from,and why use a whip of all things this team tried to address. Heck most of the changes they made at least made it make a bit more sense.

This game is only a good thing in my eyes. At least they're not just making more SOTN copies. In fact, I never really liked symphony. From the art style to the gameplay, it never did anything for me.

 

[SirGazereth]

Castlevania always sucked...

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Spot on review,good job.

What I have noticed for "action" games on consoles is that most of them are a clone of God of War 3.The only thing different from one from another is the setting and the plot.

It can work in some cases for people who like knock-offs or the plot is deep enough to keep you going through the game without minding the gameplay.

 

[Techni]

Wait, Gabriel Bell?

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Gabriel_Bell

 

[rabidkanid]

I hate RE4 on GC/PC/PS2 because I could only play a little bit of it before getting HORRIBLY bored and putting it down, yet at the time of it's release (and probably still now) you couldn't go around a corner without someone yammering on about how incredible it is and making you rue the day the game ever showed up on store shelves.

 

[rabidkanid]

I'm sure he ment Metroid Prime 2, but knowing Yahtzee he probably never played those games and just is going on hearsay.

Considering that Prime 3 is a, for a lack of a better word, prime example as to why his "motion controls are unimmersive" bullshit, yeah I doubt he played the sequels as well.

I still dont get why he always brings up super paper mario and metroid prime 3 when mentioning light/dark systems. the phazon system in prime 3 was used as a risky and temporary offensive boost and super paper mario's system merely involved the changes from 2d to 3d levels.

Yeah that always confused me as well. I guess switching from 2D to 3D counts as dual world gameplay in Yahtzee's little world.

That was an image of Metroid Prime 2, not 3! Metroid Prime 2 had a Light and Dark beam and had a Light world and Dark world. The Light Dark thing is, in my opinion, a very lazy attempt at stretching out the game since after a bit there is really no story development for the vast bulk of the game till the end after beating the final boss.

I don't really know what your talking about with Super Paper Mario having a light/dark system because it doesn't. The world flipping to the side doesn't count as one either. It's just a different perspective used to get past areas and solve puzzles. The Light/Dark world from the game from what I remember would probably have to do with the normal world and the world that those pixel creatures come from and having to switch between them at times.

So, long story short, based on your complaints about Yahtzee's opinions about games you think he's never played, I would doubt that you or the people you quoted every actually played the games either since 1. you confused Metroid Prime 2 for 3 when that's a 'GAMECUBE' game case and 3 is for Wii, and 2. you again confused the Normal/Pixel world with the change viewpoint gameplay aspect. Maybe you should actually bother looking up information on the games you think Yahtzee doesn't know anything about before you go around proclaiming knowledge about those same games when you clearly don't know nothing about them to begin with.

 

[rabidkanid]

~flaps his tonsils~

 

[RockPlazaCentral]

This game is awesome!!! I haven't finished it yet, but it's simply gorgeous, the God-of-War-robbing combat is challenging and exciting, the colossi, er...titans are huge, the camera angles add a nice sense of scale, the platforming is a fantastic rip-off of a rip-off (Uncharted, which ripped off Prince of Persia), and the hero is refreshingly not as angry as Kratos (though he does kill everything in sight). The boss fights require some lousy tactics, but they're cool and the skippable puzzles added a nice change of pace.

Although I love this game, it certainly deserved a Yahtzee tongue lashing for its derivative nature.

Yahtzee, when I visit Australia, can I buy you a beer?

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Don't worry bro, I'm actually at your side, this game is awesome from start to finish and as I said before, it feels more like Super Castlevania IV with combos and 3D (and less awesome music) than anything else, even GoW since the combat feels distinct yet familiar...

But I feel people are going for the easy cheap shot and calling it a knockoff and stuff. Ok go for it, I still found it... Fun, what according to Mafia's review, Games are supposed to be.

I think the problem is with a lot of people, especially reviewers, that go into a game too much pessimism in fearing that it will be like some other game, then if their is even just a very small hint that it is like another game they played, they write it off as bad a unoriginal. More people need to start playing new games with an open mind and just go with the moments and have fun. I know reviewers have to look closely at the games they review, but sometimes I think they look too close and look over the actual good and fun qualities of games.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Sorry, double post. It is one of those days that my internet won't register that my post went through.

 

[Ericb]

Favorite/hated moment of that game: Going to get the Nitroglycerin and heading back >

I remember that what kept going through that shitty part was the music. For real.

Crappy game, but the Frankenstein maze bit I actually appreciate, at least in basic concept.

And to be perfectly honest I can't imagine this game working in 3D, w/out using similar combat mechanics to GoW. I mean if "you" were to make a 3D castlevania, where the main character uses a whip, various selectable items, and magic, how would "you" make the combat work? Probably pretty damn close to what this game already did.

Though not an absurd answer to your own question, it is far from being the only possible one.

A team with more free reign over the design could possibly have decided to take a differente direction with that design, unless they personally loved GoW.

But from witnessing a lot of inspiration throughout the years I have to say that, if they really did love GoW, this game might have turned out more like an inspired craft.

Konami needed this new beginning.

An old franchise that needs to blatantly copy styles from far more recently succesful games to survive has just about outstayed its welcome.

A cow shouldn't be milked forever. It will turn saggy and dry.

After all, they have everything from Dracula's origins to twenty-minutes-into-the-future.

And this is from someone who loves the series for its wild concepts.

The games that deserve the "Like God of War But..." stamp don't copy from the inspiration of GoW. They base their entire gameplay on GoW, completely forgetting its own inspirations and improvements. And to top it off, they do it poorly, causing frustration and boredom on gamers. So, they ARE "Like God of War, But" they suck at trying to be it.

Much like the Doom-clones from yesterday. And there was a lot of them.

Which I like to contrast with Space Invaders that had more than its fair share of clones, with the occasional inspiration which actually built upon the original gameplay instead of just painting over its unchanged structure.

That's what I conclude after knowing GoW's gameplay was based on another game. Now I have to play it and find out how much of it was copied.

I'm curious about it too. Especial because the GoW-fanboys I have run into really made me annoyed about it.

Before that, I played it for a while and got bored, that's all. Poor game, my annoyance about it is not even its' fault. =T

 

[rabidkanid]

I still dont get why he always brings up super paper mario and metroid prime 3 when mentioning light/dark systems. the phazon system in prime 3 was used as a risky and temporary offensive boost and super paper mario's system merely involved the changes from 2d to 3d levels.

That was an image of Metroid Prime 2, not 3! Metroid Prime 2 had a Light and Dark beam and had a Light world and Dark world. The Light/Dark thing is, in my opinion, a very lazy attempt at stretching out the game since after a bit there is really no story development for the vast bulk of the game till the end after beating the final boss.

I don't really know what your talking about with Super Paper Mario having a light/dark system because it doesn't. The world flipping to the side doesn't count as one either. It's just a different perspective used to get past areas and solve puzzles. The Light/Dark world from the game from what I remember would probably have to do with the normal world and the world that those pixel creatures come from and having to switch between them at times.

So, long story short, based on your complaints about Yahtzee's opinions about games you think he's never played, I would doubt that you or the people you quoted every actually played the games either since 1. you confused Metroid Prime 2 for 3 when that's a 'GAMECUBE' game case and 3 is for Wii, and 2. you again confused the Normal/Pixel world with the change viewpoint gameplay aspect. Maybe you should actually bother looking up information on the games you think Yahtzee doesn't know anything about before you go around proclaiming knowledge about those same games when you clearly don't know anything about them to begin with.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

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

Excuse me? Where's that?