Zero Punctuation: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

Labcoat Samurai

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FieryTrainwreck said:
Ever heard of the girlfriend test?

I've got a semi-gaming literate girlfriend. She plays with me from time to time.

She thought Castlevania was God of War.
Yeah. And my girlfriend commonly mistakes various shooters I play for one another. If you weren't well versed, Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 and Modern Warfare 2 are nigh indistinguishable at a glance, but they are very different games.

I play a LOT of third person action games, so it makes sense that she'd confuse them. But this is the first time she was legitimately mistaking one game for another. "Wait, this isn't God of War? I thought you just unlocked a new character or something? But he still uses whips? And you still have those little mini-games where you press the buttons on screen?"
Heh, that sort of suggests she *isn't* so well versed.... I mean QTEs are all over the place, and not just in action games. And the ones in Castlevania are more different than most. RE5's QTEs have more in common with God of War's than Castlevania's do. Castlevania's are more like the ring system in Lost Odyssey. It's less about finding the right button than it is about hitting a button at the right time, which I tend to prefer. It lets you stay concentrated on the action. There are the button mashing ones, where you need to mash the right button, but those tend to be forgiving. Not saying it isn't a similarity at all, but given the prevalence of QTEs, it's no reason to single out Lords of Shadow.

She didn't mistake Darksiders, Bayonetta, or DMC4 for GoW.
They don't use whips/chains. The combat cross is powerfully evocative of the Blades of Chaos/Athena, I'll admit... but what *should* he use? Belmonts have been using whips and chains since the very first Castlevania.

Anyways, the point of this little aside? If you're capable of distinguishing in such detail the minor (but likely significant, to the hardcore player anyways) differences between the rapid flashing whips of God of War and Lords of Shadow, you're probably too detail-oriented to decide whether or not the games are overly similar. I mean at that point you're pretty much capable of differentiating anything.
I'll grant that there are superficial similarities. I was a bit worried they *would* be too similar, but that worry melted away once I started playing it. YMMV, I suppose.

I think I'm gonna be done here. I feel like I'm arguing with an impassioned minority, which is exactly what you tend to find in ZP threads. I think I'll just go with the following: LoS is not a shot-for-shot remake of GoW. If that's enough for you to dismiss the charges of "GoW clone", by all means, enjoy your game.
Fair enough. It's all opinion anyway. If it's too similar for one player, it's too similar. But I do feel it's a bit unfair to the game. Lots of games out there share superficial similarities. Why is this one singled out? Personally, I think it's because Yahtzee's repetition of "Like God of War, but..." has made it a particularly heinous crime to share anything in common with God of War. Make a shooter with a power armored super soldier, and people won't give you too much of a hard time for ripping off Halo. They may take away originality points, but they won't bust your balls over it too much, particularly if your game is otherwise really good. But, here, at least, if you make an action game with chains and quick time finishers, you're going to get called a God of War clone, regardless of what else your game might be.

Edit: well *you* won't be called a God of War clone, but your game might be :)
 

Dygen Entreri

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You know, with the Portal referance in Fable III, and the track record ZP has with that series, it is going to make a hysterical review.

Never played Castlevania, never want to, but watching this is always good!
 

ResonanceSD

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Is he aware the "like god of war but" stamp is the reverse of what it should be?
 

vaskar

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It looks like the only thing it a game needs to be a "like God of War but" stamp is a hack n' slash style combat. Lords of shadows feels like something more out of the line of Devil May Cry. Guess that sucks for DMC or is it Devil May God of War...
 

rickicker

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Oct 26, 2010
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Wow...a series iteration so bad I can't even justify the use of my 'It's not Castlevania, it's Devil's Castle Dracula, get it right you Gaijins!' card. Why do they keep on crapping on the classics I love so much with gritty reboot after gritty reboot? WHY?! What is up with this fixation on gritty reboots when the original material can hold enough ground all on its own? Bay did this with his Bayformers, Capcom did this with Bionic Commando, and now COCKS did it with Castlevania, presumably after a night of Tequila-binge and watching Guillermo del Toro movies!

Damn kids with their "I wanna be edgy" attitudes!
 

CoL0sS

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While Yahtzee's reviews never fail to make me laugh (and he always has some good points), my concern is, is the game worth it? I tried the demo and it was fun. Now, since I'm unable to rent or borrow the game (no game shops that offer that or friends with PS3) I'm unsure whether to buy the game because demo didn't really offer extensive look into gameplay ; there weren't even any platforming parts. However I've found its setting to be interesting, and my only encounter with Castlevania was a brief one, back on PS1. So I want your opinions since there are a lot of other games I could buy instead (only own PS3 for a couple of months now)
 

Aiddon_v1legacy

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rickicker said:
Wow...a series iteration so bad I can't even justify the use of my 'It's not Castlevania, it's Devil's Castle Dracula, get it right you Gaijins!' card. Why do they keep on crapping on the classics I love so much with gritty reboot after gritty reboot? WHY?! What is up with this fixation on gritty reboots when the original material can hold enough ground all on its own? Bay did this with his Bayformers, Capcom did this with Bionic Commando, and now COCKS did it with Castlevania, presumably after a night of Tequila-binge and watching Guillermo del Toro movies!

Damn kids with their "I wanna be edgy" attitudes!
Because gaming is going through its angry 90s comic book phase and is of the mentality that anything short of "grim and gritty" is for kids, women, and fags. Thank god for Nintendo
 

rickicker

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Oct 26, 2010
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Aiddon said:
rickicker said:
Wow...a series iteration so bad I can't even justify the use of my 'It's not Castlevania, it's Devil's Castle Dracula, get it right you Gaijins!' card. Why do they keep on crapping on the classics I love so much with gritty reboot after gritty reboot? WHY?! What is up with this fixation on gritty reboots when the original material can hold enough ground all on its own? Bay did this with his Bayformers, Capcom did this with Bionic Commando, and now COCKS did it with Castlevania, presumably after a night of Tequila-binge and watching Guillermo del Toro movies!

Damn kids with their "I wanna be edgy" attitudes!
Because gaming is going through its angry 90s comic book phase and is of the mentality that anything short of "grim and gritty" is for kids, women, and fags. Thank god for Nintendo
Greaaaaaat. Next thing we know, Death would be sporting pants with unnecessary pouches and a flowing jacket while sporting the most ridiculously over-sized guns and spouting awful puns. Wake me up when the industry's pock-marked, cracking voice, emo-music listening, triple-D-titties-chasing puberty phase is over.
 

Greylynx

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Nov 19, 2009
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Over 5 castlevaina games have not featured drucla excluding this one
The original 2D games were pretty linear
So, basically Yatzhee your complaints about that are very far off the mark of what a castlevaina game is or isn't.

Your disc problem doesn't concern me*points to my ps3*

Also, Metroidvaina should already be the hint your not actually playing a Castlevaina, because it's Starts with *Flipping* Metroid! I'd like to end that with most plot of earlier castlevainas were that you just out to kill dracula and you swung your whip/chain around(except in Symphony and the GBA games where you had other weapons)....so, making it a love story about defeating the lords of shadow is just taking it more about taking it back to it's roots....So it's not "Like God of war but" , also I believe there were a few bosses that had specific weak points and were huge so it's not "Like Shadow of Colossus but", it's more "Castlevaina but you never played the castlevaina it happened in". Aka do more reesearch

Also for those saying this a gritty Reboot this isn't that gritty and infact is probably more lighter than symphony of the night in tone
 

RockPlazaCentral

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Oct 28, 2010
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While Yahtzee's reviews never fail to make me laugh (and he always has some good points), my concern is, is the game worth it? I tried the demo and it was fun. Now, since I'm unable to rent or borrow the game (no game shops that offer that or friends with PS3) I'm unsure whether to buy the game because demo didn't really offer extensive look into gameplay ; there weren't even any platforming parts. However I've found its setting to be interesting, and my only encounter with Castlevania was a brief one, back on PS1. So I want your opinions since there are a lot of other games I could buy instead (only own PS3 for a couple of months now)

I played the demo, enjoyed it, and bought the game. The game far exceeded my expectations; it's loads of fun.
 

RockPlazaCentral

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Oct 28, 2010
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CoL0sS said:
While Yahtzee's reviews never fail to make me laugh (and he always has some good points), my concern is, is the game worth it? I tried the demo and it was fun. Now, since I'm unable to rent or borrow the game (no game shops that offer that or friends with PS3) I'm unsure whether to buy the game because demo didn't really offer extensive look into gameplay ; there weren't even any platforming parts. However I've found its setting to be interesting, and my only encounter with Castlevania was a brief one, back on PS1. So I want your opinions since there are a lot of other games I could buy instead (only own PS3 for a couple of months now)
I played the demo, enjoyed it, and bought the game. The game far exceeded my expectations; it's loads of fun.

(Sorry about the repeat post.)
 

FoolKiller

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joemegson94 said:
Left 4 Dead 2 has a Portal reference and that game's awesome.
So does 'splosion man :)

I like the game. And God of War was in no way original although I must admit that many of the themes in this game did feel GoW-like to me.
 

KatsuExe

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Jul 31, 2008
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Just by watching a few videos i could tell the game barely resembled Castlevania at all. Also on a side-note since when do i suck pigs...
 

Waif

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Mar 20, 2010
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I played a demo for this game, yet, it wasn't as inspiring as I had hoped it to be. Symphony of the Night and game play surrounding that would have been a nicer touch, but then I could just be looking at this from a Nostalgic point of view.