Castlevania: Lord of Shadow

[miir]

Wow, this game totally caught me off guard. My expectations were pretty low.

It's ridiculously fun.. takes all the best parts of God Of War, Devil May Cry and Uncharted and dumps them into one jaw droppingly gorgeous game.

It's easy to tell that Kojima had his hands all over this. The production is Hollywood calibre... the cut scenes, voice acting and set pieces are spectacular. I found myself sitting and listening to Patrick Stewart's narration at the beginning of each area long after the 'hit start to skip' prompt flashed on screen.

The combat is very fluid and easy to get the hang of. There's a lot of blocking, dodging and combos with the occasional quick-time event thrown in the mix. So far the puzzles have been pretty intuitive. My only compalint would be with the platforming elements where control feels a bit vague.

[Animalor]

I was floored by the demo yesterday. Literrally blew me away.

[miir]

I had some credit at EB Games burning a hole in my pocket so I just grabbed it on an impulse yesterday.
I still cannot get over how good the game looks and plays.

[Kluden]

I'm super stoked to hear this game is good. Its got a great metascore going as well on both platforms. I'm not sure when I'll buy it, but its a for sure for me...just need to get thru demon's souls a few times, finally play thru assassin's creed, finish tales of vesperia, start god of war 3, and will be a while with fallout new vegas too...so maybe early 2011? Jebus I am behind on games...someone tell me how to win the lottery.

[Funkmasterr]

I'm picking this up today for sure. I've always been a fan of Castlevania, but I didn't have my hopes up for this one. I kept an eye on the reviews and it's been doing awesome.

The one complaint I have read is that later in the game some of the platforming is nearly impossible, not by difficulty but by spotty design. I'm willing to forgive this.

[miir]

Finished up the first chapter last night and that boss fight was... wow.
You can add Shadow of the Colossus to the list of games it mimics.

And Patrick Stewart definitely kicks ass.

[Funkmasterr]

Yeah after dying about 10 times last night I got the first chapter boss down too, awesome fight. If you could get the challenge checked off on your first playthrough I definitely would have for him.

This game is awesome, with a side of kick ass. I don't care that it's a mockery of a handful of other games with Castlevania's story thrown over the top, it's still great so far.

[miir]

I spent a good 45 minutes on him....

Challenging, yes.
Frustrating, not at all.

The checkpoint system is very well done.

[Funkmasterr]

Yeah, I was actually just talking to a few guys at work about that. I died a bunch of times but it was a rare occasion where after dying 10 times on the same thing I wasn't cussing my tv out. I was actually kinda confused.

[Fairweather Pure]

I've heard nothing but good about this game.

[Fairweather Pure]

I picked it up. I thumbed through the game guide and liked what I saw.

[Dregor Thule]

Watching videos, I think I'm too slow to play this game. I mean good lord, the amount of jumping around and shit is intimidating.

[Winnow]

Tried out this game today.

Lots of likes, very few dislikes.

Likes:

Graphics looks great although they overdid the "shininess" Not everything has to be super reflective. Even the hair on the horse has super shine. Thankfully, I like this though so, although very noticeable as overdone, doesn't distract.

UI is great. Super polished. I love the little sketch animations in the skills book so you can see what they do. The characters and bestiary part are excellent as well although why didn't Patrick Stewart narrate all the Bestiary and Character entries? Cheap!

I really like that you have the choice of turning on or off the health bars of yourself and the enemy. Some people like to see then while others enjoy the less cluttered cinematic look without them. EXCELLENT decision to allow you to toggle them on or off individually along with damage indicators and health indicators.

While the cut scenes are a bit gratuitous, they integrate extremely well into the game. The main character's voice leaves a little bit to be desired. Not manly enough or emotional but this is a Japanese game.

I like that while the game takes you in a direction, parts of it feel a little open and you have to search around if you want to find all the fallen knights, etc. As it turns out, I guess Enslaved is that way as well as when I looked back at the finished chapter summaries after finishing the game, I had left almost half of the energy balls out there even after I thought I had looked around for them.

On Easy, the combat seems fun although a little more difficult than Enslaved on easy. My health has been low a few times. I think I'm becoming more of a "medium" setting gamer.

Dislikes:

Can't rotate the camera. Not a huge problem but with a more open world, I ended up backing my way into many areas...meaning I was discovering new areas of the game while "pulling" my character into them (like looking in the rear view mirror) Most of the time I found myself wanting to rotate the camera to check out the beautiful surroundings but in the case of watching myself from the front entering into new areas and pathways, it didn't feel right.

Gabriel's dead wife does not look as hot as the girl in Enslaved

The platforming parts, while not bad, doesn't seem as fluid as Enslaved.

So far (Chapter 1) this is a very wet world. Raining all the time (or mist), Swamps, wading through water, etc) I guess this works well with super shine effect graphics. Hoping to see some dry places later on.

I don't feel vested in the story like in Enslaved where you start to care about what's happening early on as opposed to just enjoy the fun game play. I'm only on Chapter one so will give that some time!
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Overall, an excellent game for its genre. The only thing I'd give Enslaved the edge is in the Story and Uniqueness of the world (not detail as Castlevania's graphics are super sharp and pretty/higher quality as well), and maybe the coolness/camera angles of the platforming parts...oh and the voice acting of the actual characters (not narration of course as Patrick Stewart rocks) Don't get all upset that I'm comparing it to Enslaved. That's a good thing. Enslaved would benefit from everything else in Castlevania except for what I mentioned. I'll comment again later after the first boss mob and beyond.

[Dregor Thule]

Is it a better RPG than FF XIII?

[Aslanna]

Tried out this game today.

If you hacked your PS3 you wouldn't have to waste a DVD burning it!

[Winnow]

Tried out this game today.

If you hacked your PS3 you wouldn't have to waste a DVD burning it!

Fry's finally sells the good quality DL DVDs for cheap! Plus, with 360, I only have to burn one DL DVD and only download 7.x GB to try out half the game. If I like, can download the other Disk! Did you hack your PS3? I haven't touched mine since it was hackable so have the old Firmware still. I also (because PS3 sucks) had to replace the internal HD awhile back so have a 160GB one in there. Ready to go for lots of games!

Either this game is incredibly long or I'm slow. I thought I was fighting the final Chapter 1 boss in the monastery (when you get the +5 daggar upgrade) but when done, I checked map and it said 26 percent complete with chapter 1? I killed the, I guess, mini boss the first time so was going to come laugh about your 45 min attempt.

I still think Patrick Steward should have read every one of the scrolls you pick up in this game and the Bestiary. He get paid 1K per word or something?

Beautiful world in this game. A lot of attention to detail. Sure wish I could rotate the camera so I could see where I was going instead of where I've been half the time.


edit: whoa, wasn't expecting nudity in this game. I take that it has a mature rating:

NWS:

[Show]

+01/100 to my eventual final game rating

[miir]

I killed the, I guess, mini boss the first time so was going to come laugh about your 45 min attempt.

Not everyone pussies out and plays games on 'easy'... seriously, what's the point of playing on easy?

On easy you don't have to dodge, block or use combos.
You can just spam the square button.
Wow... fun.

[Winnow]

Wait a sec...i'm in snowy area and I'm getting effect as if snow blowing up against window from my viewpoint...wtf? That ruins the immersion. I think someone discovered a cool effect and put it in game even though it makes no sense for it to be there. Cool or not, that still cancels out the +1 naked fairy bonus.

I play on easy the first time through. Call me a pussy all you want. If I don't have fun, I up the difficulty. Knock yourself out with the nuclear acid rain up your ass difficulty. Whatever makes it fun. If you see me bragging about achievements that might be different. I'm just getting through the games trying to enjoy the story and atmosphere. And yes, I still had to jump, block, roll, etc etc to beat the boss or I would have died but the key to that fight was figuring out the white glowing rings, a mechanic sort of similar to that in Lost Odyssey.

[miir]

That's Funk who like to play games on ridiculous difficulty settings.

[Winnow]

I've run into two things that say my skills aren't high enough or need shadow magic. One was in chapter 1 (a chest right before the naked fairy). Has anyone gone back to get those yet? It is possible to go back in chapters?

First titan boss was great. The scenery has indeed changed quite often and I'm only beginning Chapter 2. Still a lot of water but I like the sound of running water and waterfalls so that's not so bad! No fucking way anyone could travel around in steel boots with all the swampy water and not have their feel completely torn up with blisters and gang green. (Not picking, but the Enslaved duo were much better dressed for getting around in their environment!) A pet peave of mine is waterfalls that have absolutely no reason to be there. In the movie Avatar for instance, there's these waterfalls coming off several of the floating rocks. WTF is all that water coming from?

Super impressive visuals atmosphere in this game.

[Funkmasterr]

That's Funk who like to play games on ridiculous difficulty settings.

Its all achievements/trophies fault, theyve ruined the way I play

And winnow, Ive ran into more than that, there is one of those points in every level in chapter 2 so far. But yes, you can go back and play previous levels.

[Fairweather Pure]

It's a really good looking and fun game. Even despite reading all of the positive reviews, I still managed to be pleasantly surprised.

The only real drawback is it's yet another combo based game. My wife was watching me play and asked "does it control like Dante's Inferno"? I was like yeah, it uses a combo system exactly like that game, Bayonetta, Ninja Gaiden 2, God of War 1-3, Darksiders, and DMC 4. I'm sure there are even more to add to that list that I own that I couldn't think of off the top of my head. Not really a knock against the game, but I seem to have played a lot of these types of games this year. I like how they changed the QTE system up a bit. GoW 3 did a good job on those as well.

I was going to get either this or Enslaved. Castlevania won because it's Halloween! It's a very fitting and enjoyable game for this time of year. I'm glad I bought it.