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[FrostuTheNinja]

Excellent, thanks folks I know what option is getting selected in the full game then.

Definitely helps with the flow of the game.

Question, why the hell did Gabriel throw his goblet to just pick it back up? Seemed so, I don't know, unnecessary?

 

[Krusenstern]

Demo satisfied me.

• art direction is stunning es ever...
• ...as is the soundtrack
• ditched the orb absorbing mechanic. No longer absorbing orbs
• combat system similar to first game (areal and direct attacks)
• Void Sword is replacing the light magic healing from the first game
• Chaos claws allow you to break the enemie's shield/defence
• press the jump button to get up quickly when lying on ground
• responsive controls overall
• nothing fancy/negative noticed about the hitboxes
• you can press a button to get your path marked while platforming
• game appears to be well optimized. Ran stable on highest settings
• needs some outside tweeking to achieve better anti-aliasing

Some screens (nice motion blur btw)

I for one will pre-order.

 

[WilyRook]

I really really enjoyed playing that. Could you also hold block and any direction and continually dodge in the first one? I don't remember but, that was a lot of fun to do. I like being able to highlight the navigation path with a button, too, makes objects not obviously gamey otherwise. One on one boss fight was as fun as ever. I can't really explain why the bosses are fun to fight in these games, since you pretty much do the same thing for every one. Just fun to control I guess, feels like playing a good brawler arcade game where you have to be defensive as well, can't just mash. Anyway, I'm excited to play the full game.

 

[Levyne]

Can't wait to try this out when I get home!

 

[GavinUK86]

And just for everyone's amusement:

And a couple for the two weapons:

I seriously love how this game looks.

 

[kazebyaka]

Well, played the demo and it was okay. Looks good, fight system is average at best, lacks impact of better titles. It's kinda messy really,you can't always tell when it's time to drink blood of an enemy because of special effects all around you and stuff like that. Platforming was decent enough, they at least tried to make it more like Uncharted, which is good. Dunno what else to say, throwback to one of the old games was cool to see

Spoiler

A Miserable Pile of Secrets

.

 

[ChiefofCitadelSecurity]

AA aside, the game looks really nice on PC.

So someone else noticed it too. I knew something was off. So damn fuzzy

The demo is short as hell but I liked what I played. Also that lighting does its job. Dem textures!

 

[Stone Ocean]

Soo what's everyones opinion on that reference?

Didn't make sense in context but hey I'll take the fanservice.

"Die monster" actually made sense so it felt good though.

 

[Zetta]

I'm assuming in the final game they're not going to give you all three weapons at the start like that, or they'll give you them to begin with and take them away after a short intro section (a la meeting Death in Sympony of the Night).

I've seen a preview where he gets the sword so I'm going to go with they will be unlockable as you progress. Probably in the present since he just woke up.

 

[Cynar]

And just for everyone's amusement:

That gif will have so many uses in the future

 

[Mr. RHC]

And just for everyone's amusement:

lol, excellent!

 

[Stone Ocean]

And just for everyone's amusement:

The moment I saw that I thought it was a tentacle.

In hindsight that was kinda better?

 

[Bor]

Demo satisfied me.

• 
  [
• ditched the orb absorbing mechanic. No longer absorbing orbs
  ]

as far as I am aware the orb mechanic is still in,but was deactivated in this demo.

Demo runs great on my 6870, already had the game preordered but this reaffirms it. 27th can't come soon enough

 

[-tetsuo-]

Erm, I feel like that whole level is straight out of God of War 2.

Sounds great

 

[Krusenstern]

And just for everyone's amusement:

Glorious.

 

[scitek]

Uh, are the cutscenes limited to 30 fps on PC for some reason? In game runs at 60 fps for me but the cutscenes never go above 30. As a result, I'm forced to immediately skip every cutscene so that I'm not subjected to the horror that is 30 fps. Can't be due to VSYNC either cuz I'm forcing triple buffering with D3DOverrider

No, they're not.

 

[Krusenstern]

as far as I am aware the orb mechanic is still in,but was deactivated in this demo.

Duh. Wonder why.

 

[NIN90]

I'm assuming in the final game they're not going to give you all three weapons at the start like that, or they'll give you them to begin with and take them away after a short intro section (a la meeting Death in Sympony of the Night).

They will probably go full on GoW2 (so not just the level) and do an abilitease after the tutorial.

 

[FlashbladeGAF]

Just did it and the bloodsucking QTEs are gone. (Thank Christ) update in a second to see if the platforming QTEs are gone.

Edit:

Gone.

So does it just do it automatically like your watching a cutscene?

 

[FrostuTheNinja]

So does it just do it automatically like your watching a cutscene?

Pretty much. For the platforming, jump to a section, crumble, playable. Same for feeding. Enemies flash yellow, tap the button once, blood!

Edit:

Still want to know where this camera help option is.

 

[Foffy]

just tested here. It's the DoF. changed it to medium, and the fps dip is gone. The cutscenes are still more demanding than gameplay, though. 30-40% GPU usage difference.

Wut? Why is it that demanding?!

 

[LaneDS]

Soo what's everyones opinion on that reference?

Made me laugh, but totally out of place. Not sure there's a way to deliver that line and have it not come across as straight cheese.

 

[Dio Brando]

Wut? Why is it that demanding?!

really not sure. maybe they do something like Gran Turismo, and the game has adaptive tesselation, or they just change the models for a high detail version? guess we'll discover when the game launches. it could just be no optimization on them.

 

[GavinUK86]

Pretty much. For the platforming, jump to a section, crumble, playable. Same for feeding. Enemies flash yellow, tap the button once, blood!

Edit:

Still want to know where this camera help option is.

Yeah, with the QTE option turned off, any moment where you have to line up the two circles are gone. It just plays the animation without interruption. Actually prefer it.

The camera option is on by default under 'Game Options'.

 

[Levyne]

I had a similar framerate drop with cutscenes in the first game. DOF issue there too? It would go from 60->30 without any hiccups so I assumed it was just capped for some reason.

 

[ciddative]

Just finished the PC demo, felt like I spent most of the time climbing.

Traversal almost had routes, maybe more divergent in the full game. It felt more imprecise and floatier than the original's linear yet mostly reliable traversal.

Combat was faster, quicker reactions needed than LOS1. Not a great fan of having dodge and block on same button, but maybe I'd get used to it.

Graphics were good, but even at max it wasn't anything stunning. Certainly not "almost next-gen" as the devs said. LOS1 was far more impressive upon it's release. Although it's a demo, so who knows.

I personally dislike

Spoiler

Gabriel's Dracula

model/textures, and find

Spoiler

the human Gabriel

far more appealing.

Art style seemed a bit all over the place, like they just threw stuff that looked/sounded cool together. Didn't get the cohesiveness or consistency of LOS1 for me.

Music was great, as in I didn't notice it much, when I did it seemed to fit and wasn't jarring

That

Spoiler

SOTN

reference was totally out of place and forced, and according to the last Gametrailers "Thanks for Playing" video, there's more shoehorned references to follow. Would much prefer maybe just one old school reference, late int he game rather than 2 right at the start withing 10 minutes.

On the whole, hype deflated somewhat. Have the Tomb edition pre-ordered and hovering over the cancel button.

Will pick up on steam though, probably after I finish the first one.

EDIT: ran fine on my ancient Q9550 4gb ram and 7850, as did the first

 

[Glass Rebel]

Every game with QTEs should have a no-QTE option so this is definitely a plus.

 

[ShineALight]

Weird, demo doesn't work for me. All kinds of graphical elements just aren't rendering, including menus and in-game models. I tried verifying the cache, restarting my system and updating my drivers (5770, they were already up-to-date). This game isn't one that's a huge priority to me so it's no big deal, guess I'll just skip it for the time being.

 

[flashbandit16]

Weird, demo doesn't work for me. All kinds of graphical elements just aren't rendering, including menus and in-game models. I tried verifying the cache, restarting my system and updating my drivers (5770, they were already up-to-date). This game isn't one that's a huge priority to me so it's no big deal, guess I'll just skip it for the time being.

When I tried forcing any kind of aa like msaa or ssaa the graphics were broken. I had to use smaa or the ingame aa which I am not sure what it is using.

 

[hey_it's_that_dog]

Every game with QTEs should have a no-QTE option so this is definitely a plus.

Seems to me that the option to turn them off is an admission that their implementation is shit anyway, so why have them at all? The way they work here is 100% non-challenging and just a waste of the player's time, and it interrupts the flow of the action to boot.

 

[nOoblet16]

plays just like the previous game, which is a good thing. I have one complaint though, I hate the glowing weapons and the even brighter glows during impact, you can't see shit when hitting enemies.

 

[ShineALight]

When I tried forcing any kind of aa like msaa or ssaa the graphics were broken. I had to use smaa or the ingame aa which I am not sure what it is using.

It's unfortunate, because I'm unable to even see the menus, so I have no way of turning any graphical options on or off. Not sure what the issue could be.

 

[MarcoZombieCannon]

plays just like the previous game, which is a good thing. I have one complaint though, I hate the glowing weapons and the even brighter glows during impact, you can't see shit when hitting enemies.

Agreed, I upped the difficulty right at the beginning, but was getting wrecked by dudes who were hiding behind the void sword's hitsparks. I've heard people mentioning this before, but I don't know if Mercury Steam acknowledged it.

 

[TnK]

Platforming sections in the demo are terrible. It would help if I could see what can I climb onto and not without using the guide button. And at one section the wall texture was so dark I had to continue on blind.

I think they're repeating their mistake with the demo for LoS1 by not giving you more moves to play with, mashing buttons isn't really that fun. At least you have the light/dark stuff from the start here. There's also the heavy attacks I think by holding X or Y for the first attack. And yeah, they're very generous with the block timing here.

Demo ran okay, no 60 FPS for me like the first game but I haven't played around with the setting beyond dropping most of the stuff to medium. Seems to be an okay port performance-wise.

Maybe you need to adjust the Gamma. Seems like you have a case of crushed blacks.

I actually really enjoyed the platforming in this demo vs the first game. It is faster, and there are consequences for messing things up.

Sword and Claws have the orb thing? Oh C'mon =/ Well, I don't mind the sword, but I really wish the Claws stay.

Art direction is incredible, and the graphics are really good. I am also really enjoying the art style of the first game, but this looks better. More "Castlevania"-ish.

Overall really hyped, and I hope they release the Special Belmont Edition for the PC.

 

[Zeth]

Just now getting into LoS 1. Perfect timing. Though the tutorialized first few levels are painfully slow.

If the sequel looks and runs this good I'll be quite happy. 3200x1800 on a single 680 2gb.

 

[Levyne]

Art direction is incredible, and the graphics are really good. I am also really enjoying the art style of the first game, but this looks better. More "Castlevania"-ish..

I loved the art direction of the first game. If this looks even better..

I mean, I know we have screens and trailers but I want to see it for myself on my monitor while I am playing it, haha.

 

[flashbandit16]

It's unfortunate, because I'm unable to even see the menus, so I have no way of turning any graphical options on or off. Not sure what the issue could be.

Are you using radeon pro or what does catalyst control center look like under the gaming tab.

 

[Intheflorsh]

He's a bit of a sloppy eater.

 

[brandonh83]

He's a bit of a sloppy eater.

GOD I need a good PC already. Playing this on PS3 won't do it justice. Hell I played the demo on my current shit PC and it still looked and performed better than the PS3 version.

 

[KarmaCow]

Wow the developers really wanted to make sure everyone could play this and get it in the laziest way possible. Is there really a need for 3 layers of path hinting (the environment, the bats and even a straight up toggleable highlight)? Need to open a door? Have the camera hang on the flashing object for a while and have text tell you to mash the B button when near it. Then do the same thing again for the next time it pops up, just in case some one somehow fluked their way through the first one. It's almost insulting.

For a game that has a trailer highlighting their voice acting talent and supposed narrative focus, the really didn't bother to integrate the (cinematic) gameplay elements in a way that didn't stick out like a sore thumb.

 

[Slowdive]

I liked it, controls much better than the first, will hopefully be buying day one.

 

[george_us]

Didn't like the demo at all. I'll probably pick it up once it hits $30.

 

[Messofanego]

Is anyone else's game crashing when they turn off the in-game vsync?

 

[ShineALight]

Are you using radeon pro or what does catalyst control center look like under the gaming tab.

I hadn't tried using Radeon Pro before your post. Catalyst Control Center has been broken for me as long as I've had this computer, and after hours of trying on several occasions I've never been able to as much as get it open. It always crashes when it should be starting up (if it does anything at all, no attempts to reinstall or anything have remedied this).

I tried using Radeon Pro with different combinations of settings and nothing seemed to fix the graphical issues, which result in a game that looks like this:

It's not a huge deal, I was of curious as to how I'd run it and apparently there's my answer. Also figured I'd just share my experience in case anyone else has been running into issues, but I'm not sure how much more time/energy I'm willing to expend on getting it working when I could just as well go download the demo on my PS3. Thanks for the help, though!

 

[GrayFoxPL]

Tell me L3 does nothing(significant) this time.

 

[N1ghtW4lk3R]

Still Crappy AA for this sequel...DS is the redemption one more time!

 

[Violater]

He's a bit of a sloppy eater.

Glorious, PC it is.

 

[Sanctuary]

Pretty ham-fisted. Much like the blodoy tears line in the first.

He makes a reference in the Resurrection DLC. I laughed when he said it too, but also thought it was kind of cool. It also seemed to fit much better than the reference in the demo.

 

[Sanctuary]

delete

 

[TnK]

I loved the art direction of the first game. If this looks even better..

I mean, I know we have screens and trailers but I want to see it for myself on my monitor while I am playing it, haha.

Go ahead and download it, what are you waiting for? DO IT NOW!

Wow the developers really wanted to make sure everyone could play this and get it in the laziest way possible. Is there really a need for 3 layers of path hinting (the environment, the bats and even a straight up toggleable highlight)? Need to open a door? Have the camera hang on the flashing object for a while and have text tell you to mash the B button when near it. Then do the same thing again for the next time it pops up, just in case some one somehow fluked their way through the first one. It's almost insulting.

For a game that has a trailer highlighting their voice acting talent and supposed narrative focus, the really didn't bother to integrate the (cinematic) gameplay elements in a way that didn't stick out like a sore thumb.

I really agree with this. Was thinking the same thing just now while playing through LoS1. "The spider dropped a magic gem, look! Also, press RT to pick it up!"
C'mon mercury steam, at least acknowledge that your players have SOME form of intelligence. That being said, really enjoying LoS1, even chapter 2, lol. Why did people dislike this chapter again? I am having a blast by simply going through the area. The art direction is downright beautiful.