Castlevania Demo Impressions Thread of EU PSN+ Exclusivity

WickedLaharl said:
even on XBL? i sure hope it is. i'm kinda unsure about this game still and don't want to purchase it without trying it out first.
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As far as I know it's confirmed for an 'open' release on the EU PSN for next week, I haven't see any confirmation of other versions yet.
 
For the new page: demo is up!

TTP said:
I don't see it. You mean it's downloading automatically to you?
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After activating the automatic downloads I went back to the store (god knows why) and it's in the PS+ section.
 
banKai said:
For the new page: demo is up!


After activating the automatic downloads I went back to the store (god knows why) and it's in the PS+ section.
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Indeed. I just did that and it's there now. Oh well, downloading.
 
Awesome fellas. Pics and vids if possible.

Question brothers and sisters will the Japanese version have English subtitles?
 
The After Burner Climax theme is also in the PSN+ section for free.
*installs it*
...how anyone would pay 3€ for that is beyond me. I would hardly pay that amount even for the most awesome dynamic themes (ABC theme is not dynamic).


edit: 50%
 
Looking forward to these early impressions and I hope they are good. Still a firm buy until I experience otherwise. Also hopes for Xbox demo before release as well.
 
Jtyettis said:
Looking forward to these early impressions and I hope they are good. Still a firm buy until I experience otherwise. Also hopes for Xbox demo before release as well.
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I know the combat is probably going to feel like God of War, but like Darksiders I hope that its borrowed elements and new things of its own help give it its own identity. Sure, the concerns that it's a GOW clone are legit, but the game can still have its own unique atmosphere and presentation and there will be a lot more platforming elements. Not to mention it's going to be longer than any given GOW title, its looking like 12-15 hours if you just plow through it. Again, can't wait to play it for myself and see how everything comes together.

SolidusDave said:
supports XMB custom music
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...and if the soundtrack isn't "Castlevania" enough... :lol
 
Ricker said:
Yeah but still,looking forward to impressions as well. :D
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Well the problem that I can possibly see coming is that the village area, while graphically nice, won't really carry the same Castlevania vibe as say, an environment within the castle or another gothic locale. Don't get me wrong, I'm truly grateful that we're getting plenty of outdoor environments-- but if people go in ready to name it off as another God of War clone, I mean the village area won't really do much in the way of showing them that there will be more to the game.

Come on people, play harder and type faster!

edit: edited that back in so your post didn't confuse people ;)
 
brandonh83 said:
It's probably that village at night + warg chase, but whatever, I just want to see how it plays for myself.
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yup, demo contains these two parts (so it's rather short).


I have to say I don't actually care for the Castlevania franchise or this particular setting, but it played and looked ok/good. I even barely played the Castlevania games so take everything I say with a grain of salt :lol
Controls were fine/direct/responsive, at first it felt like GoW but due to the evade/block/counter button (L2) later on I was slightly reminded of Bayonetta.
Kills are more satisfying in GoW, especially due to the finishers.
I have to say I also really missed some gameplay gore (the game/demo is Level 7 in Sony's parental control system, for reference even something like AC gets the maximum of level 9).
No magic in the demo at all.

I didn't really get what they wanted me to press while these circles close in slow-motion during the chase scene. ^^


Apparently you can't control the camera by yourself, that would suck a bit (camera was fine in the demo locations though)


@custom music: I mean, I don't think this will be a game that actually needs it just like most sp games (though I was soooo glad Bayonetta supported it :lol ). I would prefer if they auto-disabled custom music during the cutscenes though...


edit: overall not really impressive but I wasn't really interested in the first place so I still won't buy it. But it's also not crappy.
 
damn.. forgot that the download stops when playing a game xD but it's like 1 MB a sec, so should be playing soon.
 
Very poor demo to be honest.

Didn't enjoy any second of it. Combat wasn't neither fun nor brutal enough to hide that. Blood splatters are terrible, they are so huge and so fake looking you wonder why they are so huge to begin with. Anyway, triggers (instead of shoulder buttons) for main actions like grabbing/use and blocking are a bad sign. For some reason, devs walking under the GOW shadow seem intimidated to use the right stick for dodge, so we get the "L2 + Left stick direction" shit even here. Of course do not expect GOWIII graphics here. It's not bad overall (fixed camera angles by the way) but lacks all those post processing stuff that turn digital visuals into "living paintings". I'd say it feels as accomplished in this regard as Darksiders. Perhaps a little better than that. It does stutter at times tho. Very briefly, but it does. Art style looks terribly generic for now but it's just lycanthropes in the demo. And I have the feeling the game spoiled itself to me by showing a glimpse of the past during a cutscene.
Gabriel lost his love and we are shown she was decapitated. Despite his face being covered, the executioner looked like it could be Gabriel himself to me.

Sucks there is no fight against big boss. I wanted to check that more than the rest. There is a horse riding sequence so. On rails and all. Super basic stuff with a twist. If you fall off the horse, a "fighting area" loads where you have to fights lycanthropes. You kill them all and your horse comes in and picks you up for proceeding with the ride.

Collegues of mine playing the review code are telling me game is quite good, and I have no reason to believe otherwise. But if that's the case, this demo doesn't do the game justice. Looks like you average GOW wannabe basically.
 
SolidusDave said:
supports XMB custom music
Click to expand...
YES!:D . Time to load up Bloody Tears.
TTP said:
Very poor demo to be honest.

Didn't enjoy any second of it. Combat wasn't neither fun nor brutal enough to hide that. Blood splatters are terrible, they are so huge and so fake looking you wonder why they are so huge to begin with. Anyway, triggers (instead of shoulder buttons) for main actions like grabbing/use and blocking are a bad sign. For some reason, devs walking under the GOW shadow seem intimidated to use the right stick for dodge, so we get the "L2 + Left stick direction" shit even here. Of course do not expect GOWIII graphics here. It's not bad overall (fixed camera angles by the way) but lacks all those post processing stuff that turn digital visuals into "living paintings". I'd say it feels as accomplished in this regard as Darksiders. Perhaps a little better than that. It does stutter at times tho. Very briefly, but it does. Art style looks terribly generic for now but it's just lycanthropes in the demo. And I have the feeling the game spoiled itself to me by showing a glimpse of the past during a cutscene.
Gabriel lost his love and we are shown she was decapitated. Despite his face being covered, the executioner looked like it could be Gabriel himself to me.

Sucks there is no fight against big boss. I wanted to check that more than the rest. There is a horse riding sequence so. On rails and all. Super basic stuff with a twist. If you fall off the horse, a "fighting area" loads where you have to fights lycanthropes. You kill them all and your horse comes in and picks you up for proceeding with the ride.

Collegues of mine playing the review code are telling me game is quite good, and I have no reason to believe otherwise. But if that's the case, this demo doesn't do the game justice. Looks like you average GOW wannabe basically.
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Thx TTP. So this like Dead Space all over again eh.
 
Jtyettis said:
Sounds like a short demo at best. 30 minutes maybe? Hmm, need more impressions.
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About that yeah. It just a quick combat tutorial > a cutscene > a horse ride > a cutscene > the end.
 
TTP said:
Collegues of mine playing the review code are telling me game is quite good, and I have no reason to believe otherwise. But if that's the case, this demo doesn't do the game justice. Looks like you average GOW wannabe basically.
Click to expand...

Exactly what I suspected. The E3 demo didn't do a lot for me (the village/chase) but footage from later parts of the game, and screens, look fucking incredible.
 
TTP said:
Very poor demo to be honest.

Didn't enjoy any second of it. Combat wasn't neither fun nor brutal enough to hide that. Blood splatters are terrible, they are so huge and so fake looking you wonder why they are so huge to begin with. Anyway, triggers (instead of shoulder buttons) for main actions like grabbing/use and blocking are a bad sign. For some reason, devs walking under the GOW shadow seem intimidated to use the right stick for dodge, so we get the "L2 + Left stick direction" shit even here. Of course do not expect GOWIII graphics here. It's not bad overall (fixed camera angles by the way) but lacks all those post processing stuff that turn digital visuals into "living paintings". I'd say it feels as accomplished in this regard as Darksiders. Perhaps a little better than that. It does stutter at times tho. Very briefly, but it does. Art style looks terribly generic for now but it's just lycanthropes in the demo. And I have the feeling the game spoiled itself to me by showing a glimpse of the past during a cutscene.
Gabriel lost his love and we are shown she was decapitated. Despite his face being covered, the executioner looked like it could be Gabriel himself to me.

Sucks there is no fight against big boss. I wanted to check that more than the rest. There is a horse riding sequence so. On rails and all. Super basic stuff with a twist. If you fall off the horse, a "fighting area" loads where you have to fights lycanthropes. You kill them all and your horse comes in and picks you up for proceeding with the ride.

Collegues of mine playing the review code are telling me game is quite good, and I have no reason to believe otherwise. But if that's the case, this demo doesn't do the game justice. Looks like you average GOW wannabe basically.
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This makes me want to cry. But have your collegues said there is a difference between the demo and final product? Maybe the demo is based off of old (E3?) code?
 
slasher_thrasher21 said:
I'm guessing this demo is probably an old build as well... Well its only about a week and a half away now for the full release.
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Yeah kinda of like the GOW3 demo and we all knew the finished product was quite polished.
 
Ugh can't believe they decided to just release the same tutorial demo from E3. A demo is suppose to sell someone on a game, not give them a tutorial(though a demo should have a tutorial too). Probably going to do the game more harm than good. You don't need a demo to sell an excellent game. If people perceive the game as excellent but decide to try the demo before they buy, they may change their minds about buying based on a boring demo.
 
oh and for the 720p-incapable HDTV PS3 players: the game can (be forced to) run at 1080i/p.

Image quality was also fine for me (I hate prominent aliasing).
 
NeoUltima said:
Ugh can't believe they decided to just release the same tutorial demo from E3. A demo is suppose to sell someone on a game, not give them a tutorial(though a demo should have a tutorial too). Probably going to do the game more harm than good. You don't need a demo to sell an excellent game. If people perceive the game as excellent but decide to try the demo before they buy, they may change their minds about buying based on a boring demo.
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They probably thought it wasn't worth it to do a new demo...
 
TTP said:
Very poor demo to be honest.

Didn't enjoy any second of it. Combat wasn't neither fun nor brutal enough to hide that. Blood splatters are terrible, they are so huge and so fake looking you wonder why they are so huge to begin with. Anyway, triggers (instead of shoulder buttons) for main actions like grabbing/use and blocking are a bad sign. For some reason, devs walking under the GOW shadow seem intimidated to use the right stick for dodge, so we get the "L2 + Left stick direction" shit even here. Of course do not expect GOWIII graphics here. It's not bad overall (fixed camera angles by the way) but lacks all those post processing stuff that turn digital visuals into "living paintings". I'd say it feels as accomplished in this regard as Darksiders. Perhaps a little better than that. It does stutter at times tho. Very briefly, but it does. Art style looks terribly generic for now but it's just lycanthropes in the demo. And I have the feeling the game spoiled itself to me by showing a glimpse of the past during a cutscene.
Gabriel lost his love and we are shown she was decapitated. Despite his face being covered, the executioner looked like it could be Gabriel himself to me.

Sucks there is no fight against big boss. I wanted to check that more than the rest. There is a horse riding sequence so. On rails and all. Super basic stuff with a twist. If you fall off the horse, a "fighting area" loads where you have to fights lycanthropes. You kill them all and your horse comes in and picks you up for proceeding with the ride.

Collegues of mine playing the review code are telling me game is quite good, and I have no reason to believe otherwise. But if that's the case, this demo doesn't do the game justice. Looks like you average GOW wannabe basically.
Click to expand...

Eh, sounds like your playing it compared to GOW, but really would rather hear comparisons to you know.... Castlevania.
 
BattleMonkey said:
Eh, sounds like your playing it compared to GOW, but really would rather hear comparisons to you know.... Castlevania.
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Indeed.

How is the precision platforming? When enemies hit you, did you fall back into any pits?
 
Segata Sanshiro said:
Indeed.

How is the precision platforming? When enemies hit you, did you fall back into any pits?
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Pretty sure that if this demo is the same as the E3 demo, there is no platforming to be had. At all. :lol

I guess in a sense it's a way to get people into the combat of the game, and leave the exploration-ish elements for the full game, like Batman: Arkham Asylym
 
Foffy said:
Pretty sure that if this demo is the same as the E3 demo, there is no platforming to be had. At all. :lol

I guess in a sense it's a way to get people into the combat of the game, and leave the exploration-ish elements for the full game, like Batman: Arkham Asylym
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But.... bouncy medusa head rage....
 
For some reason, devs walking under the GOW shadow seem intimidated to use the right stick for dodge, so we get the "L2 + Left stick direction" shit even here.
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Definitely not a problem for me. I prefer direct camera control on right stick with Ninja Gaiden style dodging. Never liked right stick dodging as it forces you to remove your hands from the face buttons.

The rest sounds disappointing, however.

Did they use the fancy object motion blur that has always been present in gameplay trailers and demos? The game seemed light on most post processing, but the motion blur always struck me as impressive.
 
SolidusDave said:
oh and for the 720p-incapable HDTV PS3 players: the game can (be forced to) run at 1080i/p.

Image quality was also fine for me (I hate prominent aliasing).
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May I ask a couple of noobish questions?

I'm not technically savvy, and I am looking for an HDTV. Why do Xbox 360 games list the standard resolutions as 480i/480p/720p/1080i/1080p whereas most PS3 games only go to 720p? Does the Xbox do anything different that they can get 1080p? When you say can be forced to run in 1080i/p, is there any loss in picture quality?

I haven't been keeping up with technology and it is a pain to try and understand everything just to buy a decent HDTV. Thanks for any help.
 
Henchmen21 said:
Here's the rundown.

NA= Art book, Soundtrack.
EU= Art book, Mask Replica
Japan= All of the above
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What?
Are you sure?
I thought the EU gets the Mask Replica and soundtrack.
 
Spike said:
May I ask a couple of noobish questions?

I'm not technically savvy, and I am looking for an HDTV. Why do Xbox 360 games list the standard resolutions as 480i/480p/720p/1080i/1080p whereas most PS3 games only go to 720p? Does the Xbox do anything different that they can get 1080p? When you say can be forced to run in 1080i/p, is there any loss in picture quality?

I haven't been keeping up with technology and it is a pain to try and understand everything just to buy a decent HDTV. Thanks for any help.
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Don't worry. This doesn't concern you, every current HDTV can do 720p and 1080i/p.

The thing is, while the 360 can upscale every game to 1080p, the PS3 does not. It's on a game-by-game basis so if a game can only output 720p, owners of very old US HDTVs (which can't output 720p) have to play it in SD and not HD.
 
BattleMonkey said:
Eh, sounds like your playing it compared to GOW, but really would rather hear comparisons to you know.... Castlevania.
Click to expand...


The demo plays like a GOW and because of this I can compare it to only that (or similar games).
 
Just finished the demo. It's the same old demo (night village with rain tutorial + horse ride in the forest). It's pretty short, there's no platforming or exploration. But I really enjoyed the combat system, especially on the second/third playthrough. The game has really nice graphics (but no don't exepect anything at GOW3 level) and the atmoshpere is great, there's a strong western mythology/Lord of the Ring vibe.
I admit that I was more impressed by the latest footage (gameplay+cutscenes) than the actual demo but this is definetly day one for me.
 
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