Castlevania Demo Impressions Thread of EU PSN+ Exclusivity

Amir0x said:
Just fucking holy shit... *twitch*
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You're obviously not in the wrong, and I'm not even about to defend bad framerates particularly-- we're just saying that if you watch the gameplay videos and are not turned off by the framerate, then the actual statistics shouldn't bother you as long as you think it runs good enough based on what you see. I can see both arguments and as it stands, when I get the game and the framerate is terrible and keeps me from enjoying the gameplay, that's when I'll complain about it. But as said, until then, watching the game being played, I don't find a problem with what I'm actually seeing.

If you do watch it and do think the framerate sucks, that's an entirely different story.
 
FreedomFrisbee said:
I'm an animation student (2d and 3d), and a programmer. Please feel free to hit me with whatever framerate understanding you have, and whatever framerate understanding you feel I don't have.
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Games aren't TV and movies, for one thing.
 
I hope this game won't be like Darksider's framerate. Uncharted 2 or God of War III framerate should be fine for me.
 
brandonh83 said:
You're obviously not in the wrong, and I'm not even about to defend bad framerates particularly-- we're just saying that if you watch the gameplay videos and are not turned off by the framerate, then the actual statistics shouldn't bother you as long as you think it runs good enough based on what you see. I can see both arguments and as it stands, when I get the game and the framerate is terrible and keeps me from enjoying the gameplay, that's when I'll complain about it. But as said, until then, watching the game being played, I don't find a problem with what I'm actually seeing.
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I'm on this side too, if it can be considered a side. I was surprised to see the frame count, but based on all the footage I've seen so far, I think the framerate appears acceptable. It's not like this game is going to play like Devil May Cry, after all.

My greater concern is how well the combat system will sustain a 15-20 hour game. I enjoyed Darksiders a good amount, but I was really sick of the combat system about 80% through the game. I hope that LOS has a long ass combo list, even if it's just for the one weapon.
 
FreedomFrisbee said:
The interesting thing about framerate, is it has nothing to do with how fast the machine responds. The visuals could be being rendered 24 times a second, but that doesn't mean everything is happening under the hood at only 24fps.
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Games aren't movies.

Latency in games is directly tied to how fast the system refreshes the framebuffer or the "framerate".
 
brandonh83 said:
You're obviously not in the wrong, and I'm not even about to defend bad framerates particularly-- we're just saying that if you watch the gameplay videos and are not turned off by the framerate, then the actual statistics shouldn't bother you as long as you think it runs good enough based on what you see. I can see both arguments and as it stands, when I get the game and the framerate is terrible and keeps me from enjoying the gameplay, that's when I'll complain about it. But as said, until then, watching the game being played, I don't find a problem with what I'm actually seeing.

If you do watch it and do think the framerate sucks, that's an entirely different story.
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My point is not that it wasn't annoying me, it's that I don't judge framerates early on because games are continually optimized as it closes in on release.

Now that we know how bad it is, apparently, it has become a problem for my desire to buy the game. I have accepted the desire devs have to staple games at 30fps, I mean christ the consoles are what they are, but sub-30fps? That's below anything I can accept.

It's one thing to occasionally stutter below, but to be consistently below? Yikes.
 
FreedomFrisbee said:
I'm an animation student (2d and 3d), and a programmer. Please feel free to hit me with whatever framerate understanding you have, and whatever framerate understanding you feel I don't have.



The interesting thing about framerate, is it has nothing to do with how fast the machine responds. The visuals could be being rendered 24 times a second, but that doesn't mean everything is happening under the hood at only 24fps.
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You can't see the results of your input until the next frame comes out, right?

I don't have the expertise to argue this point. I can only say that I've heard people say framerate affects responsiveness countless times, and I've heard what you're saying one time. Assuming you aren't the only person who knows something, I have to be skeptical of your claim.
 
Amir0x said:
Now that we know how bad it is, apparently, it has become a problem for my desire to buy the game. I have accepted the desire devs have to staple games at 30fps, I mean christ the consoles are what they are, but sub-30fps? That's below anything I can accept.
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I suppose this is just a wait and see kind of deal, but I truly hope that you give the finished product a whirl before writing it off. I'm sure you will, just saying, when I read that the framerate is 24fps it didn't really get to me as I can see the evidence of how the game truly runs-- even if it isn't optimized before it hits shelves, the demo gameplay didn't show me anything technically off-putting so we'll just have to see.
 
Well, I for one hope that was an old unoptimized demo.

I don't think they would ship a product with that low of a framerate. Then again, I've seen game companies do worse.
 
hey_it's_that_dog said:
You can't see the results of your input until the next frame comes out, right?

I don't have the expertise to argue this point. I can only say that I've heard people say framerate affects responsiveness countless times, and I've heard what you're saying one time. Assuming you aren't the only person who knows something, I have to be skeptical of your claim.
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Well, I'll try not to be too technical. A game can have FPS effect how responsive it is, if it's coded that way. For instance most flash games. The way most big AAA titles work, however, is that the machine does things as fast as it can, and over a set interval says 'put the results on screen' (If you can comprehend that).

So, in a manner of speaking, you could have 60 fps responsiveness but only have 24fps be showing. A persons ability to respond to visual stimuli makes the fps generally not matter.
 
Played the demo yesterday and boy did it suck.

The main character is bland and boring. His weapons lack impact and the animation of NPC's and enemies are AWFUL.
True, in the demo you'll only get the small and big wolf enemies, but they felt like pre-GOW enemy types. The demo's strong points were the voice-overs by Steward. The game-part was horrible bland and boring. It's like GOW, but without the impact, presentation and this feeling of "action".

I'd buy 3 copies of Dante's inferno (such a mediocre game) before this game, based on the demo. Hopefully A lot will change for the final release.

edit: BTW I'm also not a big GOW fan, so maybe this genre is just not made for me
 
brandonh83 said:
watching now. much thanks.
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Don't count on quality gameplay though, considering how jetlagged I am it's a miracle I managed to finish the demo.
Plays very well, I just wish there was a free camera.
 
FreedomFrisbee said:
Well, I'll try not to be too technical. A game can have FPS effect how responsive it is, if it's coded that way. For instance most flash games. The way most big AAA titles work, however, is that the machine does things as fast as it can, and over a set interval says 'put the results on screen' (If you can comprehend that).

So, in a manner of speaking, you could have 60 fps responsiveness but only have 24fps be showing. A persons ability to respond to visual stimuli makes the fps generally not matter.
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You've argued that it's possible to decouple responsiveness from framerate, but I'm more interested in knowing how frequently actual games do that.

Secondly, how do you account for the widespread belief that 60fps action games play better than 30fps action games? Is it a shared delusion? A false belief that has successfully spread?
 
I can't wait to freaking play this, I expect more good reviews and hopefully the game does good, if this is a reboot that means this game does good we can hope for more big projects like this. :D
 
hey_it's_that_dog said:
Secondly, how do you account for the widespread belief that 60fps action games play better than 30fps action games? Is it a shared delusion? A false belief that has successfully spread?
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That's a good question, I think 60fps games on 2D hardware were a lot more responsive than 60fps 3D games are today, and that's not even counting the 30ms delay some modern TVs add, even in 'game mode'.
So a modern 3D 60fps game might actually be only as responsive as a 20fps SNES game, or something, but I haven't put much thought into this...
 
hey_it's_that_dog said:
You've argued that it's possible to decouple responsiveness from framerate, but I'm more interested in knowing how frequently actual games do that.

Secondly, how do you account for the widespread belief that 60fps action games play better than 30fps action games? Is it a shared delusion? A false belief that has successfully spread?
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As far as I know, it's standard practice to at least have the ability to de-couple the framerate and responsiveness, in the manner I described, in an engine.

In action games it probably doesn't matter a whole lot, honestly. I think you might be mistaking the sentiment thats held for fighting games. Any 1 on 1 competitive game needs a steady fast framerate so the animations come out consistently. Someone might be taking that mentality and applying it to the action genre because it's a similar combat situation, but gameplay wise it wouldn't make much of a difference. How smooth the framerate is obviously could effect it, but if it's a locked framerate it doesn't matter.

Framerate is really a purely visual aspect of the game. It's synonymous with good graphics. It's up there with how many polys are on a model. It doesn't really matter that much, just as long as there's enough.
 
FreedomFrisbee said:
As far as I know, it's standard practice to at least have the ability to de-couple the framerate and responsiveness, in the manner I described, in an engine.

In action games it probably doesn't matter a whole lot, honestly. I think you might be mistaking the sentiment thats held for fighting games. Any 1 on 1 competitive game needs a steady fast framerate so the animations come out consistently. Someone might be taking that mentality and applying it to the action genre because it's a similar combat situation, but gameplay wise it wouldn't make much of a difference. How smooth the framerate is obviously could effect it, but if it's a locked framerate it doesn't matter.

Framerate is really a purely visual aspect of the game. It's synonymous with good graphics. It's up there with how many polys are on a model. It doesn't really matter that much, just as long as there's enough.
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I suspect expert DMC, Ninja Gaiden, and Bayonetta players would disagree. But perhaps the issue isn't input responsiveness but rather visual fluency. If the action is too fast and the framerate is too low, the game becomes illegible and it affects playability. I'll just have to wait until someone who knows/cares comes in and argues with you.

ZeroRay said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjxmMEDuBZQ

Frame analysis for those curious. Fluctuates from 17-33 FPS, average is >24fps.
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This was posted on page 5. It's what started the whole framerate discussion.
 
This whole framerate BS should just be dropped right now, because the demo is, to the T, what was shown at E3. Wait until the full release.
 
hey_it's_that_dog said:
I suspect expert DMC, Ninja Gaiden, and Bayonetta players would disagree. But perhaps the issue isn't input responsiveness but rather visual fluency. If the action is too fast and the framerate is too low, the game becomes illegible and it affects playability. I'll just have to wait until someone who knows/cares comes in and argues with you.
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Yes, that's reasonable. Anything below 24fps with fast gameplay would probably make it an issue. The thing to be contended with here is: would it matter if they had an extra fraction of a fraction of a second to react? (The only game you mentioned that I havn't touched is Ninja Gaiden)

This was posted on page 5. It's what started the whole framerate discussion.
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THAT is? The way people were talking about it I thought it'd be way worse. I saw nothing wrong with that. Music especially was great.
 
FreedomFrisbee said:
Yes, that's reasonable. Anything below 24fps with fast gameplay would probably make it an issue. The thing to be contended with here is: would it matter if they had an extra fraction of a fraction of a second to react? (The only game you mentioned that I havn't touched is Ninja Gaiden)



THAT is? The way people were talking about it I thought it'd be way worse. I saw nothing wrong with that. Music especially was great.
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I completely disagree with your use of 24fps as the cutoff point. Ninja Gaiden at 30fps would play significantly worse than it does at 60. Some people could probably tell the difference between 40 and 60, and some people between 50 or 60. I don't know why you're anchored to 24fps as a minimum acceptable framerate (because of film?) but at the risk of repeating myself, framerates between 30 and 60 can have a perceptible impact on playability too.
 
The 24fps argument doesn't hold ground with videogame. 24fps + motion blur (movies) is more like 30fps without motion blur (videogames).

When you see a game starting to get choppy when you play it's because you dropped under 30 basically.
 
QisTopTier said:
I can't wait to freaking play this, I expect more good reviews and hopefully the game does good, if this is a reboot that means this game does good we can hope for more big projects like this. :D
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Yea I think I've seen 3 at 90% now. I'm going ahead and putting down my pre-order today then. Have they firmed up a date on the 360 demo? I hope it is next week considering it is out the next.
 
Jtyettis said:
Yea I think I've seen 3 at 90% now. I'm going ahead and putting down my pre-order today then. Have they firmed up a date on the 360 demo? I hope it is next week considering it is out the next.
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I believe David Cox's twitter has confirmed that the demo will be out for everyone this coming week.
 
Jtyettis said:
Yea I think I've seen 3 at 90% now. I'm going ahead and putting down my pre-order today then. Have they firmed up a date on the 360 demo? I hope it is next week considering it is out the next.
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28th.
 
It'd be awesome if there a way to take a fast-paced action game (say DMC4 on pc), and for 'feeling purposes' (by this i mean the actual rate at which images are refreshed on screen, and the rate at which the engine 'chops up' scenes without necessarily rendering them), be able to limit the 'actual framerate' and 'virtual framerate' to arbitrary numbers (below the max the machine can handle oc).
 
TheFLYINGManga_Ka said:
I know you can play off disc 2 for the 360 version after you install disc 1, but I'm hoping we can install both discs to the HDD.
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Should easily be able to do that. Option for the second disc should be straight from the dashboard. Should be play all installed from the second disc. All devs should be doing this going forward, thanks Konami.

CcrooK said:
I believe it's been said they both have the same suffering issues.
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Where is said comparison btw? Interested to know how the 360 version holds up.
 
brandonh83 said:
All of it looks real-time to me.
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Looks fabulous. The gameplay in the demo looks fun to me. The combat looks a little more deliberate than GoW. And I like GoW anyway. Medieval GoW with SCIV music and those graphics is way more than enough.
 
Y2Kev said:
Looks fabulous. The gameplay in the demo looks fun to me. The combat looks a little more deliberate than GoW. And I like GoW anyway. Medieval GoW with SCIV music and those graphics is way more than enough.
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Agreed. I just think people are going to be really surprised at how much more the game is going to have to offer especially if all they think they're getting is a GOW clone. Hell, maybe that will work to the product's benefit when it comes out and gobsmacks everyone.

...possibly more conjecture on my part, but I'm pretty hopeful.
 
CcrooK said:
Eh, it's no biggy really. I'm wondering if you can install both discs though.
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Why wouldn't you able to? Install one through the ingame process and the other through the dashboard. It'll be extremely unlikely that you won't be able to install both.

Some people installed both forza discs through the dash and they weren't getting the extra content from disc 2. The correct way to do it is by installing disc 1 through the dash, starting it up and then the game prompts you to install disc 2.
 
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