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[Shmuely Bully]

Just realized that I stop playing whenever a rat section pops up. It's not that they are hard, poorly designed or any of that, they just crop up far too often. This might have been an interesting ability if used sparingly...

You'll miss the rats

Spoiler

when you're having to use mist form to get past guards and jumping over lasers

.

 

[Ahasverus]

And credits. Gee, thanks for a real shitty non-conclusion, Mercury Steam. The last little stretch before the end saw the game get a bit better, but it ultimately fell flat on it's face with something that feels like a 'stay tuned for DLC' ending. Pretty disappointed overall and can't give it any higher than a 6.5. It had some fun boss battles, but that is about it for me. Back to Gamefly it goes.

Oh man that hurts so much coming from you


Here's hoping we get our own DMC3.

 

[BeberMan]

Beat it.
I thought it was great, and I came in expecting it to be just that.
Sure, it has some problems, but when I found myself playing for 3 hours straight I realized I'm definitely not playing a bad game =].

The stealth sections do break up the pace, but they aren't terrible, they're just not anything special or exciting. Thankfully they are scarce.
Platforming is very automatic and requires patience only on a couple occasions.

However, the combat, graphics, exploration, bosses' design, and even the story are very well made(though the ending left me like this - =/ ).

I was a big fan of the first LoS and I think that this is a great sequel. It doesn't break any new ground with the franchise or with the genre, but it still is an awesome action-adventure game.

8.5 for me.

 

[John Harker]

I hope a lot of people give this game a fair shot.
Seems it's destined to be a 'fun to hate on' game

 

[-tetsuo-]

Holy shit the dagger platform section is god awful. Just terrible. I don't even want t play this game anymore :/

The bosses here shit all over the first one. Without a shadow of a doubt. LoS1 had fucking terrible bosses. I'd say about 85% of the bosses in this game are superb. The rest are passable.

There is nothing close to great about any of the bosses i have fought so far, and I just beat

Spoiler

the second acolyte

.

 

[Haunted]

Maybe they'll make a GOTY edition without the stealth and rat sections. ;_;

Also hilarious how making the QTEs optional drives home how much needless mashing and repetitive timed-button presses are in this.

Overall, I'm ready to mark this one as a total disappointment. And that comes after I replayed the first one to (almost) 100% in preparation and hype for this. fuck

 

[TGO]

Played a bit of the original last night and Wow, the game feels so alien without camera control
Also does anyone else feel the opening modern section from where the game starts looked better and more realistic then the rest of the games modern areas?

 

[Tizoc]

Help me out here please.
Zobek tells me to go to

Spoiler

the church, so I follow the mission markers to the underground lot, fight those 2 giant demonsthat explode wen they die and ten take the lift up to Down town. When I get out of the lift the marker tells me to use the lift AGAIN, but using it takes be to the underground lot.

How am I supposed to reach my destination?

 

[cormack12]

What major goal are you expecting?

</snip>

I was expecting some sort of driven story. Zobek's attitude is really one of calm and indifference. There's no build up or sense of achievement, either when you capture the first

Spoiler

demon

or come back out of the castle for the first time before hitting the modern city. It just doesn't really seem anything is happening apart from being sent here and there. Also, if you reveal that the goal of the (anti)hero is to seek his death then it sucks all the tension out the game/story. Basically he's immortal and can only be killed one way at the end with the help of Zobek....do you see the problem with that from a plot/theme/tension point of view?

I mean I don't really have a problem with the underlying story, I just think it's really poorly executed. The anti hero losing all abilities and needing to recover them is a common cliche but that doesn't bother me too much to be honest. If the artists are some of the best at gothic and haunting castles, they are absolutely awful at cityscapes. Honestly when i first came out of that lift into the car park it was really jarring, it looked like a game from 2/3 years earlier...Dante's inferno perhaps.

I loved LoS1, even on the slower paced level/chapters you were always being driven forward. This is kind of like quick get here, then spend 10 minutes opening doors, creeping round ducts in rat form. Meanwhile while traversing the environments, Drac is hunched over like almost 'stealing' but who is he hiding from? He's been specifically selected because he doesn't leave strong supernatural air traces, plus there are only demons and soldiers left as everyone else is being raptured.

It sounds like you are enjoying the game and I'm pleased for you. I never want anyone to hate games but I am still really let down based on where I thought the series was going after LoS1. So far I can't say I like one environment. The factory - horrid, city of the damned: alright but still not great, modern city - horrid, Zobeks crib - horrid and lastly the castle elements whilst the most appealing are still falling short of what I rememeber of LoS1.

The game may pick up from here and I'm going to play it through because I'm hoping it does pick up and I'm giving it aproper chance. If it's still the same in 3/4 hours though I will really have to consider putting it down and walking away. To say it's a mixed bag would be accurate but as of now there is more bad than good in my opinion.

I also find the combat whip severely crippled, the thrashing of the whip on the floor was amazing in the first one, this one it's a bit slow to start and splash damage isn't as effective yet enemy stomps throw you to the ground if merely brushed by them. Seeing that most enemies fall back to range protection, it just feels a bit cheap. Block/deflection is severely OP as well as well as shoulder charge - but this is the same for a number of games.....GoW:A got it right I though. I tell you what I do like though, the way you buy a skill then it levels up according to your use. It prevents you neddlessly spending in tree elements you won't benefit from.

 

[Schlomo]

Also does anyone else feel the opening modern section from where the game starts looked better and more realistic then the rest of the games modern areas?

Well, it was pre-apocalypse, so there are still cars and pedestrians on the street. No wonder it looks more realistic.

 

[Dash Kappei]

Damn, UK charts are out, game bombed hard (debuted at #10), I wonder if reviews are the culprit or more of a last-gen's fatigue hitting PS360 sales since Thief has snagged #1 with 78% of the sales coming from X1P4

 

[SlasherJPC]

This is quite possible one of the biggest games I' ve seen released with such a split opinion on. Its like a rollercoaster. Person comes in, trashes game. Another person comes in and loves it. This isn't just at
GAF either.

 

[Tizoc]

This is quite possible one of the biggest games I' ve seen released with such a split opinion on. Its like a rollercoaster. Person comes in, trashes game. Another person comes in and loves it. This isn't just at
GAF either.

It's the same case with Thief atm BTW.
Rest assured that this game AND Thief will make it among the GotY 2014 lists despite any valid criticisms the games get.

At the point I've reached in the game I am starting to see why the game is considered 'Frankestein'-like.
The castle segments are indeed superb far more than the modern setting and I liked how

Spoiler

Dracula spared the Toymaker his story was rather sad and him showing some compassion towards him.

 

[rockman zx]

Beat the game, in my opinion is a great game, first of all, reviews below 7 are total BS, never had any problem with the stealth parts, a non issue for me and to be honest I have fun with them but I must say that they don't belong to a Castlevania game.

I feel like they dropped the ball with the last 3rd of the game, the story feels rushed, characters underused, the last boss is mediocre, and the ending was OK but not the ending to close the LoS saga, they better have a kick ass last boss and ending in the DLC.

The combat is super fun but the mastery system is pointless.

Overall, taking into account that Castlevania was a dead corpse before, MS not the most prestigious company and with lack of resources, I think they have done a great job, no matter what happen with this game, the franchise is alive thanks to them and for that I'm grateful, plus LoS1 is one of my favourite games of last gen.


Now is up to Konami to chose the right developer to continue the franchise but they must know that some fans can't stand change, they live in the past and they can't accept anything but SoTN clones, good luck with that.

 

[kmax]

This is quite possible one of the biggest games I' ve seen released with such a split opinion on. Its like a rollercoaster. Person comes in, trashes game. Another person comes in and loves it. This isn't just at
GAF either.

This is how I feel. Haven't played the game yet since I'm swarmed with work, but I can't help but feel puzzled by the polarized response its got. The consensus I'm getting is that it's not as good as LoS 1, though. The modern city's generic and boring, and that they pretty much dropped the ball on the story. Not to mention the negative buzz that we're getting behind the development of the game.

Oh well, I'll see for myself when I get the time.

 

[infinityBCRT]

Maybe just a guess here but the split may be down to:

- people who loved IGAvania don't want to like this game
- people who like good stories don't like this game
- people who like good gameplay mechanics do like this game

I was listening to the Joystiq podcast and was really surprised at the reasons one of the hosts there was giving for bashing the game. Ludwig had only played a little of the game and seemed positive so far. Not sure who the guy was who had beaten the game (it wasn't Xav), but he was complaining about dumb stuff like how you can get a game over even though the story is about Dracula being immortal and wanting to die or about how Dracula can't move through fire but his chaos claws are also fire. Stuff that I kinda just brush off and am like whatever. I find it strange how the story dressing around a game can influence people so much into buying or not buying into the gameplay.

 

[SlasherJPC]

I was listening to the Joystiq podcast and was really surprised at the reasons one of the hosts there was giving for bashing the game. Ludwig had only played a little of the game and seemed positive so far. Not sure who the guy was who had beaten the game (it wasn't Xav), but he was complaining about dumb stuff like how you can get a game over even though the story is about Dracula being immortal and wanting to die or about how Dracula can't move through fire but his chaos claws are also fire. Stuff that I kinda just brush off and am like whatever. I find it strange how the story dressing around a game can influence people so much into buying or not buying into the gameplay.

Completely agree. I mean it's a game about Dracula, monster, etc and secondly it's a GAME. Technically speaking, if people want to get to that level of discussion. Dracula should be able to just know who the bad guys are, fuck absolutely everyone up in a matter of seconds and then game over, you win. Likewise with stuff like him waiting for doors to open being an issue, it's obviously a loading thing. Yet nay...lets just talk about how it's ridiculous Dracula uses doors.

Anyways, most of the people I know that have played it personally have rated it in the higher levels. 8 or 7. l don't care about scores but with the topsy turvy viewpoint this game has, seems best a game you play for yourself and make an opinion.

 

[butman]

Maybe just a guess here but the split may be down to:

- people who loved IGAvania don't want to like this game
- people who like good stories don't like this game
- people who like good gameplay mechanics do like this game

I was listening to the Joystiq podcast and was really surprised at the reasons one of the hosts there was giving for bashing the game. Ludwig had only played a little of the game and seemed positive so far. Not sure who the guy was who had beaten the game (it wasn't Xav), but he was complaining about dumb stuff like how you can get a game over even though the story is about Dracula being immortal and wanting to die or about how Dracula can't move through fire but his chaos claws are also fire. Stuff that I kinda just brush off and am like whatever. I find it strange how the story dressing around a game can influence people so much into buying or not buying into the gameplay.

But the gameplay is far from good. Darksiders's is so much better than this.

 

[infinityBCRT]

But the gameplay is far from good. Darksiders's is so much better than this.

Speaking specifically about the combat mechanics here ... it's usually compared to God of War but IMO it's way better than God of War and the LoS series has also consistently had some of the best boss fights in recent memory.

 

[TentPole]

But the gameplay is far from good. Darksiders's is so much better than this.

Darksiders is a better game overall but this not even close to true. This game has more options, flows better, and is far more tactical with far more depth.

 

[SlasherJPC]

But the gameplay is far from good. Darksiders's is so much better than this.

Yeah not sure on that one and I'm a darksiders fan. Which each of those games has problems as well, but still highly enjoyable.

 

[Grisby]

That was the ending. Really. That was what you went with MercurySteam.

 

[AnnTiPa]

Just finished the game. I was surprised how short it actually was. (Or maybe Steam game time is broken). Around 11 hours, or so it tells me. I was waiting more considering that I remember one review said it'll take 15h - 20h. And no, I did not rush through. I did explore on my way but never really backtracked for any of the items.

Combat was excellent and might be enough to tempt me to play the game again on hardest difficulty later. Visuals were good though more variety would have been great. Where was all that terrible industrial design hiding? I found this more visually pleasing than, for example, Arkham Origins. Story was good enough and I don't understand the talk about the ending being bad. Sure, it was definitely nothing special but at least it wasn't a cliffhanger and didn't feel forced. It just ended when everything was done. Not everything needs a twist in the end.

I was worried about the stealth sections but they were really very minor part of the game. They were completely unnecessary but luckily they were over very fast. To me, it felt like they replaced the puzzles from the first game with stealth sections (took about the same time to complete, were paced similarly). Not really happy about that, I liked the puzzles.

Overall, it was a solid 8 for me. Maybe 8.5.

 

[Bob Dobalina]

My favorite part of the intense split between opinions on this game is the retroactive praise LoS1 is getting in general. It was a very flawed game, but there were a few things it did very well that aren't present or worse in this game, like the environment, level design (lol) and pacing.

Just finished the game. I was surprised how short it actually was. (Or maybe Steam game time is broken). Around 11 hours, or so it tells me. I was waiting more considering that I remember one review said it'll take 15h - 20h. And no, I did not rush through. I did explore on my way but never really backtracked for any of the items.

Combat was excellent and might be enough to tempt me to play the game again on hardest difficulty later. Visuals were good though more variety would have been great. Where was all that terrible industrial design hiding? I found this more visually pleasing than, for example, Arkham Origins. Story was good enough and I don't understand the talk about the ending being bad. Sure, it was definitely nothing special but at least it wasn't a cliffhanger and didn't feel forced. It just ended when everything was done. Not everything needs a twist in the end.

I don't see anyone in this thread that wanted a twist, just people that wanted an actual ending to the trilogy with closure.

 

[matrix-cat]

I'm getting really frustrated by the lack of i-frames in the dodge move. You can't dodge through attacks, which makes the overall combat much slower because when you see a big attack coming you have to get waaaaay out of the way to avoid it. And with no Stinger equivalent attack to close distance quickly, you end up just dodging away then having to dodge back in again, whereas a proper i-frame dodge move could keep you closer to enemies.

When I fight the bigger bosses I can see their attacks being telegraphed a mile away, and I can hit the dodge button every time, but whether I actually avoid taking damage from those attacks I'm dodging feels totally random. Often I dodge right into the end of an attack, or just cannot cover enough distance in time. It doesn't feel like enemy attacks are tuned with Dracula's abilities in mind; it feels like they just designed cool-looking attacks for the bosses to do and then decided to let the player figure out the rest.

That, and having to break armour with the Chaos Claws is a real drag, akin to the colour-coded enemies in DmC but without the variety of attacks you can use in that game. You just have to hammer those shields over and over and wait for them to break before you can do anything else. Worse yet, the shields cool down if you leave them too long, so you're actually forced to sloppily mash away so you don't lose all your progress on an individual enemy.

I think I'm pretty deep into the game now (just rode the gas-tank-rocket and killed the big monster right after it), and I can see where the low reviews are coming from. I don't think it's that bad, overall, but those stealth sections are terrible, and it does all kinda look the same, and, yeah, I guess I only have a vague idea of what I'm supposed to be doing. Trevor told me he knew where another piece of the Mirror of Fate was, then sent me back into the real world, and then Gabriel immediately forgot all about that and went off to find an acolyte, but then a one-eyed fellow with a sweet beard popped up and now I guess I'm following him because... I don't know, he looks like he'll be fun to fight?

 

[jett]

Good lawd this modern area with freaking flying enemies with machine guns. I'm pretty much forcing my way through the game at this rate. Why am I visiting this biochemical shitplace again? What is going on in this game.

 

[Krusenstern]

Good lawd this modern area with freaking flying enemies with machine guns. I'm pretty much forcing my way through the game at this rate. Why am I visiting this biochemical shitplace again? What is going on in this game.

Don't you pay attention to the plot?

 

[Slixshot]

Did you like the first?

yes, yes i did.

 

[infinityBCRT]

Good lawd this modern area with freaking flying enemies with machine guns. I'm pretty much forcing my way through the game at this rate. Why am I visiting this biochemical shitplace again? What is going on in this game.

Are you having trouble with the flying gun enemies? I found the trick to them after a few fights

Spoiler

as soon as they open themselves up (whenever they go to fire with a gun or before the fully get up from being knocked down) you just need to launch them in the air. I usually use X (360) followed by an A to launch them. And then you just need to keep the combo going in the air

That, and having to break armour with the Chaos Claws is a real drag, akin to the colour-coded enemies in DmC but without the variety of attacks you can use in that game. You just have to hammer those shields over and over and wait for them to break before you can do anything else. Worse yet, the shields cool down if you leave them too long, so you're actually forced to sloppily mash away so you don't lose all your progress on an individual enemy.

If you're talking about the flying gun enemies, see above. After learning that trick I never had to use the claws on them.

 

[Relix]

Are you having trouble with the flying gun enemies? I found the trick to them after a few fights

Spoiler

as soon as they open themselves up (whenever they go to fire with a gun or before the fully get up from being knocked down) you just need to launch them in the air. I usually use X (360) followed by an A to launch them. And then you just need to keep the combo going in the air

If you're talking about the flying gun enemies, see above. After learning that trick I never had to use the claws on them.

Or just jump over them with block + A

 

[infinityBCRT]

Or just jump over them with block + A

BTW this is probably one of the prime examples of people playing the game thinking the fights are tedious or the mechanics suck when really we just were able to discuss two completely different ways to dispose of these enemies really easily.

 

[Krusenstern]

Or just jump over them with block + A

That move is near essential I would say. I use it a lot and it even works on very big enemies.

 

[AnnTiPa]

I'm getting really frustrated by the lack of i-frames in the dodge move. You can't dodge through attacks, which makes the overall combat much slower because when you see a big attack coming you have to get waaaaay out of the way to avoid it. And with no Stinger equivalent attack to close distance quickly, you end up just dodging away then having to dodge back in again, whereas a proper i-frame dodge move could keep you closer to enemies.

This annoyed me too at first. However, when you get

Spoiler

mist form

, you can just use it instead of dodge, allowing you to stay close. Not sure if that counts as a spoiler, I think I've seen people mention it without spoiler tags but just to be sure.

 

[discoalucard]

The game has a lot of highs and lows. I think the opinion is split on how much patience you have for the lows, and how much you enjoy the highs. Like, the stealth sections are terribly designed, but they're mostly cleared pretty quickly, so it depends how much it bothers you on a conceptual level.

I found the game really tedious in the beginning, but found it's gotten better as it's gone along, in spite of the Agreus section. So it's a little similar to the first game in that regard.

 

[jett]

Don't you pay attention to the plot?

I know why I'm being made to go, but I don't know why did someone think this was a good idea.

 

[Peff]

Is there another Agreus section later on after the boss fight? If that's all there was to it I'm not sure what all the hubbub was about, I beat it in one try. Did people forget to use mist or something?

 

[Bob Dobalina]

Somersault is the most OP move in the game. Learn it. Love it.

 

[discoalucard]

Is there another Agreus section later on after the boss fight? If that's all there was to it I'm not sure what all the hubbub was about, I beat it in one try. Did people forget to use mist or something?

Probably.

It's a badly designed segment because (A) the game explicitly tells you the mechanics about the bell but ignores the mist, and (B) up until this point you've only used the mist to go through grates, so the fact that you can float over leaves might not be immediately apparent. Of course it doesn't take a genius to try it out and see that it works, but compared to the rest of the game it's weirdly inconsistent.

 

[Peff]

Wait, there were bells to lure him away? lol. It would have been simple enough to fix if they had made you chase the bird over a path of dead leaves before this, but I guess it never came up during testing. These two sections with someone chasing the player were better than the hilariously simple puzzles masqueraded as stealth from before by virtue of creating some tension, but it's still kind of unnecessary. Eh.

 

[discoalucard]

Wait, there were bells to lure him away? lol. It would have been simple enough to fix if they had made you chase the bird over a path of dead leaves before this, but I guess it never came up during testing. These two sections with someone chasing the player were better than the hilariously simple puzzles masqueraded as stealth from before by virtue of creating some tension, but it's still kind of unnecessary. Eh.

Oh yeah, that was weird too! You have to get caught once before it shows you about the bells, so if you made it the first try, then it wouldn't have told you about them.

Personally the most aggravating part of that was figuring out which ledges I could leap on and which I couldn't. It's obvious when you get close because of the bats, but from a glance it appears you can grab onto a ledge and shimmer further, but you can't.

 

[brandonh83]

Man... ugh. They just had to leave this one

Spoiler

open ended and tease an even bigger bad in Walter Bernhard... I know he's dead or whatever but it's not like Castlevania runs off the steam of logic, so now I want one more where Walter comes back, reclaims the castle, and Gabriel has to go through the countryside and through the castle to destroy him which will make him mortal so that he can finally die, and it ends with the castle crumbling with Gabriel inside and maybe a side character watching it crumble from a far-away cliff and there'd be boss fights with mummies, frankenstein, giant bats,

oh god

: ...( I'm never going to get this.

 

[Bob Dobalina]

Probably.

It's a badly designed segment because (A) the game explicitly tells you the mechanics about the bell but ignores the mist, and (B) up until this point you've only used the mist to go through grates, so the fact that you can float over leaves might not be immediately apparent. Of course it doesn't take a genius to try it out and see that it works, but compared to the rest of the game it's weirdly inconsistent.

I think the main issue is that the game holds a player's hand so tightly that the times it doesn't spell out how to accomplish your goal, they have no idea what to do and get frustrated. Another example is the chain in the city of the damned that has no bats appear until after you've jumped blindly towards it. I got stuck there for 20-30 minutes, even after jumping to my death in that general direction multiple times.

 

[puffyshirt]

I had this just for the weekend, with every intention to just blaze through it. It wasn't anything great, but just good enough to keep me going. The story was pretty awful, and I had almost no idea what was going on.

However, I got stuck at the

Spoiler

Agreus

section, and chose to just quit. A tad annoyed that I didn't beat it, but that section was just a major pain in my ass, and I wasn't loving the game anyway.

Maybe if I can acquire it again for a couple days or pick it up for $10, I'll try again.

 

[Jarmel]

Where the fuck do I go after beating

Spoiler

Zobek? The location where Satan is to summoned?

Screw that, headed there now. I want to beat this and get it out of the way. Thanks.

That was my exact reaction. Completely fucking awful of an idea.

Who the fuck thinks up that shit?

 

[ape2man]

Holy shit the boss

Spoiler

zobek looks fucking fantastic. I mean this game has some awesome art in it.

I have not finished it but its below the first one so a 8/10

 

[Hero_of_the_Day]

I just finished

Spoiler

Carmilla

. I hope I'm at least halfway through the game. Really not digging this at all.

 

[butman]

Playing the

Spoiler

Train stage

right now.

What the fuck Mercury tried here. Battletoads bad executed tribute?

It must be one of the most boring, tedious and unchallenging stages of the generation.

 

[Poofynamanama]

Hey all, my first post on neogaf

Figured it might as well be in the Lords of Shadow 2 OT, I absolutely loved the first game (barring the framerate). These kind of character action games are my favorite types of games, and always have been. Devil may Cry 1 and 3 were some of the only games I played when I had a PS2, and i played the shit outta them. And then I eventually moved onto God of War series, Ninja Gaiden, and Bayonetta, still yet have to play Metal Gear Rising even tho I heard its great.

I loved the sense of journey in the first one. The sense of scale and the vistas and the environments blew me away. The gameplay was a lotta fun too. I never really understood the God of War comparisons. I could see it in the way the game handles QTEs and the beast riding and stuff, but the gameplay? The only similarities would be they both use a long range weapon. The way you actually perform combos and how the game is a lot more hit'n'run differentiated it from GoW for me. And coming from a Devil May Cry background I really appreciated the fact you could cancel any of your moves into a dodge. I hated trying a combo string in GoW like XXY and being stuck in an animation that couldn't be canceled out of. It felt like the game was handicapping me, and it made some combat scenarios annoying.

The story was pretty good I thought, also. I liked the production values, the voice acting, but the writing was pretty fucking weak and the dialogue a bit sloppy. The Patrick Stewart narrations got boring and I never listened to them in full. And it bothered me that Zobek always talked about dark Gabriel was becoming, but they never showed too much emotion from him.

I also LOVED LOVED LOVED the music. I don't think any of the old Castlevania music would work in an epic action adventure game like LoS, and I disagree with people when they say the music is "soulless" and "forgettable." Songs like Waterfalls of Agharta, Ice Titan, and Final Confrontation are great, and I've certainly remembered them long after the game came out. Now on to Lords of Shadow 2

First and foremost, I think this game has some really, really fun gameplay. A lot more refined than the first, a lot more responsive, and the new weapons just feel so good. I just hate that they ruined the Hold X, mash mash mash ground pound move. It seems like it has slower startup and the string doesn't feel as powerful. I also miss some of the double jump moves you could do in the first LoS, like XA, A to continue the combo. It would make the air combat a bit more complex, I think. I also really like the ability to air dodge, using rising attacks like XA and YA, followed by an air dodge and continuing the juggle back on the ground, or some follow up rising attack cancels. I still want to dwell deeper into the combat system because so far I beat the game but need to find all the gems and do all the challenges.

The music is still really good I think, but for some reason there seems to be less of it? Which seems weird considering the huge opera they had play the music for this game. But what is still there is still good, and I love walking around the castle soaking in the atmosphere with the melodic tunes playing in the background. This game sure is an audiovisual pleasure (especially after smoking a bowl or 2 )

The visuals. Oh god, the visuals. I think this game might actually be one of the best looking 360 games I have seen. The castle sections blow the first games out of the water. The atmosphere is so much more dense and dark, it really gives me a sense of dread in some areas. Like I was actually getting creeped out in some areas lol. This game gave me huge Devil May Cry 1 vibes to be honest, and I love it for that.

Now for the bad. Modern day sections pretty much look like ass. I don't mind the enemies, they can be fun to fight. But these areas lack any sort of diversity and are just bland and boring, barring the Arts District and maybe another area (I need to backtrack more to remember some of these areas). The rat segments and stealth parts were pretty fucking dumb, but they were over fast and they were pretty easy so I didn't mind them. The story was probably the most disappointing part for me. The trailers made this game out to have an epic story with a lot of characters, but what we got was a mess of a story with a non-conclusion. The last cutscene was laughably bad. I wish Konami didnt interfere and let Mercurysteam do what they wanted with the story.

I'm a bit conflicted with what I want to score it. I haven't done much backtracking yet, I've only beaten the story and wandered around a few areas post-game collecting those boxes and challenges. Gameplay has always been above everything else for me, and how much fun I have with the combat system with these kinds of games. I think I will give this game a 9/10. The lows aren't that "low" for me and the highs outweigh them when it comes to the frantic, fun combat the game provides.

Whew. Sorry for the long post, I just like this site a lot and its fun to finally be able to post. I've lurked for probably 3 years or so at this point, never bothered to make an account for some reason

 

[Levyne]

Welcome to the family. Don't get banned!

Edit: Hit 100% on my first file. Gonna try out PoD difficulty. Dunno if I'll finish if it's too annoying, but will give a shot.

 

[Poofynamanama]

Welcome to the family. Don't get banned!

Edit: Hit 100% on my first file. Gonna try out PoD difficulty. Dunno if I'll finish if it's too annoying, but will give a shot.

haha, why thank you I'll try not to. I see a lot of stuff I disagree with, but I don't really like getting into arguments so I'll steer far away from those. I like to be friendly