• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow |OT| The MercurySteam has Vanquished the Horrible Night

J

JohngPR

Member
*credits rolling* Loved the ending! It had a lot more religious undertones behind it than I expected, but it didn't come off preachy IMO which can be hard to pull off.

I also liked that
it wasn't necessarily a happy ending.


EDIT: *after the credits* W.......T.....F!? That was out of nowhere and fucking awesome.


End game spoilers:
So Gabriel is Dracula and the next game may take place in present day? Holy shit, didn't see that coming at all!

EDIT: One thing I don't get is how
Zobek lived through everything and was immortal. I guess it would also be important to find out how Gabriel became the Prince of Darkness.
LOL

I suppose that's what DLC is for.
 
L

Ledsen

Member
I'm getting the urge to play this again on Paladin, even though I've already gotten all of the upgrades. Such an awesome, awesome game.
 
K

Kai Dracon

Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
Fimbulvetr said:
Or you can do both.



Speaking of which, does doing both reduce your magic recovery rate? If not that's a pretty huge oversight
Click to expand...

Yes, absorbing both at once reduces your recovery rate by half.

You can suck up 100% light or dark magic, or 50% of both simultaneously.

I see the logic in their system and it's just the way the game works.

I really do think though that there'd be a lot fewer complaints if you could just absorb orbs from anywhere in the field. That'd promote retreating tactically to a safe spot to gain your bearings. Especially after a huge, in-their-face focus farming run.
 
N

NeoUltima

Member
Rahxephon91 said:
Whats wrong with the handle in Chapter 8:Clocktower? I constantly let go before it's done.
Click to expand...
Your not suppose to hold down the trigger to turn cranks. It's toggle to grab them.

Holding just so happens to work with every other switch in the game but that one though.

Lots of people have had this same problem.
 
R

Rahxephon91

Banned
NeoUltima said:
Your not suppose to hold down the trigger to turn cranks. It's toggle to grab them.

Holding just so happens to work with every other switch in the game but that one though.

Lots of people have had this same problem.
Click to expand...
Thanks, that was the exact problem.
 
G

giggas

Member
JohngPR said:
EDIT: One thing I don't get is how
Zobek lived through everything and was immortal. I guess it would also be important to find out how Gabriel became the Prince of Darkness.
LOL

I suppose that's what DLC is for.
Click to expand...

Cool to see more people loving that ending.

I guess Zobek is around because he's basically Death. He is death, right?
 
S

ShockingAlberto

Member
Kaijima said:
Yes, absorbing both at once reduces your recovery rate by half.

You can suck up 100% light or dark magic, or 50% of both simultaneously.

I see the logic in their system and it's just the way the game works.

I really do think though that there'd be a lot fewer complaints if you could just absorb orbs from anywhere in the field. That'd promote retreating tactically to a safe spot to gain your bearings. Especially after a huge, in-their-face focus farming run.
Click to expand...
I see why they had to do that to make that system work, but at the same time, if that's the only way they could make their system work, you should probably try to think of one that isn't a detriment to the game.
 
D

DarknessTear

Banned
I just finished the game...

It's amazing. I love it way more than I ever liked God of War 3. So many great things about this game. Also no matter where I went in the game, I couldn't help but be impressed with the visuals. Truly incredible art design. The game needed more music and it needed more familiar themes from the series.. but maybe they'll get that right next time. Either way, I loved pretty much everything about the game. I eagerly await the next title in the series. :D
 
J

JohngPR

Member
NeoUltima said:
Your not suppose to hold down the trigger to turn cranks. It's toggle to grab them.

Holding just so happens to work with every other switch in the game but that one though.

Lots of people have had this same problem.
Click to expand...

I also had the same issue.

:lol
 
J

JohngPR

Member
giggas said:
Cool to see more people loving that ending.

I guess Zobek is around because he's basically Death. He is death, right?
Click to expand...

True, but I figured Satan took it away from him considering that A) he no longer had the mask and B) He was living amongst humans for so long.
Then again, I don't know how the rules of the game's story works.

EDIT: Whoops, sorry about the double post. :(
 
A

Amalthea

Banned
I saved Gabriel by double-jumping out of a pit and he still died!

WTF is wrong with this shit? Not even the N64 games went so low.

This game starts to feel like a turd that was formed into the shape of a grilled steak to gloss over its bad PSone-era platforming by giving itself the most pompous presentation Mercury Steam could come up with.

God damn, even Castlevania Judgement had more polish!
 
LowParry

LowParry

Member
Tyrant_Onion said:
I saved Gabriel by double-jumping out of a pit and he still died!

WTF is wrong with this shit? Not even the N64 games went so low.

This game starts to feel like a turd that was formed into the shape of a grilled steak to gloss over its bad PSone-era platforming by giving itself the most pompous presentation Mercury Steam could come up with.

God damn, even Castlevania Judgement had more polish!
Click to expand...


You're doing it wrong.
 
T

Teknoman

Member
Fimbulvetr said:
Music box or doors?
Click to expand...

Its in Chapter XI part 1, after the first puzzle. Theres a big glowing symbol in the middle of the floor, but you cant interact, stomp, hit, charge with magic, or anything.

I thought it was one of those dash puzzles, but the symbol is glowing light blue, so that cant be it. Really trying to force myself not to use unlock solution :lol
 
M

MoxManiac

Member
CcrooK said:
You're doing it wrong.
Click to expand...

I don't think he's wrong though - the game makes a lot of amateur mistakes and just plain bad game design decisions. It's weird, the game is both polished and not at the same time.
 
A

Amalthea

Banned
CcrooK said:
You're doing it wrong.
Click to expand...

I am doing it wrong? Huh?

Yes, I am doing it wrong, I do it wrong not to do what the developers wanted!

I am doing wrong to use the fucking double jumps in places they weren't intended by the developers.

I am not intended to outrun a damn Warg so the game punishes me with warping enemies that can hurt me no matter how far away I am from them.

I am wrong not to see obstacles when Gabriel is stuck in the scenery outside the camera so the developers punish my fault with the inability to evade the boss who beats Gabriel to death.

I am doing wrong to expect standarts that were set twenty years ago, may Mercury Steam live long for that they have shown the world the true way of making a game that is better than the sum of its parts by hiding them.

Let us praise the great Hideo Kojima who has shown true leadership by approving a product that would drive the final nail into the coffin of the last franchise from Konamis golden era that can rival his over-estimated his gimmick- and style-over-substance-driven games in the respect of true gamers.

Let us praise the consumers of these days who feel obliged to blindness in the light of a shimmering presentation unable to pronounce words of evil wherever they only see overbudgeted software.

My soul shall burn eternally in hell for the insolence of employing free will and so I shall cry bloody tears for that the spite and heresy of being bored by Patrick Stewards unsettling portrayal of a crazy stalker can be purified from my soul by the lights of heaven.

Amen.
 
T

Teknoman

Member
What version are you playing? I havent run into any of those glitches or events in the PS3 version...except some "unhandled error" that hit me a few minutes ago.
 
MrMephistoX

MrMephistoX

Gold Member
DarknessTear said:
I just finished the game...

It's amazing. I love it way more than I ever liked God of War 3. So many great things about this game. Also no matter where I went in the game, I couldn't help but be impressed with the visuals. Truly incredible art design. The game needed more music and it needed more familiar themes from the series.. but maybe they'll get that right next time. Either way, I loved pretty much everything about the game. I eagerly await the next title in the series. :D
Click to expand...


Haven't beaten the game yet but sharing your sentiments wholeheartedly now that I've gotten beyond of the point of facing f#$#ing werewolves every other minute. It would be great if Iga and co. got a crack at making a sequel using this engine.
 
S

ShockingAlberto

Member
I dunno that I'd go that far, but some of his criticisms definitely ring true.

If you try to double-jump sequence break in certain areas before you get the double-jump, Gabriel will often just do his falling animation and you'll lose a chunk of health. Usually for no visible reason.
 
K

Kai Dracon

Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
ShockingAlberto said:
I dunno that I'd go that far, but some of his criticisms definitely ring true.

If you try to double-jump sequence break in certain areas before you get the double-jump, Gabriel will often just do his falling animation and you'll lose a chunk of health. Usually for no visible reason.
Click to expand...

There's a lot of awkward invisible gating in many places in the game. For example, after you /do/ get the double jump, some of the double jumping sequences have a "death box" across the traversal region which expects you to clear it by jumping only in a very particular way.

It's possible to trigger Gabriel's death animation using a legitimate double jump that would have cleared the impasse.

I don't think anyone has really denied that the game isn't full of Action Game 101 mistakes, some of which are face-slappingly n00bed.
 
T

Teknoman

Member
Wow...didnt see that coming. I really want to see where they are going with this version of the Castlevania story now. The part where he's knocked out the window was a true "oh snap" moment :D

Maybe the next game will show exactly what Gabriel did as Dracula? I mean Slogra's stuck in the wall, and I doubt he would've hid in that cathedral for so long...Also looked like Zobek/Death was dressed as Shaft (purple robed necromancer) during the first part of the scene...guess Death cant be killed or maybe he was forgiven?

Would be a pretty big leap to just leave what happened between then and now in the dark.
 
O

owlbeak

Member
Just beat this...

Fucking christ, man. What an ending.
I saw the Zobec angle coming from the second I met him, was glad a bunch of shit happened and you didn't end up fighting him because that would have been a lame ass ending.

But WHAT THE FUCK with the actual ending? Totally blown away, didn't expect that AT ALL. I don't even know if I am sure of what happened
. :lol
I was so fucking happy that Dracula made an appearance, I was wondering about that. Never woulda guessed Gabriel turned into the prince of darkness, though.
Mind = Blown!
 
N

NeoUltima

Member
Horsebite said:
Just beat this...

Fucking christ, man. What an ending.
I saw the Zobec angle coming from the second I met him, was glad a bunch of shit happened and you didn't end up fighting him because that would have been a lame ass ending.

But WHAT THE FUCK with the actual ending? Totally blown away, didn't expect that AT ALL. I don't even know if I am sure of what happened
. :lol
I was so fucking happy that Dracula made an appearance, I was wondering about that. Never woulda guessed Gabriel turned into the prince of darkness, though.
Mind = Blown!
Click to expand...
I actually predicted it before the game even came out lol I felt the last two trailers really gave it away.
Plus in the narration before one of the last chapters,
Zobek calls Gabriel the Prince of Darkness
 
T

Teknoman

Member
I thought the lines the last boss said
were actually supposed to be Dracs lines. Cant wait to see Slogra in action in the sequel
.

By the way, when is the full soundtrack for the game going to be available?
 
S

Sblargh

Banned
Played through the entire PS3 version and had no game-breaking bugs.
I had some mobs stuck in geometry once or twice, but nothing that made me reset.
What I think that SUCKED in this game with the capital letters are the horrible use of invisible walls and that OMFG stage where
it has poisonous stuff everywhere, near the end, where these parts are basically bottomless pits where you die very slowly... or that you survive only to be with such a low health that the swordmen are just too hard. Stage has great atmosphere, awesome art direction and horrible horrible horrible design, it even has a passage, necessary to complete stage, that you can't see because of the fixed camera and that is not a secret or a challenge, it's just fucking horrible design.

Edit: Just checked the name of the stage that I hate with all the passion that is possible to hate a game level, it is the
titan's graveyard
 
O

Om3ga

Member
I don't know how everyone is getting all these bugs. My playthrough was pretty flawless (ps3). The only really issue I had was the fixed camera and where things would go offscreen (spiders). I never died due to a glitch. Jumping was a bit scary, but I always had enough life to retry the jump and there was always some way of getting back health when I needed it.

It sucks that the only time I ever read a spoiler for this game, spoiled the ending, but I already had an idea of how the game was going to end so it just toned down the epicness of it.
 
W

-Winnie-

Member
I ran into a weird bug during the
scarecrow puzzle. If you go to shake one particular scarecrow, the camera angle changes to a spot where half the screen is just an empty void. Fixed camera ftw? :lol
 
N

Noisepurge

Member
Just finished the game. Took me 15 hours on hard difficulty.

Very good game, but i doubt i will play through it again... So much frustrating gameplay issues.

And the only thing that bugs me now after playing is why was only the last Lord of Shadow in the Main Characters list when all the others were in Monsters -list. I think they all had a lot bigger role than some other characters that were included in the Main Character list.

Also
Satan
, how funny is that as a "random monster" ;D

But i guess that's just some of the issue with polish that this game was missing.

I hope they get more time to finish the next game properly.
 
K

Kazuma Kiryu

Member
holy shit at the ending. holy. shit.
i really can't wait for the sequel, new gameplay options, some tweaks to the engine to "at least" ensure 30 fps's all the time (really want 60 though), some more polish in some areas and it's gonna be an awesome game.

man, gabriel turning into dracula is so awesome:D
 
D

DualShadow

Member
-Winnie- said:
I ran into a weird bug during the
scarecrow puzzle. If you go to shake one particular scarecrow, the camera angle changes to a spot where half the screen is just an empty void. Fixed camera ftw? :lol
Click to expand...

I got that but it only happened half the time. Didn't seem to affect the puzzle at all.
 
D

DenogginizerOS

BenjaminBirdie's Thomas Jefferson
Just finished it. Easily, it is my GOTY and is definitely one of the top 5 of this generation. Now, I want to play it on the hardest setting. I will be there on day one for the next game.
 
J

JohngPR

Member
ShockingAlberto said:
I dunno that I'd go that far, but some of his criticisms definitely ring true.

If you try to double-jump sequence break in certain areas before you get the double-jump, Gabriel will often just do his falling animation and you'll lose a chunk of health. Usually for no visible reason.
Click to expand...

That happened to me a few times. It seems as if Mercury Steam put a "point of no return" at the bottom of the pit, and if you hit that point, it didn't matter if you double jumped or not.

A mild annoyance sure, but not a deal breaker for me.
 
A

Amalthea

Banned
I was pretty angry when I wrote my last post.

Well, I still like the game but I get the feeling that it's more like a spiritual successor to Castlevania 2 than to Super Castlevania 4.

Both games seem to punish you for their own faults and both games throw you into stupid trial-and-error sequences from time to time.

Still the whole Castlevania-awesomeness shines trough everything and helps softening the impact of their respective missteps.
 
M

Minamu

Member
Started playing today for the first time. And DAMN it's frustrating as hell on hard :( It gets easier, right? Not knowing where I'm allowed to go, combined with a strange health regen system, wacky dodge controls, and completely retarded checkpoints, this is one hell of a tough nut to crack at the moment :lol Those fucking spiders in chapter 2 can go to hell! Starting on hard was a dumb idea I think, but there's no turning back now, unless it won't screw up the achievements?
 
C

cornerman

Member
Beat the game on Knight and I'm trying to play through on Paladin, but I've got a weird bug. I'm on Chapter 1 with the werewolf (originally the tutorial part), but I can't beat the werewolf. Once he jumps on the ledge and you're supposed to impale...Gabriel just stands there with the pole, and the monster just casually climbs down after regenerating a good portion of health. You can't kill him any other way. Guess I won't be getting a platinum on this one now.
 
D

dankir

Member
cornerman said:
Beat the game on Knight and I'm trying to play through on Paladin, but I've got a weird bug. I'm on Chapter 1 with the werewolf (originally the tutorial part), but I can't beat the werewolf. Once he jumps on the ledge and you're supposed to impale...Gabriel just stands there with the pole, and the monster just casually climbs down after regenerating a good portion of health. You can't kill him any other way. Guess I won't be getting a platinum on this one now.
Click to expand...


You have to wait for him to begin his jump before you pick up the log. You'll see him begin to move and then you pick it up. Otherwise if you just hold it there he'll step down and you have to fight him again.

The game is quite easy on Paladin once you get the Ultimate relic attacks. I just 1000'd it the other day. Fantastic game all around.
 
J

jett

D-Member
rezuth said:
http://www.cinemassacre.com/2010/11/17/castlevania-lords-of-shadow-first-few-levels/

Has this movie been posted before? I was a bit in shock over how awful the nerd is at video games. Even whining about a puzzle you can solve in like one min of thinking. He also mentions that he was afraid that it would just be a button masher but then whines again at the level without enemies.
Click to expand...

Yeah I saw that a while ago. The guy just isn't much of a current gamer it seems. He's probably never played a DMC or GOW-like game.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered - Reviews Topic
2 3 4
150
9K
mistersurrealist replied
Coming to Game Pass: Age of Mythology: Retold, Expeditions: A MudRunner Game, and More
Platform
24
2K
PontiusFeeb replied
  • Poll
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree | Review Thread
Analysis Review 4 5 6 7 8
354
35K
GametimeUK replied
Coming to Game Pass: Manor Lords, Another Crab’s Treasure, Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, and More
46
4K
bender replied
  • x2
Lords of the Fallen |OT| Not that one. The other one.
|OT| 6 7 8 9 10
472
29K
Shake Your Rump replied
Top Bottom