drizzle said:
Wait, this video actually make the 3D Castlevanias sound decent.
I only had a minor experience with One of the Nintendo 64's Castlevanias, but most of my hate towards the 3D iterations of the game come from reading how people through they were horrible.
They didn't highlight any of the major problems people always complain about. Weird.
The N64 games are very under-appreciated. Part 3 here wasn't nearly as positive about them as I'd be, but at least it wasn't as bad as I was thinking it might, considering how often Castlevania 64 and LoD get bashed...
But yeah, Legacy of Darkness really is a pretty good game. Yes, the framerate's not so good, particularly in High Resolution mode, but I at least don't mind N64 framerates, and I played the whole thing in high res. The graphics are pretty good (CV64 looks much rougher, but LoD definitely improved things a lot), the music's great (in both versions), and the gameplay and level design...
Well, that's where CV64/LoD are so, so different from the PS2 games, or the new PS3/360 game. Instead of being an action-focused hack and slash room clearing game with occasional jumping puzzles, as those are, it's a platform adventure game with lots of puzzles and jumping, with occasional action. Sure, you fight enemies, but the main focus of the N64 games is on platforming, exploration, and puzzle solving, above anything else. It really has a very different feel from the hack-and-slash action of the PS2 and beyond 3d Castlevanias. It's as much Mario 64 or Ocarina of Time inspired as it is anything, really, I think, there are definite influences from games like those, along with their own ideas. The game isn't at Mario 64 or OoT levels of quality, to be sure, but it is pretty solid even so, in my opinion.
Oh yeah, and there really is a lot of platform jumping... but it's intuitive and the jumping controls are great. While in many games 3d platform jumping can be quite tricky, CV64/LoD have some good controls. Your characters will grab onto any platform edge they get anywhere near, pretty much, so as long as you jump somewhere near where you want to go, you should grab on successfully. As long as you're careful and line up jumps a bit, jumping works well.
As for the combat, Cornell is extremely powerful, particularly in wolf mode. He has strong melee and ranged attacks, and in wolf mode even the bosses are mostly easy. As a result, until you finish his mode and play as Henry, Rienhart, or Carrie, who are weaker physical attackers than Cornell, if you manage your red crystals well the main challenge will come from the jumping and adventure parts, not so much combat. I don't mind that, myself, the combat is fun enough as it is and the rest of the game provides plenty of challenge.
I would recommend against playing as Rienhart, though. He has no ranged attack, and ranged attacks are much easier to use in this game than melee, so he's at a definite disadvantage.
Oh, he says that there isn't a map. That's true, but no map is needed. While you do a good amount of exploration within each level, CV64 and LoD are linear games made up of levels, and once you complete each level you can't return to the previous one. You can't get too lost.
From the video, I think that he found the N64 Castlevanias a bit too slow paced and dull. I guess I can see that, they are slower paced than most other Castlevania games, and they have more adventure game elements too (there are actual puzzles in this game beyond just jumping; they're not incredibly hard, but they are there), but I thought that the total package works really well, and really liked LoD despite my initial worries that it'd be as bad as so many people said it was. There are some flaws -- the melee combat, the framerate, etc -- but I think LoD is definitely much more good than bad. It is a flawed game for sure, but it has a good side too.
As for the PS2/Xbox ones, though... hack and slash action-RPGs. Completely different genre from the N64 games. Run straight along long cooridors, stop and hit attack for a while until the enemies die, rinse and repeat again and again and again. It gets boring very quickly, only the decent music and good art design (and playability, even if it's boring and mostly easy somehow it's playable) save it at all... but yeah, they are not good games overall. Just far too boring and repetitive. Hypnotically playable, I guess, but so bland and repetitive...
He says that LoI and CoD 'reminded people that Castlevania was all about action' or something, but I would say that that's not true. The NES/16-bit games were just as much about platforming as they were about action, but the PS2/Xbox games almost totally ditch the platforming in favor of running down innumerable cooridors and pathways. The N64 games are different too, but at least they have both platforming AND action as major components...
I think LoI/CoD were obviously inspired by the Metroidvania games as well as various 3d action titles, but it doesn't work nearly as well here as in 2d.