I also remember seeing this trailer over and over at the time *.*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN7W3-_uTQY
It's not bad, but as I have written above, I must say it disappointed me. I think we can all agree that environmental art is the highlight of the entire LoS saga, but the book leaves comparatively little space for it, focusing mainly on characters and enemies.
EDIT: For example, even gorgeous pieces like this one are nowhere to be seen:
There should have been an entire artbook for every game in the series, really.
Thanks for the impressions. I missed that bit in your earlier post. Hmm, I was also mostly inteested in the environmental stuff (though I do like the character designs as well) so maybe I should reconsider getting the book for now.
Edit: This has been bugging me for a while but didn't Konami initially unveil Lords of Shadow as a standalone game as well as a new, un-subtitled 3D Castlevania game around the same time (perhaps even during the same E3 / TGS) before they made clear that both were the same project / game (possibly by actually merging them behind the scenes?)? I vaguely remember two separate trailers / teasers, one involving the mask, but since nobody ever mentions this I'm starting to think I'm simply misremembering things.
The real problem is that even those pages dedicated to the environments could have been used better. When I bought the artbook, I'd hoped it would contain, if not all, many of those beautiful artworks you can unlock when playing the games (especially LoS 2), printed in high enough quality. But not only that's not the case, there are some pages that are filled with some of the most uninteresting things they could choose among the enormous amount of art I'm sure has been produced for these games.
I mean, why the hell would you select this
over a masterpiece like the one I posted above? God knows.
As for the rest, you're right. The "Mask project" was something Kojima had in mind, but was little more than a concept and a few ideas. It wasn't Castlevania, although it had a clearly gothic vibe. Looking at the similarities between it and the Lords of Shadow project MercurySteam was working on for them, Konami decided to 'fuse' the two, and told Hideo to keep an eye on what those Spaniards were doing. It was only later that the resulting game would become a Castlevania title.
It is what it is. I expect no replies because to most it's already forgotten.
That's really disappointing.The real problem is that even those pages dedicated to the environments could have been used better. When I bought the artbook, I'd hoped it would contain, if not all, many of those beautiful artworks you can unlock when playing the games (especially LoS 2), printed in high enough quality. But not only that's not the case, there are some pages that are filled with some of the most uninteresting things they could choose among the enormous amount of art I'm sure has been produced for these games.
I mean, why the hell would you select this
over a masterpiece like the one I posted above? God knows.
It would be an excellent 3D Castlevania if the vast majority of the game didn't take place outside of the castle.
As is, its a nice fantasy action/adventure game that's like a better version of God of War.
And yet here we are, 3 years later !
While I didn't think the game was Castlevanias ideal translation to 3d (it had a very western style, both in aesthetics and gameplay) it was a very good game and one you could tell developers really loved making.
A lot of love was poured into it, in my opinion it definitely overdelivered. Just maybe not as a Castlevania game.
What? The original art style for Castlevania was western in theme. It was only from the GBA onwards that we got animevania.
Personally I like they went back to the realish western style here
That's really disappointing.
I took Steam screenshots (not knowing about the compression at the time, oh well) of a lot of the concept art you can unlock in-game, and I'm glad I did. I use them as screen savers in rotation. Here's a few if anyone wants them:
What? The original art style for Castlevania was western in theme. It was only from the GBA onwards that we got animevania.
Personally I like they went back to the realish western style here
I thought it a boring by the numbers GOW clone.
Didn't feel like castlevania at all. Stopped playing after five hours of zero fun.
The anime aesthetic started with Rondo of Blood. Lords of Shadow artstyle while good does feel a bit generic to me at times. I much rather a 3D game that could accurately capture Ayami Kojima's art style.
The only Lords of Shadow game I actually beat was Mirror of Fate funnily enough. It was somewhat tedious and too short but it looked great and felt the most "Castlevania" to me. I much preferred Trevor and Simon to Gabriel because the developers seemed to finally remember the Belomonts are kinda important to this story. In the first game it just seemed to call him Belmont to justify calling the game Castkevania.
What? The original art style for Castlevania was western in theme. It was only from the GBA onwards that we got animevania.
Personally I like they went back to the realish western style here
Personally I never liked Rondo's anime art shown in the cutscenes and such and would in fact call that quite generic and non-fitting instead. I strongly preferred the older more Western style box art (by Tom Dubois especially) or Ayami's more gothic anime style. Both fitted better with their respective games and their in-game graphics I find. To each their own of course.
Same applies to Mirror of Fate and the Belmont connection in LoS. I also only completed MoF and I agree with you there in terms of gameplay but personally I really like the fact that Gabriel was a Belmont and thatTrevorhe himself became Dracula after battling Satan himself while avenging his wife and hunting even older vampires, werewolves and undead. Him turningwas also a nice touch imo because of how it twisted the father-son relationship between these two Belmonts and because of how it allowed grandson Simon to become a more "wild / barbaric" Vampire Hunter when growing up in the forests of Germany because of this family history. Again, to each their own.into Alucard
I really enjoyed the first. Awesome atmosphere and an interesting if not predictable story. The game play was fine. The total package just worked, at least for me it did.
I didn't get a chasnc to play the sequel but I hear that was really bad.
I enjoyed the first one enough to rebuy it on PC where it got a pretty damn sweet port:
What? The original art style for Castlevania was western in theme. It was only from the GBA onwards that we got animevania.
Personally I like they went back to the realish western style here