Reposting my question because more people are playing now, and I still can't get a bead on if I want to pick this up.
For fans of the first game who are playing or have already finished LoS2, what does the progression of the game feel like in comparison to the first? Above all, my biggest takeaway from LoS1 was that even in its slowest moments at the beginning, it felt like a classic adventure with forward moving momentum through location after location of beautiful backdrops. From the footage I've seen of LoS2, that pacing feels changed in favor of more exploratory based traversal and the environments don't seem as frequently nice looking. I can appreciate combat improvements and opening the game up a bit, but that's not really why I enjoyed the first title (nor did I fret about how "Castlevania" it was). What say you to a weirdo like me?
It is definitely a good deal different, and I know what you mean about LoS1. It was one of the reasons I was interested in it pre-release, as I love when games give a good sense of adventure. Or a level shows something like a mountain in the backdrop and you seamlessly get there through gameplay, that shit is awesome. LoS1 had a ton of diversity though I thought it lost a chunk of that appeal with the abrupt level endings and timeskips to different areas. Though the latter is pretty unavoidable given how long the game already was. Still, I dug that stuff.
In here, your suspicions are pretty much right. Much more exploration and actual backtracking, semi-hub worlds that allow backtracking, ability teases to return to areas(the first LoS game did this, but the implementation was really odd for a linear game), stuff like that. The most abrupt thing to adjust to is that the city was built on top of the castle, so it's not really like there's a castle in the middle and you walk into it and explore. Instead, there are specific areas where a wolf can be summoned to basically warp you into it, and you can explore from there. From what I've seen the Castle has a ton of variance to it and is really great stuff, and the modern day is getting some unfair things lodged at it. Outside, there's a lot of clear gothic influence along with areas that still show off great scale. Some great art design is being pumped in both areas.
(fuckawful glare warning)
Inside is where it gets more standard. So far I've been in a corporation full of pipes, hallways and the like, and a pretty beat up medical ward full of scattered chairs, patient beds, etc. Unless it changes I've been outside or in the castle the vast majority of the time.
All in all it could be hard to say if it will greatly affect you here. In a general sense, I would say any person who liked the first LoS game well enough should like this regardless, but I've already seen some posters break that mold. Personally, I have found this to be a better game from what I've played, with a similarly slow start to the first.
