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LttP: Castlevania Lords of Shadow and Super Castlevania IV

Forkball

Member
DOUBLE WHAMMY LTTP THREAD. There will also be STORY SPOILERS so beware.

I'm not very experienced with Castlevania. It flew under my radar as a youngster and I've only played a handful of the portable Igavanias (Circle, Harmony, and Dawn). I think I maybe played the OG Castlevania a long time ago at a friend's house, but I don't even remember. Recently I bought Castlevania Lords of Shadow on Steam during the summer sale. I have heard some mixed things about it, but I decided to bite (VAMPIRE JOKE) anyways. Well since I bought one Castlevania game on the cheap, I might as well get one I've always wanted to play: Super Castlevania IV for the SNES (which was more expensive than LoS, the fuck Nintendo). Allow me to compare and contrast these two games that are kind of related but no really.

CASTLEVANIA LORDS OF SHADOW
Castlevania_Lords_of_Shadow.png


The developer for this title is MercurySteam, perhaps best known for... Castlevania Lords of Shadow. This game was originally supposed to be a new IP, but Kojima got his hands on it and decided it should be a Castlevania game. Thanks, Kojima.

You play as Gabriel Belmont, a small-headed hunk who wears some sort of rubber coat? Is it cloth or metal? I can't even tell. Also this thing has a damn skull in the middle of it. You are a member of the BROTHERHOOD OF LIGHT who is trying to revive your wife who died a few days ago via some sort of power or artifact. Let's go back to the skull thing. Why would a Christian group dedicated to fighting evil have a SKULL on their outfits? Anyways you gotta defeat the LORDS OF SHADOW, who are blocking the connection between heaven and earth. Ok, BIG STORY SPOILER FOR ABOUT FOUR HOURS IN: turns out the Lords of Shadow are the "dark side" of the original founders of the Brotherhood of Light. That's right, these guys are Nobodies from Kingdom Hearts. Someone played Kingdom Hearts and thought, "You know what... they're on to something. There are some auxiliary characters that pop up, including a Patrick Steward-voiced BoL member named Zobek. I didn't finish the game, but I'm gonna guess this guy is secretly a demon or something. Zobek is the most demonic name I've ever heard. Pan from Pan's Labyrinth is in this game too, I shit you not.
castlevania-lords-of-shadow-pan.jpg


Ok onto the gameplay. Did you ever play God of War? This game is that but not as fun. Gone are the RPG aspects of the more recent Castlevania games, this is a straight up linear action game. You still gain experience points for defeating enemies, but these are only used to unlock new moves. Your weapon of choice is the COMBAT CROSS (they couldn't think of a better name for this? Like Holy Thrasher?), a whip that can double as a dagger. You have a light attack and an area attack. This thing basically functions exactly as Kratos' blades, it doesn't feel like a whip at all. Combat consists of hitting the light or area attack button to do combos. You'll have to remember these if you want to survive, since enemies take an absurd amount of hits to go down. Half the time it felt like I was doing no damage. Enemies don't really seem to be phased or stunned by your attacks, some will just keep on attacking as if you were doing nothing to them.

You also have secondary items, like throwable daggers and a crystal that summons Anima from FFX. You also have light magic and dark magic. These give your characters a certain buff: light magic heals as you attack enemies and dark magic does more damage. There are also special moves you can use when in these modes. This thing is sapped pretty quick so you probably won't get to use many.

This leads into one of the more annoying aspects of the game: the orbs. As you defeat enemies, they will sometimes drop orbs. If you hold down the left stick button, it will refill your light magic bar. If you hold down the right stick button, it will fill up your dark magic bar. I can understand that they want you to focus on whichever you prefer, but acquiring these orbs is annoying and brings combat down to a halt. You cannot just walk over to collect them, you gotta stop and hold down the damn stick, leaving you open for attack. It's not like you can collect them after battle either since they disappear quickly. Some might say this mechanic forces you to make tough decisions between wanting to fill up your magic (and thus the chance to heal) or continuing to attack, but I say it kills the flow of battle and handicaps your character. You are almost never at full health because the only way to heal is to use the orbs to fill up your light magic bar, then activate it, then attack enemies. Just give me a potion I can use. Or hell, have different kinds of orbs. Green for health, blue for light magic, and red for dark magic. These orbs can be fairly rare too. If you attack long enough without taking damage, you fill up a bar that lets you draw more orbs from enemies. If you get hit, it resets. Considering you fight a dozen folks at a time, you will almost certainly get hit. Frankly I found the combat slow and frustrating. You never feel like a badass like you do in God of War, as your attacks don't do enough damage and balancing magic and health is more annoying than exciting.

Also, the bosses are awful, especially the TITANS.
rE0BXOh.jpg

These battles try to rip off Shadow of the Colossus, but instead of hectic intensity, you have plodding boredom. You gotta WAIT for them to do a certain attack, then you climb up on their arm or something via shimming up ledges until you get to a weakpoint. It tries to shake you off, but you just hold the right trigger to hold on. Thrilling. If you mess up and fall off the titan, you have to do it ALL AGAIN. I was at the last rune spot on the pictured boss, and a cutscene plays. A character throws me a crystal to stab it... but instead of it playing out as a cutscene, it's suddenly a QTE that I botch and then I gotta CLIMB ALL THE WAY BACK UP TO THE TOP. What the fuck, there hasn't been a cut scene that had a QTE in it all game and then they suddenly throw that at you? This game also has annoying QTE when finishing off certain enemies. Oh the joy of tapping A.

There is some platforming involved, but it is so braindead. You just climb up ledges, or do some automated swinging when you're at the right spot, or hop the world's easiest gaps. Levels are linear, but I do admit many of them look amazing. The game has a diverse number of setting and the scenery is fantastic. Levels are also filled with many secrets. Most of them consist of finding some dead corpse to loot, but they are rather hidden and require playing the level again to find them all.

I tried to push through the game to give a more thorough analysis, but I quit after the Crow Witch. The game was just too plodding, the combat was not fun and frustrating, and I am sick of SHIMMING SO MANY LEDGES BOOORING. Will the next Castlevania game make me warm up to the series? KIND OF.

SUPER CASTLEVANIA IV
1WryJhR.jpg


Super Castlevania IV is the fourth entry in the Castlevania series... but it's actually an expanded remake of the first game. So it really shouldn't have IV in the title. And there weren't Super Castlevanias I-III. This title is so annoying.

Story: Dracula woke up you're Simon Belmont you fight him ok go

This is a fairly straight forward action platformer. You have a whip. You sometimes get secondary weapons. You can jump. That's it. No fancy leveling up system, or equipment, you just whip the shit outta things. The biggest change from the original game is the eight directional whip. You can now attack diagonally or spin it around like an idiot. I honestly felt like it was unresponsive at times. Maybe it was due to lag from the emulation (I played it on the VC and not the SNES), but I often found myself not going the direction I wanted to go or accidentally flailing it about instead of striking enemies.

The game is praised for its graphics, and even today it still looks good. I really like the sprite of Simon attacking diagonally while airborne. Especially for a 1991 SNES game. It famously utilized Mode 7, which gave the background a distorted, faux 3D look. There are a few notable areas where this is used, such as the rotating room and whatever is happening here:
0BrThbW.png


You can even GO INTO THE BACKGROUND in the first level. That blew my mind way more than anything in LoS.

Movement in this game is a bit strange. Simon is a little stiff, but you can still maneuver a bit in the air. When you do a forward diagonal attack, you inch forward a bit, which can be annoying when you're on a ledge. Also, I will take a moment to talk about the worst enemy in the goddam game: THE STAIRS

First of all, you have to press up and the direction to climb up the stairs, otherwise you will just walk in the foreground. You also cannot jump off the stairs, but can some how jump THROUGH the stairs, most often to your death. If enemies knock you back to the stairs, you fall through them and die. WHOOPS. Fuck these stairs.

There are eleven levels in this game, and they are certainly distinctive with their own unique enemies and gameplay gimmicks. I especially liked the gold-filled level toward the end. Each area has a specific atmosphere that keeps you invested in playing. The game is great about keeping you on your toes. It throws new enemies at you the entire game and you have to figure out how to battle them. The enemy variety was much more interesting than the trillion werewolves I had to fight in LoS. I was constantly thinking, "What the hell is THIS?" as I bumped into bizarre creatures. The platforming challenges definitely ramp up towards the end. Instead of just falling blocks, you traverse swinging chandeliers, giant gears, flying platforms while dodging spikes etc. It'll make your heart skip a beat for sure. I hear a lot of people say that the secondary weapons are useless, but I enjoyed using them and found them to be worthwhile against certain enemies. I'm not sure I would have beaten Dracula without cross spam.

It is said that this is one of the easier Classicvanias, but this game completely kicked my ass. Unholy words were said. I only beat it due to massive restore point abuse during the final boss gauntlet (that fucking bird boss was driving me NUTS who the fuck programs something like that and thinks it's fun). There are definitely a lot of, "how was I supposed to know THAT?" moments. I wouldn't say many of the hazards are completely out of nowhere, but they are definitely designed to kill you if you are not completely aware of your surroundings and know what to do. Like falling blocks obscured behind a waterfall. I mean, you can certainly see it, but most would not look closely. Or a bat quietly nesting in a busy background, waiting to swoop in as you fight other enemies. It can be frustrating when you ace a level, but get to one segment that zaps all your lives and then you're kicked back to the beginning. It does feel satisfying when you blaze through a room you initially had difficulty with. THOSE MERMEN CAN GO TO HELL.

The music is often lauded, and what stuck out was how unconventional it was. I expected a lot of faux operatic music and slow, spooky themes, but instead the sound track is quite varied. I especially loved the theme when fighting Dracula. Then YOUR theme kicks in during the final stage of the battle. Awesome. Best song.

I enjoyed this game, but I don't feel like it's one of the best action or platformer games of all time. I would still recommend it.

So that's my Castlevania adventure. Are there any other Classicvania games worth checking out? I heard Rondo of Blood is good, how is that different from Dracula X on SNES. And if I found SCIV to be hard, would the NES Castlevania games completely destroy my soul?

Share your thoughts on these two games, Castlevania, or just about skeletons that explode.
 

Shauni

Member
What's that about Kojima and Lord of Shadows? First time I've ever heard it was an original IP that he demanded be Castlevania? I wouldn't have any thought he'd have any kind of control over the series.
 
my favorite fanchise!

as far as the two games go, i loathe lords of shadows. i think it's not a fun game, and an especially terrible castlevania game.

castlevania 4 on the other hand, is nearly a masterpiece for me. only thing lacking is the challenge; it's far and away the easiest classicvania out of the bunch, thanks in no small part to being able to whip in any direction. but the graphics, the music (especially the music!), and the general atmosphere is simply amazing.

you should def play castlevania 3: draculas curse on the NES, and rondo of blood. rondo might be tricky to play, given that it originally was on the TG16, but it was ported to the wii virtual console.
 
I especially loved the theme when fighting Dracula. Then YOUR theme kicks in during the final stage of the battle. Awesome. Best song.

As a kid, I thought this was the most epic thing ever. I would always "Play Castlevania" by humming Bloody Tears and hitting people with branches, rope or anything I could imagine was a whip.

To this day, I still play through this and Bloodlines when I'm feeling spooky. I'm currently trying to add Dracula X into this routine as well but I suck at it.
 

Pinky

Banned
Love Super Castlevania IV. Played the hell out of it back in the day and have it on Wii U VC.

I bought LoS and played it for about an hour before I put it down. Didn't feel like Castlevania to me in any way whatsoever and the framerate is absolutely atrocious.
 

roknin

Member
I can't speak much on LoS, other than to say that what I've seen of it does nothing for me as a Castlevania fan.

Now Super Castlevania IV... classic, glad you enjoyed it. I've played through that game more times than I can count, and the soundtrack is one of the best of the era.

I'm liking Rondo of Blood but haven't had much of a chance to get very far in it. I also recommend the original on NES oddly enough, though that will depend on how much you like really old-school design ideas and "NES hard" games.

Actually, scratch that, unless you're having a masochistic mood one day. The original is grueling, lol.
 

Nemmy

Member
Castlevania Lords of Shadow was my first Castlevania game. I forced myself to finish it. Looking back now, I should have quit after the Crow Witch like you, OP.
 

Forkball

Member
What's that about Kojima and Lord of Shadows? First time I've ever heard it was an original IP that he demanded be Castlevania? I wouldn't have any thought he'd have any kind of control over the series.

KOJIMA DOES WHAT HE WANTS

Wikipedia said:
The game was originally announced as Lords of Shadow with no connection to the Castlevania series mentioned. This was done to keep their plans to radically change the direction of the Castlevania mythos a secret and to prevent the announcement of the game from upstaging another series release, Castlevania Judgment. Hideo Kojima, creator of the Metal Gear series, helped produce the title.

I'm not sure how hands on Kojima was with the title. Supposedly Kojima was impressed by the initial videos Mercury Steam showed Konami and thought it should be the next Castlevania. Apparently, Konami gave Mercury Steam the Castlevania license, they made something with Simon Belmont, Konami was unimpressed and told them to do LoS, and then Kojima was impressed and wanted to give Castlevania back to them.
 

Grisby

Member
Wow, quite an interesting combo to try out.

I love both. LOS had a bit more strategy for me than your usual GOW, in that you could target enemies in order to heal or you could try and dish out massive damage. Beautiful graphics, a dark gothic theme, and absolutely lovely music just made it for me.

It really felt like an epic journey and the different amount of background assets are great.

Super Castlevania is one of the more easier games in the classic series but is still a blast. Had a good time taking in the colorful 16 bit graphics and the moody ost.
 
It is said that this is one of the easier Classicvanias, but this game completely kicked my ass. Unholy words were said. I only beat it due to massive restore point abuse during the final boss gauntlet (that fucking bird boss was driving me NUTS who the fuck programs something like that and thinks it's fun).

I had zero trouble with SCIV's bosses until Slogra. Then I killed him. Then I realized I also had to kill Gaibon with only a puny turkey leg in between Slogra in him. Then I got my face pushed in for a few frustrating nights because I almost never had enough health to take hits from Gaibon and still win. Then I got a little turkey leg after beating Gaibon and that's all the health I had to work with to kill Death, a boss that took half damage, trucks you for three life points with rapid, airborne attacks and that you have to jump to hit (or wait forever for him to land).

Probably the most intense boss rush I can recall on my SNES. If you didn't save up your items just for Death, you had a bear of a time getting to Drac.
 

redcrayon

Member
Castlevania IV is epic. 24 years old and still looks and sounds amazing.

Yeah, the way Belmonts theme kicks in when you have Dracula on the ropes. Fucking awesome, one of my favourite moments in gaming.
 

CrisKre

Member
Forget MG Rising, If there is one franchise I want platinum to do a new version for, its Castlevania. It would make SO MUCH SENSE! It breaks my heart more than any other franchise to see Castlevania become a shell of its former glory. Save us Platinum!
 
I never felt that SCIV was a remake of the first game, but instead stood on its own as another entry into Dracula's castle.

Was there anything official that said it was meant to be a remake?
 

FloatOn

Member
Lords of Shadow was my first "character action" type game and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Castlevania IV is one of the best classic Castlevania games there is.

As far as moving forward with the series.. give Castlevania: Bloodlines on Genesis a go, it's criminally underrated. Also if you haven't yet get Symphony of the Night. It's one of the best games of all time.
 

Red Mage

Member
Symphony of the Night and Rondo of Blood are great. Dracula X is a butchered port of Rondo, basically. If you want to play the NES ones, play the Famicon version of III. Better music, Grant can throw daggers automatically, and there's a respawn spot t hey removed for the final stage of Dracula's Castle in the NES version. Avoid II, it didn't... age well.

Also, imo, Bloodlines is stupid. WWII-vania with Nazi skeletons. e_e;
 
I had a great time with Lords of Shadow and though it was a fine first step to something more grand. Too bad Lords of Shadow 2 happened. lol

Castlevania 4 is dope and it has some great music too. Bloodlines is great too though its way too easy. Rondo of Blood is superb and Symphony of the Night is great.

Love the damn CV series. I'd love a new one that is more in line with Rondo of Blood or CV3 but we all know that is never going to happen. I have a Wii U and thought about getting a Wiimote just so I can play Rondo of Blood and CV Rebirth (never tried Rebirth).
 

Teuoxton

Member
Kojima should have been fired for LoS. Letting him near such a beloved and iconic franchise was a huge mistake by Konami (one of many to come) and solidifies the ignorance by upper management of what makes the series sell.

Then they made a sequel and shopped out a traditional CV to an unproven studio. They did the same thing with Silent Hill.

It is clear that the move was just to rake in money by aping God of War and taking advantage of Kojima's brainless followers.

If Konami had any shred of respect for true CV fans or the IP itself we would have seen something more akin to CV4 or Order of Ecclesia come out. Even something closer to Resident Evil or Dark Souls would have revolutionized the franchise for the better.

Now the series stagnates in development purgatory as the fans move on to Bloodstained. Good job Konami...
 
I love both LoS and SCIV. LoS was finally a good Castlevania in 3D and konami made the right move going to Mercury Steam as no one inside Konami could have created that game. I like Igavanias but they had lost the plot a bit on the atmosphere of the early Castlevanias and LoS revived that. I like the gameplay and I thought the soundtrack might have been the best of last gen. LoS 2 was a troubled game and a misstep but LoS was absolutely the correct direction for Castlevania in 3D and it's just too bad it was mismanaged after that good first step.
 
Symphony of the Night and Rondo of Blood are great. Dracula X is a butchered port of Rondo, basically. If you want to play the NES ones, play the Famicon version of III. Better music, Grant can throw daggers automatically, and there's a respawn spot t hey removed for the final stage of Dracula's Castle in the NES version. Avoid II, it didn't... age well.

Also, imo, Bloodlines is stupid. WWII-vania with Nazi skeletons. e_e;

Bloodlines is great. I'd say it's just as worthy as 3.
 

Forkball

Member
Kojima should have been fired for LoS. Letting him near such a beloved and iconic franchise was a huge mistake by Konami (one of many to come) and solidifies the ignorance by upper management of what makes the series sell.

Then they made a sequel and shopped out a traditional CV to an unproven studio. They did the same thing with Silent Hill.

It is clear that the move was just to rake in money by aping God of War and taking advantage of Kojima's brainless followers.

If Konami had any shred of respect for true CV fans or the IP itself we would have seen something more akin to CV4 or Order of Ecclesia come out. Even something closer to Resident Evil or Dark Souls would have revolutionized the franchise for the better.

Now the series stagnates in development purgatory as the fans move on to Bloodstained. Good job Konami...

Lords of Shadow is actually the best selling Castlevania game believe it or not. It was never a massive franchise. I'm not sure how the DS games sold, but I don't think OoE moved a ton of units. It's clear that the franchise needed a shake up. Personally I would have liked them to make something more akin to Dark Souls than LoS. Dark Souls shares a lot of elements with Castlevania. I wonder if the people at Konami saw Dark Souls and thought, "Oh... we should have made that."
 
I will admit that Lords of Shadow was not the best game. Not even the best Castlevania game. But I'll be damned if I didn't enjoy it and beat the game within a few days. Really enjoyed the ending. Didn't play the sequel.


I'd really like to play a Castlevania game similar to Bloodborne with a little less RPG elements.


I love Bloodborne.
 

Teeth

Member
Castlevania 4 is one of my all time favourite games. Hot tip: if you keep playing after the credits, you get New Game+, where the enemies take an additional hit. If you beat that, NG++, NG+++ and so on. That said, once you get up there in NG+s, some parts become savagely difficult. You'll have to pre-plan encounters, throwing boomerangs and following after them to kill enemies so you can get enough hits in to kill them to jump on the platforms they are standing on.

Other hot tip: Jump and diagonally attack down forward. This is your new main attack for getting through the game. Standing or ducking and whipping makes Simon stand still for a second and has a delay before the whip comes out. That delay is reduced in the air and you still maintain forward momentum and some control. So remember, don't attack forward, jump and attack down forward to maintain speed.

Secret hot tip: in the treasure stage (Stage 9), if you jump on a treasure chest 255 times, a health giving turkey will fall out of the sky. MMMmmmmm air turkey.

Final hot tip: Stage 8 has the best music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFtpZS_t0sQ&list=PL79DA330B8AE4C836&index=18
 

Sciz

Member
So that's my Castlevania adventure. Are there any other Classicvania games worth checking out? I heard Rondo of Blood is good, how is that different from Dracula X on SNES. And if I found SCIV to be hard, would the NES Castlevania games completely destroy my soul?

CV4 is generally considered one of the easiest Classicvanias thanks to the whip mechanics, but you can read tomes about that elsewhere. CV1, 3, Bloodlines, and Rondo are all awesome for a variety of reasons, and all of them but CV1 have alternate playable characters if you find the traditional Belmont too tough.
 

AgeEighty

Member
Lords of Shadow is actually the best selling Castlevania game believe it or not. It was never a massive franchise. I'm not sure how the DS games sold, but I don't think OoE moved a ton of units. It's clear that the franchise needed a shake up. Personally I would have liked them to make something more akin to Dark Souls than LoS. Dark Souls shares a lot of elements with Castlevania. I wonder if the people at Konami saw Dark Souls and thought, "Oh... we should have made that."

I don't have any idea how the economics of gaming today compare with those of the late '80s, but I can tell you that practically every kid I knew played Castlevania back then. In terms of reach and mind share, it's never been as big as it was in those days.
 

Teuoxton

Member
Lords of Shadow is actually the best selling Castlevania game believe it or not. It was never a massive franchise. I'm not sure how the DS games sold, but I don't think OoE moved a ton of units. It's clear that the franchise needed a shake up. Personally I would have liked them to make something more akin to Dark Souls than LoS. Dark Souls shares a lot of elements with Castlevania. I wonder if the people at Konami saw Dark Souls and thought, "Oh... we should have made that."
This does not suprise me, but the shakeup should have been for the better, not to pander to the GoW/Kojima crowd.

This is like making F-Zero into a mobile game; sure it will sell better but at the cost of IP integrity. It sold more but was worth less IMO.
 
Secret hot tip: in the treasure stage (Stage 9), if you jump on a treasure chest 255 times, a health giving turkey will fall out of the sky. MMMmmmmm air turkey.

Holy shit. I'm pretty sure I knew this as a kid but had convinced myself that this was one of those ridiculous "secrets" kids make up like playing as Luigi in Mario 64.

As for Lords of Shadow, this was one of the few games I've sold back almost immediately. When the clerk at Gamestop was broken hearted that I hated the game, I knew that modern gaming had left me behind.
 

Petrae

Member
Quite the polar opposite in this OP, from trash (Lords of Shadow) to treasure (Super Castlevania IV).

I still kick myself for spending $80 on the Lords of Shadow Collector's Edition, out of blind faith that it was going to be a good Castlevania game. Instead, I got a technical mess of a game with shitty frame rates and nothing even remotely reminiscent of Castlevania at all (while I could stand playing it). Lords of Shadow was one of the three games I've ever bought that I traded in within 24 hours of purchase (Brütal Legend and Final Fantasy XIII were the others).

Super Castlevania IV, on the other hand, was my first Castlevania game (way back in 1991)... and I think highly of it to this day. The visuals still hold up okay today, the music is still amazing, and I appreciate the linear design. The difficulty felt just right, which is something that not all CV games would share.

It's a close race between Super Castlevania IV and Symphony of the Night in terms of which is my favorite CV game. Bloodlines is also quite good, as well as Dracula's Curse and the DS Metroidvanias.
 

andymcc

Banned
I don't really like either one of these games and I say this as someone who's favorite game franchise IS castlevania.
 
I feel that MercurySteam went into its planning process for Lords of Shadow and said, "We're going to advertise it as a long game. That'll be one of its main selling features."

They had to have, because the result is an inflated mess in terms of pacing. The gameplay is relatively fun, but it takes so long for things to get fun. I almost got sick of it.

Seriously, there's one stage where you just run through the forest collecting crystals. You never do that again and there's no reason for it. Chapter 2, itself, is by far the longest chapter in the game and only because they threw the kitchen sink in and never thought of editing.
 

Teeth

Member
I'll say this about Lords of Shadow, for all it's faults (and it has some pretty deep core ones), I ended up enjoying it in the end for the following reasons:

1) It felt like a real journey. You end up covering such a huge swath of land, with such variance, that it captures that heroes pilgrimage better than a lot of RPGs. Beautiful scenery, a real sense of build up to the castle and dread as you descended to the underworld.

2) Real and wide enemy variance. Most modern games have like 4 or 5 enemy types, but LoS actually punctuates its journey with a steady stream of new baddies with really different attacks and behaviour patterns.

3) Actually legitimately puzzling and entertaining puzzles. Action games have a real problem with puzzles in that, most people who buy into an action game are there for the action. When a user gets stuck on a puzzle, they tend to just stop playing the game entirely because they aren't really playing anymore. If you're stuck at a tough action encounter, as you bang your head against it over and over, you're still playing, you're still interacting with the core systems, you're still likely being entertained. With a puzzle, the "game" portion of it stops dead. It's all in your head at that point. That's why modern action games that have puzzles are generally a follow-the-directions affair; you know immediately how to solve the puzzle, it's just a matter of actually carrying it out. Not in LoS. They throw the answer hint to the user right off the start, so they have an out in case they get stuck. This gave them license to create some real puzzles. And a great variety of them too! I personally felt they tread the perfect line of being challenging without being frustrating. Something I had to stop and think about, but not something I knew the answer to immediately. And none of them jumped out at me as being that stupid type of puzzle where the actual rule set is laid out, but the solution requires a "trick" that ostensibly exists outside the demonstrated rules set. They just lay it out simply and let you solve it organically. I personally thought they were great.

4) Good bosses (mostly). All of the Titan bosses are absolute garbage. Thinly veiled extended QTEs with minimal user input where one misstep requires doing the LONG sequence of events again.

That said, there are only a couple of Titans in the game.

The real DMC style 1 on 1 boss fights are great. Challenging, visually impressive, containing a varied moveset that evolves over the fight, and they often use environmental interactions to create little action puzzles. I would often die over and over to a boss but keep coming back for more, as they felt fair, varied, and reactive. They required the user actually utilize the moveset given to them. You really felt like you were wearing them down in these grand epic fights. The final boss of the DLC had me white knuckle gripping my controller the time I beat him. That sort of intensity is rare in modern action games.



There are a ton of faults which are pretty obvious on playing it, but these things kept me coming back until the end and I was glad I finished it.
 

Bedlam

Member
Well, I loved Lords of Shadow. Played through it 4 times whereas I got bored with GoW3 halfway through.
 

also

Banned
So that's my Castlevania adventure. Are there any other Classicvania games worth checking out? I heard Rondo of Blood is good, how is that different from Dracula X on SNES. And if I found SCIV to be hard, would the NES Castlevania games completely destroy my soul?

Share your thoughts on these two games, Castlevania, or just about skeletons that explode.
Rondo and Dracula X are completely different games that only share the same basic story. It's an unpopular opinion but I prefer Dracula X (SNES) over SCIV and the PC engine version. I really enjoy the emphasized verticality of the stages and the mobility of the character though it does make the game too easy. Final boss aside, it's also less frustrating than SCIV as it has a more forgiving checkpoint system and you won't die from the screen scrolling up.
If you're interested in Rondo (PC engine) you should get Dracula Chronicles X for PSP (Vita compatible). It's an ugly but otherwise superior remake of the original, which you can also unlock along with Symphony of the Night, aka a really boring metroidvania.

The original Castlevania is not that hard so you should be fine given that you beat SCIV, but III is much harder. Still that's my favorite of the series so you should give it a try once you polish you Classivania skills with the easier games and gather enough patience. Just be prepared to repeat some sections over and over :p

My personal ranking would be:
1.)C III (NES)
2.) Dracula X (SNES)
3.) Dracula Chronicles X (PSP/Vita)
4.) Rondo (PC engine)
5.) C 1 (NES)
6.) SCIV (SNES)
 

PooBone

Member
I absolutely adored Lords of Shadow. Was never a big Castlevania fan but that one really resondated with me, even though it didn't have the Metroid map formula. As far as God of War style action games go this one is probably my all time favorite.
 
Both are awesome and two of my favorite CV games. Shame that LoS2 was mediocre outside of a few bright spots.

Nice to see some speak of the first favorably. The last third was unexpected and atmospheric as fuck.
 

dextran

Member
LoS is amazing - easily my game of the year for 2010 - even more than RDR and I made that game.
LoS gets better and better the more you play. First level is the worst - and to think i almost didn't play this game thanks to the demo.
The combat abilities unlock with exquisite pace
Epic bosses - in game cutscenes! The DLC really messed up by doing cheap-o comic book style cutscenes.
Such a shame LoS2 was such dog shit.
 
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