Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 (PC, PS3, 360)

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

Many of the real Castlevanias had alternate paths and hidden items. And all of them have weapon upgrades, both in the form of whip upgrades and special weapons.

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I like how I showed that they used distinctly similar things and you then tried to twist them into generic enough ideas to apply to something else.

Aside from the outlier of Simon's Quest (and to the best of my knowledge):
They do not have specific new weapons/abilities that are found in laid out story locations for the purpose of unlocking the main story route.
They have alternate paths but they do not allow you to revisit previous levels with items gained further in to open those up.
None of them have an experience points system and while they have weapon upgrades they are not purchased and can be taken away.
None of them allow you to upgrade your lifebar.

You feel LoS is more of what you envision a Castlevania game to be than SOTN. Cool. LoS is not, however, any less of the same genre than SOTN.

I hear KFC has pot pies now?

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

The Metroidvanias have levels? How about grinding and power leveling. Where is that in LoS or the real Castlevanias?

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Yes, Metroidvanias absolutely have levels. They're called "The Library" instead of "3." Grinding and power leveling are readily apparent in CV2. And I thought LoS's EXP was correlative to killing stuff. Was it not?

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Originally Posted by Joust Williams

I hear KFC has pot pies now?

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The genre thing is a tedious argument, yeah, but it's an important one. One of the (many) things keeping videogames from the same legitimacy we assign to film is that our critical vocabulary is too sparse and contested. If we don't have the vocabulary, we cannot have critical discourse. If we cannot have critical discourse, we cannot advance the medium.

Believe it or not, I didn't bring the genre thing up just to antagonize Yoshi.

For the record, I don't categorize my Steam collection by genre. If I did, it would be perspective x 'what you do in it'

But I will say categorization depends on what you need to do...different audiences and different goals will lead to different ways and criteria of categorization

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Originally Posted by FirstBlood

No it really boils down to whether you think a God of War clone is closer to the original games than Metroidvanias.

I think it's absurd to argue so vehemently that a goddamn 3D action game where all you do is combos & QTEs is somehow the TRUE SUCCESSOR to the 2D classics. It also helps that my opinion isn't clouded by hatred like Yoshi's, because I liked LoS, whereas he is unable to think clearly when it comes to Metroidvanias.

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I think the problem here is that: Castlevania 1-4, X, etc. are "action games", LoS is an "action game", SOTN is an "action-adventure game", hence LoS is closer to the original set than SOTN. I think that's a bit too simplistic and reductionist though.

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Originally Posted by FirstBlood

No it really boils down to whether you think a God of War clone is closer to the original games than Metroidvanias.

I think it's absurd to argue so vehemently that a goddamn 3D action game where all you do is combos & QTEs is somehow the TRUE SUCCESSOR to the 2D classics. It also helps that my opinion isn't clouded by hatred like Yoshi's, because I liked LoS, whereas he is unable to think clearly when it comes to Metroidvanias.

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For the record, I really liked SotN. It was only after it became clear that Igarashi had no intention of returning to the style that defined the series that my hatred grew. In 1996, I felt the same way about SotN that I do about Simon's Quest. It was a cool one off, much like Zelda II or Super Mario Land. I promise you that if Nintendo made seven straight Zelda like Zelda II, people who loved the original would hate them too.

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Originally Posted by Diff-chan

I think the problem here is that: Castlevania 1-4, X, etc. are "action games", LoS is an "action game", SOTN is an "action-adventure game", hence LoS is closer to the original set than SOTN. I think that's a bit too simplistic and reductionist though.

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I should probably mention that I don't think of LoS as the ultimate envisioning of Castlevania in 3D. It seems to me there should be a way to do it without combo-driven combat. But to me the combos are less of a concession in terms of faithfulness than the largely wide open castles and leveling. Maybe part of that is that there haven't been seven straight in that style.

edit: And all of this is moot if those two reviews are accurate. At least the Metroidvanias did what they did competently.

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Originally Posted by Joust Williams

For the record, I don't categorize my Steam collection by genre. If I did, it would be perspective x 'what you do in it'

But I will say categorization depends on what you need to do...different audiences and different goals will lead to different ways and criteria of categorization

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I do in incredibly vague strokes just for myself, pretty much what you said. Like I have a section called "Online" that's just online multiplayer-only games regardless of what real genres each of those might actually be.

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

the ultimate envisioning of Castlevania in 3D.

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To me, Dark Souls is the ultimate envisioning of Castlevania in 3D: both the originals and the Metroidvanias. It embodies and escalates the defining characteristics of both.