That's the UK release date. The North American release date is February 25th, and Europe is February 27th.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
Awfully close to March 2014 when Dark Souls II is scheduled for release.
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That's the UK release date. The North American release date is February 25th, and Europe is February 27th.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
Awfully close to March 2014 when Dark Souls II is scheduled for release.
I'll have this whipped six ways from Sunday the weekend it comes out, so I'd be even happier if Dark Souls II were the following week.
Awfully close to WHY DID THIS TAKE ALMOST 4 YEARS TO COME OUT.
Because they had to waste time on a fucking 3DS game in-between?
Too bad the game stinks.
Hm... yeah, I guess that's right.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
Want
Attachment 72223
but not enough to import a European console version...
Those figures look bad.
They go with the game that looks bad.
Game looks fine, figures look like a candle or some shit.
Is that supposed to be Richter next to GabeDrac?
That tomb box is definitely worth the thousand years it will take the earth to digest it.
Shit looks tight.
Cox once again hints that Contra is up next on next gen consoles.
Hopefully Konami doesn't go back to fucking up Castlevania up with character design, level ups, hardware choices, etc.
I'd like a few throwback games. Good level design point A to point B, no levels, just powerups. Then they can go back to SOTN.
I hope they go back.
Has that collector's edition been confirmed for NA yet? I'm not feeling the figures but I want the rest.
Also, did any of you guys play the LoS2 demo that came with Mirror of Fate HD?
No. Did you?
I did. I liked it a lot actually. Especially the new gameplay elements. Life steal and guard crush are gonna bring some depth to the combat system this time around I think. Platforming was also fun and definitely more reminiscent of older, 2D Castlevania games than it was in the first LoS. There were some Symphony of the Night references thrown in there too, though I kinda hope they're re-recorded by the time the final game comes out; I thought they could have been spoken with a little more... I dunno, passion, for lack of a better word. You'll see what I mean if you play the demo. Gabriel/Dracula's voice is really good overall, however. The demo was pretty short, but I did like what music was there. I'm hyped.
Is the combat any faster or is it still plodding and easy?
I didn't really find it faster, but it's been a long while since I played the first game. If it is, it's not significant enough that it stands out to me. I think the combat is a little more challenging but I still didn't find it hard. There's more thinking involved and different things to juggle at once in combat. There's much more going on onscreen than I remember there being in the original. You'll be having to attack one enemy using the guard breaker while dodging aerial attacks from a flying enemy while also keeping at eye out for unblockable attacks from other ground foes (which you'll have to dash-dodge away from) all while making sure your health is maintained, which, if it gets low, you'll need to temporarily switch to your life steal weapon to replenish. You can also grab an enemy and suck blood from their neck to get some health back, but that option isn't available until you've dealt them a certain amount of damage. I thought it was enjoyable but not hard. I'll probably pick a higher difficulty level when I play the full game, though.
Is life steal pretty much the same as life magic in the first game or an actual separate weapon/ability with unique properties?
All I know about it so far from the demo is you press L1 to switch to that weapon and your life replenishes as you land successful attacks. There may be more to it but that's all it demonstrated.
That's exactly the same as the first game.
Okay. I couldn't quite remember for sure. It's been a few years and I play a lot of games, plus I'm getting old.
Here's a YouTube video someone put up of the demo playthrough:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smjDoBX4a7Y
I half expected the PC version to get delayed, but thar she blows with the February 25 date.
Anyone else play the demo? I dunno. It was okay. Hot off the heels of Revengeance like 10x through on the PC, this feels like it plays a million times slower. I never played the first one, but I never realized just how much like God of War this was trying to be. It does look pretty on the PC, but I don't think it's a full-price affair.
I liked the demo, probably not buying this at full price but I definitely liked the combat and graphics.
$20-30 purchase.
Ruh oh, apparently this got a 6/10 from Game Informer and and a 4/10 from Edge. I havent read the read the reviews my self but apparently the Game Informer reviewer really liked the first game too.
I thought the demo was ok, if the game was more of that I would maybe still get the game as long as the music was awesome.
Holy shit. I hope that's misinformation. Neither review is online yet.
I guess the GI review is already in the magazine people have been getting. Im going to be really disappointed if this game sucks. I've been looking forward to it since I finished the first game!
I played the first in anticipation of the second. The truth is the first isn't that great. But if the second one is just as good, I'll get it
After your post, I Googled it, and the quoted parts I saw sound like they are pissed it's in modern times and has some stealth sections. If these reviewers are people who hear "Castlevania" and think of SotN but then don't like coloring outside the lines, their opinions are worth what we'll pay for them.Quote:
Originally Posted by SamuraiMoogle
Nah the game is probably just kinda bad.
For someone who prefers the original Castlevanias, I find it weird that you would dismiss modern day stealth on the supposition that someone would think of SOTN. One of these things is a whole lot farther from the original than the other. And probably has a much better soundtrack.
The first LoS was a lot closer to real Castlevania than the Metroidvanias. This one is supposed to be less so, so it is possible it could fall on its face.
Keep telling yourself that
Closer by what measure?Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
The ever amorphous yoshi measuring stick.
The fact that it's at least in the same major genre?Quote:
Originally Posted by A Robot Bit Me
That sucks. I really like the first one.Quote:
Originally Posted by SamuraiMoogle
LolQuote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
Loved the first game. The demo for the was good too. I guess that was the good part. I knew they would fuck up the modern setting the second the revealed in the first game.
What genre? Whip Games?Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
Contra and Mario aren't in the same genre, but Castlevania 1 and LoS are. Got it.
Oh fuck here we go.
Action.Quote:
Originally Posted by A Robot Bit Me
Correct: Action with subgenre run 'n' gun, platformer, action, action.Quote:
Contra and Mario aren't in the same genre, but Castlevania 1 and LoS are. Got it.
edit: I can't believe we've reached a point in idiotic revisionist history where saying that Contra and Mario are not in the same genre is anything other than "duh."
What a horrible night to have a curse
I can accept generic difference between Mario and Contra. It's just weird to hear someone else who insists on it then insist that CV1 (or 2 or 3) is of the same genre as LoS. That's like saying the Van Helsing comics and Great Expectations both belong to the same genre: Victorian fiction. I guess they kind of do on some level, but no one would recommend one to a satisfied reader of the other. To someone who enjoyed Simon's Quest, no one would recommend LoS before SotN.
Maybe I do not remember the NES game accurately, but the 8-bit Belmonts of my mind's eye do a lot of jumping between platforms and very little karate.
This is the dumbest argument ever. Even Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow took place in the FUTURE and yet had the classic trappings of Castlevania, including the monsters and the setting in the castle. If this game makes you leave the castle to walk around cityscapes with scyscrapers and shit, fighting soldiers in armor in full 3D and sneaking around, you're playing Legacy of Kain Blood Omen 2 Redux.
It's not even an argument. It's just Yoshi grasping at straws. We're better off ignoring it.
Man what I wouldn't give for an HD remake of Dawn of Sorrow.....
The classic 'Vanias are action-platformers, LoS is modern 3D character action. The former have more in common with classic Mario, let alone SotN, than they do with the latter.
I didn't realize that decreasing the amount of combat increased it's qualifications as action.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
Theme and setting has nothing to do with genre. Neither does perspective, which is why FPS really shouldn't be a genre either. Is Mario Galaxy a different than SMB3 because it takes place in outer space and is 3D? The primary activity in every real Castlevania game is combat, which makes it an action series. Absolutely no one called any action game a platformer in the 80s or 90s. That is revisionist idiocy from the same stupid kids who now write for garbage sites like IGN.Quote:
Originally Posted by George
Should I compare Zelda II or Super Mario Land to their modern, 3D interpretations too? Why would you focus on the oddball? Hell, Zelda II is probably a platformer too, right?Quote:
Originally Posted by A Robot Bit Me
edit: I wish I still had my EGM Buyer's Guides from the 1990s. I think Timber of Melf got them. I wish I could find scans, but NeoGAF posted some of the awards from the 1993 edition. Look at that genre next to Super Star Wars: Action/Adventure, not fucking platformer. Every game with a jump button was not a platformer before games went 3D.
edit2: 1994's best action game: Gunstar Heroes. And that's exactly the same genre as Contra. 1995 even had Super Metroid as action, because it was basically a sub-genre of one back then.
They also labelled Super Metroid as Best Action Game. UH-OH.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
NICE
I'm with Yoshi. Everything else being said on the topic seems so far away from reality that I'm not sure you guys aren't joking. How is LoS any different than CV1? You play through a level and fight the boss at the end. Afterwards, you move to the next level and do the same. Seems pretty black and white to me.
So NICE that I had already edited it into my post while he was posting. Metroid was basically the definition of Action/Adventure back then. What else would they have called it?Quote:
Originally Posted by FirstBlood
Not to mention the fact they don't even GIVE a best platformer award because it's so damn ubiquitous.
"Listen to EGM! Wait, don't listen to EGM!"Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
Name a 1980s action game.
That doesn't mean anything. All generic taxonomy is "revisionist history." It's an innately post hoc practice. No one called The Maltese Falcon "film noir" until five years later after several American films sharing its characteristics had been released and a pattern emerged. Today, no one would argue that Maltese isn't the quintessential noir, even though "film noir" was a term invented by critics (!) well after its release (!!).Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
Taxonomy is the observance of pattern. Think about what it means to determine pattern. If we have a sequence of two numbers:
2, 4
Is the pattern that the numbers are increasing by two, or is it that they're doubling? Is there any pattern at all? We won't know until we're given more numbers. Then, we can look back at the whole sequence (or period of literature, movies or videogames), see if there was a pattern, and give that pattern a name.
The Maltese Falcon is more a kin to Metroid, where it was blazing new ground, and there was no way to properly describe it at the time. This ridiculous argument is more a kin to deciding 20 years later that a John Wayne movie wasn't a western but rather an animal movie because it had horses.
YesQuote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
If they were ill-equipped to be an authority figure about these semantics then why did you bring them up like they were?
For the record, according to Yoshi, the 1941 film The Maltese Falcon is more like Metroid than Castlevania is.
I'm beginning to understand his disdain for the liberal arts.
Which genres are they?Quote:
Originally Posted by Diff-chan
Eh? Everyone was ill-equipped to categorize Metroid, because it was basically a genre of one.Quote:
Originally Posted by alan_fatima
Yes, in 1941 categorizing a noir film was just as difficult as categorizing a "Metroidvania" game in 1994. It was easy as hell to categorize Castlevania in 1987, because everyone knew what an action game was already.Quote:
Originally Posted by A Robot Bit Me
edit: It was pretty easy to categorize Rambo in the 1980s too.
The ultimate point is that LoS has many areas purely for exploration, unlockable and upgradeable attacks, an experience points system, locked areas that require obtaining items and then backtracking to previous levels to open them up, and occasional puzzles that fits it firmly into the same Action-RPG/Action-Adventure/whatever selection that Metroid and SOTN fall into. To call LoS purely an action game and SOTN not is be purposefully blind for no reason other than to be difficult.
I'm glad we can agree hearkening back to EGM was pointless, then. Waste less words next time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
LoS is almost exactly the same structure as Rondo and very similar to Dracula's Curse. The most glaring difference between those and Simon's Quest and the Metroidvanias is that they are distinct levels. 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.Quote:
Originally Posted by MechDeus
If the discussion was about Metroid, you'd have a point. But you do provide me an opportunity to waste less words, so I'll take you up on that from here on out.Quote:
Originally Posted by alan_fatima
So now you're going to argue Metroidvanias doesn't include Super Metroid? Really?
All the Metroidvanias have those things, too. And plenty of platformers have upgradeable weapons. Adventure Island comes to mind. Also, these are really weird generic criteria!Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
It boils down to this, the Castlevania games Yoshi likes are closer to the original games than the one's Yoshi doesn't like.
The Metroidvanias have levels? How about grinding and power leveling. Where is that in LoS or the real Castlevanias?Quote:
Originally Posted by A Robot Bit Me
You're close but have it backwards. Castlevania games that are closer to the original games I like more than the ones that aren't.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shin Johnpv
No it really boils down to whether you think a God of War clone is closer to the original games than Metroidvanias.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shin Johnpv
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
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?
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?Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joust Williams
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
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by FirstBlood
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by FirstBlood
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Diff-chan
edit: And all of this is moot if those two reviews are accurate. At least the Metroidvanias did what they did competently.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joust Williams
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
Dark Souls is the Metroidvanias; Demon's Souls is the originals. I can barely argue that, now that you mention it.
They'd be perfectly analogous if their music weren't so sparse.
The primary activity is getting to the end of the stage. Enemies are obstacles to be gotten past by the method most appropriate to the situation at hand, whether that be combat or avoidance - sometimes the answer is fighting, sometimes it's waiting for them to jump, running under, and moving on. In this regard, they are often little different from environmental obstacles, traversal of which is of course the defining feature of the platformer. ...Interesting how this describes Mario games just as well as it does early Castlevanias, no?Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
In LoS, combat is everything. Rarely do you even have the option to bypass enemies without killing them. (And when said combat is a slightly improved imitation of the worst game of note in the genre, this is a problem - but that's a value judgement, nothing to do with genre classification.) Enemy behavior focuses on killing you, not following a script that often takes only perfunctory notice of your presence, so avoidance becomes impossible.
I want to see a video of you waiting for an enemy to jump so you can run under in a real Castlevania game.
I do that in the face of fleamen all the time. Medusa heads are more easily dodged than whipped, too.
Pretty much everyone has brought sound, well-supported arguments to an important (as videogames go) discussion. But if you'd rather it stop, then okay.Quote:
Originally Posted by EvilMog
Cool. The games I'd like to play are the games I want to play, too!Quote:
Despite the bad reviews so far I want play it just to see how the story turns out.
Open Question: Are the games you like to play the same games you enjoy playing?
Fun with words. Next, what is a role playing game.
Shenmue.
It always blows my mind that Yoshi was born in 1976, read gaming magazines in the `90s, and insists on using the same definition of platformer as people that started gaming in the 32-bit era.
I just want to delete all this dumb horse shit in the CASTLEVANIA thread, not the 4 assholes discuss minutiae about video game genres for the x time.