Gaming Castlevania: Lords of Shadow- Mirror of Fate Demo

[Eerpow]

To be honest the graphics are very unpolished. Considering the nature of the gameplay and the often out zoomed camera angles are 4x or even just the 2x horizontal anti aliasing would have been a huge improvement. As it is the characters are just a few pixels high.

 

[heartgold]

Hyperbole, much?

I just completed the demo and it does not look impressive visually, even by 3DS standards.

Eh, our eyes don't see the same then. in full 3D on the XL, it's impressive. I don't know if 3D improves graphics but this is stunning in full depth view.

Actually most games played in 3D look graphically better to me oddly, it helps overcome the lower res.

 

[squablo]

Eh, our eyes don't see the same then. in full 3D on the XL, it's impressive. I don't know if 3D improves graphics but this is stunning in full depth view.

Actually most games played in 3D look graphically better to me oddly, it helps overcome the lower res.

Same here. Playing on the XL and it looks great to me, especially the environments. Very immersive. The 3D effect is really good.

 

[thewarhammer]

...I really love when people say "Lords of Shadow isn't Castlevania", but everyone loves to play Symphony of the Night (Nocturne in the Moonlight for the purists) as Alucard. C'mon, changes! I know, everyone has the rights to like whatever they want, but please, at least try a little harder with the excuses...
...I'm a fan of the series for a long time (since the NES, the hardcore ones. You have to be a fan to finish Castlevania Legends...8D), and I really like Lords of Shadow. I know it isn't the most original game ever (well, it's like when GoW was released, and it smelled like Laments of Inocence + Prince of Persia + Devil May Cry...), but is a good game, with an amazing story, graphics, music and gameplay (even obviously not that original and innovative). I see so many people more worried with bashing the game to the depths of hell than to simply play it. I really am okay with all the dislike about LoS, but at least be reasonable...

 

[Rizsparky]

Eh, our eyes don't see the same then. in full 3D on the XL, it's impressive. I don't know if 3D improves graphics but this is stunning in full depth view.

Actually most games played in 3D look graphically better to me oddly, it helps overcome the lower res.

I agree, the 3D does actually make the game look alot better

 

[2ndApex]

It's not really Castlevania but I liked GoW and DMC so I might be picking this up.

 

[Eerpow]

Eh, our eyes don't see the same then. in full 3D on the XL, it's impressive. I don't know if 3D improves graphics but this is stunning in full depth view.

Actually most games played in 3D look graphically better to me oddly, it helps overcome the lower res.

Yes the 3D helps a lot since it actually gives each graphical element a spacial separation instead of having all the pixels mashed together, you actually get a bigger field of view with 3D too because of how stereoscopy works.

 

[avran89]

The Demo was graphically nice to look at, but the gameplay is too generic for a Castlevania title.

 

[ForteGospel]

The Demo was graphically nice to look at, but the gameplay is too generic for a Castlevania title.

i looked up another side scrolling castlevania demo... and features about the same gameplay than this demo...
the problem is we didnt saw any improvement on the character castlevania style and there wasnt much exploration... but so did the last demo

 

[Guild McCommunist]

The game did look a bit PSX-era-ish by the screenies I saw, and the 3DS can do much better.

It's kinda sad because if this was a really true Castlevania game like Symphony of the Night I'd easily lay down the cash for a 3DS and the game. But it's not.

 

[SpaceJump]

The game did look a bit PSX-era-ish by the screenies I saw, and the 3DS can do much better.

It's kinda sad because if this was a really true Castlevania game like Symphony of the Night I'd easily lay down the cash for a 3DS and the game. But it's not.

Trust me, screenshots don't do it justice. Its graphics aren't as good as RE Revelations, but they are still quite good.

I gave the demo a few more shots and it's growing on me. Especially once you get used to the controls. I think the full game could be well worth it. I'll definitly get it.

 

[McHaggis]

"GOOD GOD NOOOO! THIS ISN'T CASTLEVANIA!!! CASTLEVANIA HAS BEEN VIOLATED!!!"

That was my road reaction after playing Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (developed by MercurySteam) on my PS3. It was an underwhelming game which in all honesty copied elements of other titles such as GoW and Shadow of the Colossus and mashed it together to create a game which was a mess. It wasn't as good as mentioned titles and certainly wasn't a particularly good game. It felt very much like a average action game at best.

MercurySteam are back and after playing the demo, I can't say my feelings from LoS have changed for the better. It feels like a GoW side-scroller. I'm hacking and slashing through enemies and I feel like I'm going through the motions. The exploration just feels pointless. I don't feel like I'm doing anything with any purpose. The platforming was decent but not spectacular. It took me thirty minutes to finish the demo and when I compare that to SOTH, the first ten minutes alone made it clear this game was fucking awesome. Castlevania:LoS-MoF just feel uninspired and generic GoW clone. The music just sounds boring and generic compared to the kick ass music in past games. And why takes it several hits to break a fucking barrel? The game looks nice but that's all it has going for it.

tl;dr:MoF is pretty shitty tbh tbf imo.

It's not great, it's not a classic Castlevania but I'll probably pick it up anyway. I played the demo and was immediately disgruntled, but by the time I'd finished it I was kind of nostalgic (a little). What I'm going to miss most is defeating an enemy, leaving the screen, coming back on, defeating, leaving, coming back, defeating, leaving, coming back, etc. until I finally get that fucking rare drop. 100% bestiary ftw! Oh no, I made myself feel sad.

I didn't mind LoS either. It was better than most full-3D Castlevania efforts. You're right about it being a lot like GoW, but I found the story to be much more compelling.

 

[Coconut]

It was pretty bad :/

 

[BORTZ]

...I might be in the small of the opinon here, but i think ill still get this game, eventually. I liked the one for X360, and this one looks like fun too. I DONT really like all the hacking and slashing required, but the exploration was fun, the little that it had. It does look beautiful.

 

[Elrinth]

Controls:
* Played the demo and the controls are tight mostly, except when u are on a ledge and want to climb up. You'd think A button (jump) would mean you could go up, but it doesn't do anything unless you tilt left or right (then it'll jump from the ledge).
You HAVE to turn the knobb upwards. Yes I'm playing with the analog. This felt clunky to me, and there's no excuse for making the controls that way.
* The whipping gameplay feels pretty awesome, with the combo-system from Lords of Shadow returning, but I still feel the enemies have too much health, making combat much more like a chore.

Mechanics:
* Thanks to the new whipping gameplay there's a few things they've amped crazily, like monster health. This means the long battles with normal monsters return from Lords of Shadow. It seems Mercury Steam don't care about previous titles and how they played, which I think is pretty sad. In previous 2d Castlevanias the enemies didn't require many hits at all on enemies, this game most enemies require more than one hit, where many require something like 20 hits or so. It's actually okay with 20 hits or so for some enemies, but to me those enemies should be like "mini-bosses" rather than common enemies which Mirror's of Fate seems to go with. Just like Lords of Shadow, this game's standard enemies are way too beefy.
* It is pretty safe to say since they made such a combosystem for the whip, we'll not be getting many alternative weapons like in the Metroidvanias. The whole gear system was a fun collectible thing which I personally really enjoyed. Where some weapons are much slower but deal much more damage, sometimes a faster weapon with much less damage felt more stable to use.
* Subweapon system. The same subweapon system from Lords of Shadow appear, but this time you collect hearts again and not specific subweapon refillers like in LoS. Where's the trademark candles? Sure they never made much sense. But so doesn't collecting hearts inside barrels to refill daggers, bumerangs or whatever.
* Health restoration thru fountains, exactly like Lords of Shadow. Oh and this is obviously borrowed from God of War. This has never existed in previous Castlevanias. I'm totally okay with it tho.
* Small story parts told thru scrolls you find on dead bodies. This is returned from Lords of Shadow and I've only seen this kind of story telling being done in previous 3D games. The other Castlevanias progressed story (if any was told throughout the journey) thru bosses or various NPCs.

Graphics:
* I've got the standard 3DS and the pixelation is horrible for me, just as other people have stated. According to the XL users there is no pixelation, I'm not sure if they are trying to glorify the game by lying or that the XL version isn't pixelated. There are some horizontal lines with just a alittle slope and that appear as a big pixel change. Mainly this is cause the game doesn't feature anti-aliasing.
I did not notice any particular jaggies in Mario Land.

Music:
* Just like with Lords of Shadow, the music is generic. There was one especially good theme in Lords of Shadow which I really really love, namely: Waterfalls of Agharta.
Sadly that's the only piece which is actually good in Lords of Shadow. The rest is bland orchestral music. Sure, it's amazingly done orchestra wise, but musically it's totally forgettable. This composer is probably very talented, obviously, but his songs just doesn't stick with you at all. He could learn a thing or two by studying the soundtrack of Symphony of the Night. Castlevania has for a long time been about their great tunes which are memorable. The 3D castlevanias usually featured the less good music, pretty much all of them. There's a few good tunes here and there, but all in all the soundtracks don't compare at all vs the nes/snes/megadrive/pc-engine/ps1/saturn/gb/gba/ds Castlevanias.

Verdict:
This is just a demo, but it's meant to show what the game is about and how you play it. I was NOT impressed. It's exactly the same as Lords of Shadow except you're rigged in side-scrolling. Being a Castlevania fan however, I will have to buy it Only because I've got glimpses of hopes that there might be some elements in there which I might like, which wasn't shown in the demo. I enjoyed playing thru Lords of Shadow, but I could never return to the game to finish the DLCs as I had completely forgotten how to play the game and it was just too difficult. I basically die on the first enemies and there's really no drive or motivation in me to try again. I thought Lords of Shadow was one of the most beautiful games on PS3 and it featured some really cool bosses.
Oh and there's basically not much else interested on the 3DS besides this game for me, so it's my next buy.

 

[squablo]

I can't believe how critical some of you guys are being toward this game. It's almost on a snob level. Play this game on an XL, 3D all the way up, and headphones. It's amazing! Seriously, I have zero complaints. Also, don't forget there are 4 playable characters, one of which is Alucard, who I'm pretty sure wont be using a whip.

And for the last time!!!!!! This is a 3D game, using 3D models, which are made from POLYGONS, not sprites, or pixels!! How can something that doesn't use pixels be "pixelated"? You may be seeing some jaggies, but that's from aliasing, not because the graphics are pixelated. Good Grief!!!!

I have a suspicion that some of you are judging from screenshots, and not playing the actual demo. I've played through its entirety 3 times now, and I'm more impressed each time! This is the Castlevania I wanted instead of that Castlevania HD on xbla. I would love to hear the skeptics opinions on that one as well. Your pixel complaints would be valid there.

 

[Jaems]

I recently tried the demo on a friend's 3DS. I though it was OK. The framerate and 3D effect were irksome, but I felt the game has potential.

I also do not understand the hate for the original Lords of Shadow. I approached the game cautiously, but ended up loving it. It seems most of the criticism is directed towards the game borrowing from other more popular action games, however, I believe it was a game that copied and executed everything quite well. Nothing felt broken or particularly frustrating, and the combat system, which included a satisfying counter mechanic and 'adrenaline' bar made fighting bosses very enjoyable. The moveset was also impressively large. I haven't even mentioned the art direction, music, and voice-acting, all of which were some of the finest I've seen in a videogame (I seriously recommend you check out the Lords of Shadow soundtrack by Oscar Araujo).

 

[BORTZ]

Pixelated or jaggies, whatever, i think you are getting a bit legalistic there.

 

[NightsOwl]

The game did look a bit PSX-era-ish by the screenies I saw, and the 3DS can do much better.

It's kinda sad because if this was a really true Castlevania game like Symphony of the Night I'd easily lay down the cash for a 3DS and the game. But it's not.

I'm sorry, but I have yet to see a 3DS game that looks like a PS1 game. I mean, the best looking PS1 game was FF9, and even then, it's pretty bad.

3DS:
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2012/08/mof816.jpg

PS1:
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090820230642/finalfantasy/images/d/d7/FFIX_Battle.jpg

 

[Master Mo]

Here`s my impression of the Demo after playing it 5 times:

-Graphics: With the 3DS I think there are two things you have to take care of graphics-wise - In 3D everything has to be very clean because of the depth but if you disable 3D you have to apply a bit of antialiasing, because of the kinda low-res-screen of the 3DS. Games like ZeldaOoT or RE:R do this very well, since the games look amazingly sharp in 3D with very much "popping" but in 2D they look great as well because those apply said antialiasing.

Now to CV:MoF - In 3D this game looks amazing. The whole scenery looks like a diorama with soooo distant backgrounds and camera movements that emphasises that. The character models looks great as well. But in 2D because it seems to not apply antialiasing it looks kinda a little pixelated. So I kinda have the feeling that those who did not like the graphics in this one are the people who played it in 2D...

-Gameplay: I don`t know about this because I haven`t seen much of the structure but it seems like it didn`t abandon the Metroidvania-style gameplay complete but it definitely toned it down quite a bit by reducing the size of the maps and putting more emphasis on combat rather then exploration. But maybe it opens up after a while and gets more free...

-Controls: I don`t like them. I don`t get why the character stop after a jump. This tiny pause after the jumping really is bugging me quite a bit and it is beyond my why they did that. Other then that I don`t mind the controls but the whole jumping-mechanics feels very awkward, because it kinda slows you down!

Overall after this small demo I`m still on the fence about this one, because I absolutely adore Symphony or Aria and Dawn so I have a feeling this will be too much of a departure from what I´ve grown to love from this series on handhelds.

I`ll still get it probably because if I wouldn`t compare it to the GBA and DS games this would be a rather good impression.

But Iga should get a shot next. I want to see layered 2D from those guys. I simply love their pixel-artists. They outdo themself in their Castlevania games!