What do you think about the Lords of Shadows series?

I loved the series inside out. I don't understand the criticism. I do admit that there were faults in both the games, the first game had that annoying fixed camera that made the game repetitive as hell and the second game screwed up the story bits in the beginning and the ending. But nonetheless, I still think the series is a bit under appreciated.

First thing I loved about the series was: the story. They chose the 'maturer' and the 'darker' way which contrary to the popular belief, was a really good choice on their behalf. Many purists with their hipster attitude intimidated the game solely because it took a turn to the grittier side from the 'cheesy' game it once was. Well, to tell you the truth, almost every game in the 90s was cheesy because the God damn pixels!!

The second thing : combat. We don't have many games like those, admit it. How many are out there? God of war, Devil May cry, Ninja Gaiden, Prince of Persia, Metal Gear Rising and this is it. This genre is empty as ****. For the life of me I don't understand why not more people want games like these!

The third thing : the environments. Never seen anything like that in any game. The atmosphere was nigh dreamy. And the soundtrack and everything else just helped accentuate the atmosphere.

So, if you guys could have any other Castlevania, would you want it to be like Lords of Shadows or the same old Metriodvania type of 2D games? I will, for sure want it to be like LoS. In fact, I WANT MORE BEAT-EM-UP GAMES!

PS sorry for sounding like a nosy brat who doesn't understand a thing about people having different opinions or tastes but still.....

The first is a decent albeit inferior God of War 2 clone suffering from being overly long, padded out with recycled content, bad camera and lame, predictable plot.

The second is a mess of terrible storytelling, inane backtracking, frustrating combat mechanics, disastrous stealth sections, dull and boring present time sections taking up over half the game, and a plot that managed to get even worse.

I don't dislike the first one (a 7/10 for me), but the sequel is a disgrace, in my opinion.

I'm with you, i loved the LoS series and don't understand the bad rap it gets. I think a lot of it is due to the fact that people do not want to see the things they like change in any way, however what people don't realize is that if a series fails to evolve than it will just get stale over time.

Just look at the resident evil series, RE6 gets extremely mixed reviews, the reality is that it is a great game, it just represents an evolution of the series. Of course the ironic thing is if a company does not mix things up then they get tons of hate for releasing the same game every year(Cod, ass creed etc.)

I really enjoyed the first game. Still need to play the second one though.

@gwynnblade: did you play mirror of fate as well? If you haven't played it, you definitely should. It takes place between Los 1 and 2 and plays like a 2d metroidvania/god of war mix. Very cool and unique game, which I never see anyone talk about.

Action Adventure games are always awesome.

The first one has epic boss battles, but they were easy as I recall. Facing the regular enemies felt unnecessarily challenging in comparison.

@pook99: I did, just couldn't finish it. I played it after LoS 2 and the plot wasn't making any sense. LoS 2 had just messed it up that much. I need to get back to it though.

Well, I can say that I never saw the plot twist coming at the end. The rest of the points are plausible.

frustrating combat mechanics : I found it to be fairly easy. It was smooth and everything felt natural about the combat. It was easy to get into the zone with it. What exactly was frustrating about it?

dull and boring present time sections taking up over half the game: If you're taking only the stealth sections from the present then I agree with you. Otherwise, it was the other way around. More than half of the game was set in the past. The present non-stealth sections were pretty rad most of the times.

I agree with you on the story though. It started of low, rose up to unparalleled heights and fell down again right at the ending. The story had so much potential but a few bad decisions sunk the ship that could have sailed forever.

I think it was the case with the second one. I played the first game at ''normal'' difficulty yet I found the boss fights to be fairly challenging. "The Forgotten One" took me a week. On the other hand I played the sequel at ''Lords of Shadow'' difficulty but there wasn't a single boss fight that was even remotely challenging. Fighting regular enemies was harder than fighting the bosses.

@gwynnblade: In my case, the enemies were not so challenging that I was unable to complete certain segments without many continues. Rather than it was simply the fact that I easily defeated a giant being then the game mechanics of wolves make them a greater challenge. The inconsistency in game design was dissuading enough for me to end my playthrough before the game ends.

I may return to that title at some point, but there are appealing alternatives.

By frustrating I don't mean hard, it's more of a feeling that the game punishes you with repetition for its sloppy game design: having to impale a werewolf in a QTE cutscene and having to watch it all over again if you miss a button press, being punished with extra fighting if you miss a button press (I think) during the horse chase, falling off the titans and having to climb all the way back up if you are a fraction of a second late pressing the grip button when they shake. There are more examples, like the awful Chupacabra section repeat some 5 times. I guess I meant more "frustrating game design" than combat mechanics.

I think much of my irritation comes from the fact that the series was never meant to be part of the Castlevania franchise, and they only changed the title when they felt it could benefit sales. I hate when they do that, even more so in the sequel with its gratuitous fanservice airdrops completely out of the blue: "What is a man? A miserable pile of secrets!" mutters Dracula looking at a giant robot smashing his castle within the first 5 minutes of the game. "Die monster! You don't belong in this world!" a boss keeps repeating every 30 seconds to hammer the fanservice nail into our skull.

If a game needs to constantly remind me that it is part of a franchise, it is doing it wrong.

@Black_Knight_00:

Kinda reminds me of Dark Souls... :) only you don't have to go too far back.

I loved the LoS series because it reminded me of the better days of Castlevania. You know before it all became anime-like. Castlevania is originally a Japanese series but come on. It's not about Japan at all it's about Transylvania and that Transylvanian feel. LoS 1 from the beginning to the end was faithful to that feeling and I admire it for that.

LoS 2 took a huge dump on the very thing that made LoS 1 special: Environments. More importantly that sense of exploration and wonder that always existed in Castlevaia games (both the old ones and the anime ones) was missing. It was as if we had seen it all before. Not to mention that the metroidvania elements were a big joke. I mean compare it to Batman Arkham City and you'll understand what I'm saying. Overall it was a big disappointment with one of the worst endings I've ever seen.

I replayed many stages of LoS 1 many times despite its disjointed stages yet every time I tried to replay LoS 2 I immediately gave up.

The only good things in the second one were the camera and the more fluent combat and absolutely nothing else.

I totally understand. The QTEs in the first game were pretty darn annoying. Thankfully, they removed them from the sequel.

I don't agree with the other point however. Only the "What is a man?" line felt out of place the rest of the fanservice was implemented in a great manner.

WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES?!

I personally think it's a good spin-off from the main series of games.

However it's also shameful Konami dropped the Metroid-Vania games, because they are some of the best games I'ver ever played. & that's likely why Lords is frowned upon.

Fans of the 2D/2.5D v 3D crowd.

Lords 1 I consider better than D Inferno & GoW Ascension in all fairness as being an action slasher. The sequel? I'd rather not express my criticism towards it.

Funded towards Bloodstained and happy the games I grew on will have a true successor, because we all know Konami won't.

Didn't play the 1st one, but wasted my money on the second one. Pretty sad IMO.

@gwynnblade: Same genre comparisons mostly quantify as retro. Looking more at the entire video game industry, there are thousands of titles to choose from offering memorable experiences.

The first one bored me to death. The boss fights were cool though.

I platinum'd the first one. I couldn't get past the demo of the 3DS game or the console sequel...