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View Full Version : Castlevania: Lament of Innocence


kinot
Oct 30th, 2003, 04:13 AM
Im surprised that nobody's made a thread about this. 8/10

James
Oct 30th, 2003, 06:17 AM
You just need to go back a page or two. I've made a couple discussing it.

I'm gonna rent it today, I think.

Ninjavenom
Oct 30th, 2003, 08:54 AM
I played the extremely short demo. It was fun. :O

James
Oct 30th, 2003, 08:59 AM
Ohh, I forgot about the demo. I'll wait for that instead.

timrpgland
Oct 30th, 2003, 11:08 AM
I haven't picked it up yet and not too sure when I will. I'll buy it sometime and post my thoughts. I've heard good things so far.

whoreable
Oct 30th, 2003, 01:04 PM
MY friend got it the day it came out. we played it for a few hours last nite. It is pretty damn slick.

Generator86
Oct 31st, 2003, 01:14 AM
From what I've heard from a couple of friends, it's a lame Devil May Cry ripoff.

Is it really pretty good, or should I trust the judgment of my friends?

Zomboid
Oct 31st, 2003, 01:27 AM
I've read the same thing, actually... I don't know anyone who's actually tried it yet though, so I don't know.

Anonymous
Oct 31st, 2003, 10:48 AM
I rented it yesterday. I'll let you all know what I think later, since I know how all your lives have come to a standstill as you wait for my opinion.

UtterParadox
Oct 31st, 2003, 09:55 PM
I still plan on getting through Symphony of the Night, Harmony of Dissonance, and Aria of Sorrow before I get Lament of Innocence. So I should get to it by 2005.

Anonymous
Nov 3rd, 2003, 11:15 AM
Alright, here it goes:

First, the good news: There's plenty of beautiful music to go along with the game. I'd expect no less from the SotN team. The action is pretty solid; you obtain different whip moves and combos by defeating enemies, but there is no actual level up system, and the sub weapons can be made to produce different effects based on which "orb" you have equiped. There are even a few elemental whips around, if you can find them. The animation looks good, and the different characters and bosses look great as well. Even better, when you beat the game, you have the opporunity to go back through it again with a different character.

Now, the bad news: As with many 3D games, the greatest foe is the camera. Most of the time, you'll only see half of the room you're in because the camera is always a few feet off the ground looking down at you. Hell, most of the secrets are secret because they're hidden from your view by the poor camera positioning. Moreover, you may find yourself running down a hallway, only to hear the sound of an incoming attack from an enemy that you can't get into the camera's view, and your only recourse will be to block and hope the attack isn't big enough to break through.

Speaking of hallways, there are plenty of rooms in LoI, but the problem is that most of them are the same. It's as if the programmers were given a few unique rooms and a hundred hallway connector pieces and told to put them together like some gothic lego project.

Then there's equipment. There's only three different kinds of armor and a handful of accessories (rings, a cape, a gauntlet, etc).

Plus, while there are equipment and item screens in the pause menu, you can't use them. Instead, you have to use a real-time window to equip everything, and hope that you aren't thrashed while you run around trying to squeeze into your new armor. It's not the biggest hassle, but the fact that they had a useless equipment and item screen bothered me.

Then, there were the jumping puzzles. For the most part, they were just bothersome, but there were a couple, known as "dark rooms", that were downright insidious. Then again, a big part of the difficulty of the jumping puzzle goes back to the camera positioning problem.

Edit: Almost forgot the acting. The actors generally do good job, unless called upon to display strong emotions like anger or sadness. Then, it's ham ahoy. Also, next time, they should hire an actual voice actress to do the succubus. That was irritating as hell.


Still, in the end, not a bad game. The storyline starts to get a little convoluted near the end, when they try to tie the end of LoI into the rest of the Belmont storyline. If you can find the game somewhere cheap, around $30 maybe, I say buy it. Otherwise, just rent it.

ROOKIE
Nov 3rd, 2003, 10:22 PM
Devil May Cry 3: Lament of Innocence

the_dudefather
Nov 14th, 2003, 06:22 AM
i have a hard time beliving that the word 'lame' can be placed anywere near castlevania.

i wish they would make another 2d playstation 2 one, with beatiful hand drawn graphics. image the quality of sprites they could do. (drools over keyboard, electrocutes self, gets backup keyboard).

in experience, 3d castlevanias are not good.

James
Nov 14th, 2003, 04:56 PM
Boogie's opinion is pretty much mirrored in the professional reviews I've read. And now that I've played the demo, I can share it too.

My only objection to his comments, is that I did not like the music. Maybe it was just the demo, but the symphonic tracks of past games has been replaced with a techno-classical hybrid that really made me sad.

I thought the fixed camera was going to be a good thing. I also thought the camera would usually be farther away. It's a good idea, but becomes really frustrating. I can't remember the number of times I tried to instinctively rotate the angle. The gameplay in itself is fairly solid though, even if the camera can hinder things.

Definitely a rental. I don't mean it's not worth buying. I mean it's a game everyone should check out, but not blindly spend $50 on it without knowing what you're going to get.

Freaky Sheek
Nov 16th, 2003, 09:10 PM
the game played a lot like Ehrgeiz's adventure mode, you go into a room and get trapped, fight enemies, be able to leave, but thats just my opinion, which doesnt really count for very much...

Nerd
Nov 16th, 2003, 09:12 PM
Ehrgeiz had an adventure mode :eek

Freaky Sheek
Nov 16th, 2003, 09:49 PM
yeah, you just went through a dungeon and you would get locked in various rooms and have to kill the monsters that appered to get out of some of the rooms. You could only play as a male and a female. It kind of sucked because your stuff would break. It was fun if you were bored though.