Dark TImes, not over but that seems to be life.

Well I feel like I've been through the ringer but things aren't done yet. I've decided to get back to blogging though as a way to "entertain" myself. I've gotten a few games under my belt over the past few months and I will be talking about them a little at a time and I will get back to talking about the current title I'm playing. Which will be interesting since I technically have 3 games underway (4 if you count Dynasty Warriors 7). Demon Souls, D.C. Universe Online and Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 are all on my current playlist at the moment. You can expect some thoughts on Bionic Commando, Batman: Arkham City, inFamous, and a few more that I can't think of at the moment.

Well it is nice to be back and I hope things can pick up for me pretty quickly.

Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow - Final Thoughts

If I had to describe Castlevania I would call it 'technically perfect'. The game is a conglomeration of God of War, Shadow of the Colossus, and Prince of Persia and it imitates them all near perfectly. Heck, one of the best things about Castlevania is its' combat system. Gabriel is able to easily flow from one combo to the next without a lot of down time. Plus there is a wide array of moves at his disposal that it is easy to play around with the combat system. I loved it. I had so much fun whipping enemies whenever the chance arose. I also found the secondary weapons to be highly useful. Dagger lost their usefulness pretty quickly, but I was constantly using the fairies and holy water an enemies. The crystal summon proved highly useful on many different occasions and finding crystal shards was easy enough that I didn't feel that I had to save the summons. I may not like the look of the summon but it was still nice to have.

Graphically the game is gorgeous. Many of the earlier levels really stand out with their lush green looking environments. It is a shame that later levels devolve into browns and grays just so they can have a gritty, wasteland look to them. The game is much too gorgeous to justify using those colors. Sadly the levels are littered with 'invisible walls'. I would constantly find an area that Gabriel should be able to jump to just to find that he couldn't. Why? Because someone said so. It was also a shame to see the earlier 'multi-pathed level' theme did not continue long into the game. That had me excited to explore the other path while revisiting levels for power-ups.

Now the game has two massive flaws in my humble opinion. The first is the story. Most of the story is told only through voiceover by Patrick Stewart. I never really got to know Gabriel. I never felt that Gabriel was as dark, angry, unforgiving, overworked, or devoid of compassion as Patrick Stewart implied. He did seem driven and little bit cocky. Heck it seemed to me that Gabriel was having fun during his quest. He didn't even seem to feel that badly about Claudia and I'm still not sure why she is in the game. The game should have spent more time with Gabriel. Maybe they could have gone Prince of Persia and had Gabriel talking to himself during the levels. That would have been a great way to get to know the guy. Plus, I never felt that Gabriel was the all-out murder machine that you were lead to believe he had become. Gabriel did his best to save people. He did ruthlessly slaughter Vampires, Werewolfs, Trolls, Goblins, Giant Spiders, Gremlins, etc. But any member of his Knighthood would have done the same thing. Those are unnatural creatures of darkness and therefore needed to be destroyed. It did not seem that Gabriel couldn't wait to slaughter everything in his path. That aspect was never shown.

I mean, the overall story is fine. Heaven and Earth has been separated and the only way to reunite them is to kill the Lords of Shadow and obtain their power. A nice bonus is the resurrection of Gabriel's wife. The big twist with Satan has zero impact since it tool away a fight I had been greatly looking forward to, the fight with Zobek. When somebody randomly shows up and says "I am actually the big bad guy of this game!" you kind of go "Oh. Okay." instead of being all "I cannot wait to destroy this guy. I've wanted to crush him the entire game!" You see the difference. There is only one hint of Satan and it is a very poor hint. The Witch that wants the blue rose says something about serving the 'Lord of the Angels' or something along those lines. But it is a throwaway comment at best. Besides, Satan isn't Lord of the Angels. His real name, Lucifer, means Son of the Morning. He thought he deserved to be God's equal without doing any of the work. For this was he cast out of Heaven and he took with him 1/3 of the Hosts of Heaven. Not exactly a lord of anything in the end.

The second major problem with this game? Oh you can probably guess this one. The stupid camera. Holy crap, how hard is it to hold that thing still. There is no reason for the camera to keep wiggling during gameplay. I had to build up a tolerance for the thing and even then it would still affect me. Heck, I want to get the DLC had some point but I don't want to have to deal with this dumb camera again.

Also I am so over fixed-camera games. This game would choose some of the worst angles making it very hard to see where I was going or even the enemies that I was fighting. Just give the camera back to the player and stop wiggling it. Do this and I would be very happy.

Despite these two flaws Castlevania is a very good game. I still had a lot of fun with it. I felt the opening dragged on a little bit, but after reaching the halfway point the game really took off with some interesting gameplay. So yes, I would recommend this game to anyone unless you suffer from major motion sickness.

Time for a new game then. Boy this game seemed to take forever.

Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow - The End Of The Long Road

Chapter XII, there is a TON to be said about Chapter XII. This is the final battle of the main game and with it all of the twists are turns are to be revealed.It's got drama, fighting, betrayal, and true love. So I should stop wasting time with the intro paragraph. It is time to crack into this game and reveal all of the dirty little secrets that hide at the end of this tale.

Behold The God Mask

The Chapter starts off with the longest cutscene in the entire game so far and boy is it a dozy. Gabriel acquires the final piece of the mask and with it he can put the God Mask together. Once done Zobek magically appears. I'm serious, the guy is just suddenly standing there and Gabriel is just too stupid to question where he came from. Instead Gabriel is all like "We have the mask now we can bring back my wife." To which Zobek replies, "No you can't. I have betrayed you!"

That's right, be surprised. Zobek is actually a bad guy and I bet you didn't even see it coming. Oh wait. You did see it coming? From over a mile away? Really? It was that stupidly obvious? Yes, yes it was. Zobek's betrayal comes as a surprise to no one except for Gabriel. I mean, come on. The guy suddenly shows up out of nowhere, happens to have the right tools to help Gabriel. Tells Gabriel how to bring his wife back so he will go on this stupid quest. He is constantly pushing Gabriel but the entire time Zobek does next to nothing to actually help. Instead he follows Gabriel around and waxes poetic about the man from behind a bush while holding a shaky camera. He was very obviously evil.

And here is the Devil Mask

So Zobek shows up holding a different mask. This mask is not identified in game but it is called the Devil Mask.It looks sufficiently creepy and if you've been paying any attention it might actually look a little familiar. But I will cover that a little bit later.

Zobek dawns the mask and he turns in to the real Lord of the Necromancer. Now if he is the real Lord then who did I kill? The butler? And speaking of that how did Gabriel get the final piece of the mask? If Zobek is the third Lord of Shadow then the third mask piece should not have appeared until Gabriel killed him. But here is Gabriel with an intact mask. That kind of ruins the entire setup for the story in case any of the dev team is reading this.

So Zobek reveals that he has been the mastermind the entire time. Now if you were paying attention you should have recognized the Devil Mask. It was the mask that Gabriel was wearing in Pan's temple when he was shown killing his wife. Again it is not a big surprise to everyone except to Gabriel that it was Gabriel who killed his wife. But he did so under the influence of the Devil Mask. Gabriel also killed Claudia, the stupid mute who wouldn't shut up. So I can't condemn him for that. She had it coming.

So Zobek's master plan in a nutshell was, kill Gabriel's wife and use this to send Gabriel on a quest to kill the Lords of Shadow so he could resurrect his wife. Doing this would unite the God Mask that Zobek would then take from Gabriel and use to rule, well..... everything. I guess. *shrug* So far so good.

At this point Zobek kills Gabriel. (Ok, first off, Zobek rambles for a very long time. I was pretty bored by this point so I'm not going to cover every minute detail of his speech.) So Gabriel is dead and Zobek is congratulating himself on his victory when suddenly the real twist is pulled.

Zobek is hearing voices and the voice is claiming that it put all this entire idea into his head. Zobek then bursts into flames. Wait a second. Zobek is dead? And I didn't get to kill him. That is just lame. Alright, who stole my battle against Captain Picard? It's some veiny guy with yellow eyes and long, black, greasy looking hair. And he's yelling at God, who he calls Father. Wait a second!

So Gabriel is dead. At least until Marie shows up and says he has to go back and that it isn't his time. Gabriel is unconscious during this point so he has no idea what is going on. Gabriel is sent back and he gets to confront... wait for it... SATAN HIMSELF!

Doesn't he just look evil?

So the final fight is against Satan. I can dig it. But first I must talk a moment about Satan. I really like this version of Satan. This isn't the angel who refused to bow down before man. No, this is the angel who assumes that he should be equal if not greater than God himself. Why? Because he said so. That is why. There is an air of confidence around him. A sense of self assurance that what he desires is already his. I like it. It makes me want to beat his face in even more.

So here it is at last. The Final Confrontation. Now I would like to point out that Satan is a very solid boss fight. He is not cheap, he is just tricky. The only really issue I had came down to magic. For some unexplained reason during this fight Gabriel has unlimited magic. I didn't have that during the fight with Pan and Pan used the same concepts. The only reason I could think that the gave Gabriel unlimited magic is due to the rings that appear when Satan is stunned.Gabriel has to run through these rings and only the correct corresponding color will allow Gabriel to pass. This means you have to change magic and you have to have magic. Without it you cannot win the fight. It gets even worse the second time Satan is stunned since the rings move so changing becomes even more tricky.

Satan does have two moves I will call cheap. The first is when he places colored rings on the ground that will trap Gabriel. The are easy to break free from by using the correct magic and when you break free you can normally get a free hit. The second attack is that Satan calls in these Grim Reapers to help. These things can kill in a single hit or they just hit really hard and Gabriel was just that low on health. Either way, they feel cheap. Plus they are color coded to the magic as well. You have to use the opposite magic to kill them.

And that is the big thing with this fight. Satan will use Light and Shadow magic so Gabriel needs to use the opposing magic against him. This is not a bad idea. What cheapens the fight in Gabriel's favor is that Satan swaps often enough that Gabriel has ample opportunity to heal. This removes some of the danger of the battle. You still have to remain on your toes though. Satan can hit hard so you need to learn to dodge/block on a very regular basis. Also, don't screw up the QTEs or it's an instant death on Gabriel.

Wow, I have typed a lot and we are not done yet. Gabriel shoves Satan back into the Earth and calls it good. All of the trapped souls begin to move on. Marie shows up and Gabriel is all. "I have the Mask. Lets bring you back." And Marie is all "You can't. The Mask doesn't work that way." No, the Mask doesn't bring people back. It just makes souls tangible, so they can be touched. Probably inappropriately. Gabriel has to stay and live while Marie moves on. The guy is very sad about this. I'm sad that Dracula hasn't shown up yet. Instead Claudia shows up. She just stands there for a moment and then vanishes without saying a word. She probably figured that she deserved her death for being such a NAG!

And finally the credits role. But like any good Marvel movie you don't leave your seat until the credits have finished. There is a decently long scene buried at the end of the game and it raises a lot of questions.

First, Zobek is still alive. He enters some church looking for an old friend. The friend is of course Gabriel. But Gabriel has changed, a lot. He also calls himself Dracul. Now, I kind of guessed that Gabriel would become Dracula. I figured that Gabriel would make the same basic offering that the founders of the Order of Light did and that Dracula is what would be left behind. Doesn't appear to be the case, especially since Gabriel calls himself Dracul (The Dragon) instead of Dracula (Son of the Dragon). Not quite sure what that means.

This scene is very carefully crafted. Zobek and Dracul talk about the return of Satan. They are in a very old church. The type that Gabriel would have gone too. But it is revealed that they are in the modern day. I have no idea where. But there are skyscrapers and cars and neon signs everywhere. I must say, Gabriel really smacked Satan back down if it took him 1,000 years to recover his strength. Zobek wants Dracul's help against Satan and in return he will end Dracul's immortal life.

The scene ends with Dracul vanishing into a puff of black smoke and Zobek just walking away. There was no agreement made. Pretty bizarre ending if you ask me.

Final Thoughts are next.

Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow - In Which I Kill Death

Yes! I am getting this posted in a timely manner, that makes me very happy. I was afraid that there would be another gap and I am glad to be avoiding that. Now if only my life would fix itself, then I would be truly happy,

Chapter XI is an interesting little chapter and I mean that. The first area is one of the most tedious sections of the game. The second part is one of the best platforming sections that the game has to offer. Let's call it an odd juxtaposition shall we.

The Necromancer's Abyss starts off as a very promising level. There are two interesting puzzles right off the bat. While I liked the eclipse puzzle I do have one very glaring issue with it, there is no proper setup to solve it. The symbols that are used are symbols that I do not recognize from within the game. Without prior knowledge of the symbols you will never know what they mean. I really just messed with the symbols until the moon eclipsed the sun. Puzzle solved.

The second puzzle involves moving a line of water ( I assume it's water) by inputting a predesignated path. This puzzle is pure logic and easy to figure out but I enjoyed that aspect of it. The colored floor tiles on the ground control the flow of the water. I quickly figured out that one color meant up, one meant right, one meant left and one meant down. I was also glad that I remembered the L2 + Triangle to punch the ground this time or else this would have taken forever.

That was the fun part of the level. The rest of it involved jumping through mirrors, jumping through portals, killing Necromancers and jumping onto moving platforms. Now some of these were kind of tricky and I appreciated that but the level seemed to drag. It didn't help that every time I jumped through a mirror there was this flying scene. It wasn't so much the scene as it was the shaking camera during the scene that would nauseate me. *sigh* I really hate having motion-sickness, no matter how mild.

So the rest of the level was kind of a chore overall and I was glad when it was done.

Dracolich Concept Art

The next level is actually pretty sweet. At the start of the level Gabriel converses with Death for a little while. Then Death summons this massive bone dragon, that has the name of Dracolich Titan. Like all Titans this one requires Gabriel to climb all over it. I had an absolute blast with this thing as it soared through the air. Yes the camera would annoy me at times, but my love of the battle helped me overcome it. Now, as the fight against the third Lord of Shadow it is pretty weak (and I thought battling against Carmilla was a joke). Again, hanging onto a Titan is not complicated, just make sure you press R2 at the right moment. Beyond that I enjoyed scaling this massive beast and taking him down.

Now I don't quite understand what Gabriel did at the end of this fight. What was that orb thing that he smashed in the ground? How was that linked to the Titan? Just some questions that I would like answered.

There is only one area left. Chapter XII is just the final battle and I look forward to it. I'm hoping that I finally get to fight Zobek.

Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow - Breaking Up Chapter X (Part 2)

I meant to have this up a few days ago. I've been busy. I wish it was a good busy, but unfortunately it is a bad type of busy that has kept me away. I have few moments right now so I will go ahead and finish off Chapter X.

There are two more sections to Chapter X, The Fire Cemetery and the Crematory Oven. Both are pretty short, but the second area is far more fun to play in. The Fire Cemetery has another Chupacabra in it and I believe I've made my dislike of Chupacabra's fairly well known by now. Once again this one steals your magic and relics but then he does something a little bit different. He up and locks himself in a cage, that stupid little shrimp. Unlocking the cage becomes the goal of this level.

I actually like this puzzle. It's fairly simple, but at the same time it makes you think. I just wish it didn't have to deal with a Chupacabra. Thankfully the only enemies you deal with are zombies and they are quick kills so no major worries. Just know that solving the puzzle involves aiming one pillar at the other two pillars. I thought it was crafty. I just wish that I was allowed to kill the Cupacabra but they always disappear into a puff of smoke.

There's a second puzzle right after this one, but first you have to slay a horde of Zombies. I think there is around a hundred Zombies that spawn here. Go nuts and have fun. Zombies are easy to kill so unleash some of your inner aggravation about Chupacabras. I know I did. The puzzle involves two gongs that need to be rung at the same time. Punch - Dash - Punch, do it quick enough and the door opens. Took me a few tries.

The next area is the battle against the Gravedigger. No, not the monster truck or the lame villain from the TV series Bones, but some giant squid face who digs graves or something. There's a small group of enemies that Gabriel has to clear through to get to this guy. It felt like a wasted effort to run Gabriel through a gauntlet since he can heal and restore magic right before the actual fight. I don't mind enemies before actually encountering the boss but their purpose is to weaken the player. This should make the boss fight a little harder. If the player can heal then this has failed in its purpose.

The Gravedigger himself is a simple battle overall but with a little twist. When the Gravedigger reaches the point where Gabriel can QTE-kill the guy it proves really easy to screw it up. I know, I had to retry this 4 times until I finally got it right. There are these large doors behind the Gravedigger that have to be opened before you try the QTE. I failed to notice this and if the doors aren't open then Gabriel will automatically fail the QTE and the fight will continue. If you do this right then the Gravedigger falls into a pool of lava and dies. But not until after he tries to drag Gabriel down with him.

Of course Gabriel will survive this and he will be stuck in a hole that he has to climb out of. It's simple enough to do as long as the game doesn't break on you. I had a problem where Gabriel wouldn't grab a hold of platforms. This caused Gabriel to die once because he just hit a wall and fell into the lava below. He didn't even try to save himself. Once he respawned I had no problem clearing the level. Just thought it was something worth mentioning.

Next time is Chapter XI. Hopefully I can have something up for it later tonight or early tomorrow. No promises though.

Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow - Breaking Up Chapter X (Part 1)

Chapter X is only 4 areas long, but I feel that it needs to be broken up a little bit to be properly talked about. The level has some good moments and then it has some bad moments. This seems pretty par for the course on this game.

Things start off again with a Patrick Stewart voiceover. Remember that Witch from the previous level? The one that Zobek wanted Gabriel to kill? Well Gabriel didn't kill the Witch. Instead she helped him. That right there should be a good enough reason to leave her alone. Instead Zobek decides to kill her offscreen. That's right. This feels like a boss fight was cutout of the game, so they just had Zobek kill her by narration. That was pretty pathetic thing to do.

Now when the actual level starts Gabriel is in this purple crystal room. This place looks like it has been ripped straight out of a Final Fantasy game. I was actually excited for this part at first. I loved the look of the level and I was hoping it would stay around. Sadly that is not the case, this room lasts only a few brief steps before Gabriel finds himself standing in a stereotypical wasteland. It's actually bland to look at. I had really been hoping for the color to stay around for a while.

Dragging yourself through this wasteland can be a royal pain. Especially when the camera works against you. And I mean the camera completely works against you. I got stuck in this level for 20 minutes trying to figure out where to go. I eventually had to go to Gamefaqs to get some help. Many thanks to Bkstunt_31 for his fantastic walkthrough. There is this section where the camera seems to point the wrong direction. It's almost a blind jump where you have to go. Once there, it looks like there a dead-end cave in the area (anyone who has played this probably knows what I'm talking about). The cave is not a dead-end. Instead you can actually go to the right, actually, you have to go to the right. This is a mandatory area. But the game doesn't point the way. This isn't a secret area with two fallen knights and a purple crystal. This is a normal room where you have to battle monsters for keys to continue through the level. This is very sloppy design.

The level suffers from a lot of poorly thought-out and poorly executed ideas. Jumps that look possible are not possible. Thinking that Gabriel is on an island when he is actually in the water (which is poisonous). These sorts of things just hold this level back.

The next part of Chapter X wasn't that big of a surprise. I give spoiler warnings at the top of the page so be prepared. This is a boss fight against Pan. Up to this point Pan has been a kind of adviser. He helps Gabriel get to where he needs to be and he gives Gabriel advice wrapped in riddles. A very helpful character. Here, Pan fights Gabriel to the death in an interesting boss fight.

Faun Pan and Pan looking cooler than he has any right to.

Pan normally has a very gentle look about himself. So seeing mighty armored Pan is a bit of a shock and fairly cool looking at the same time. The battle has a nice start, Pan removes Gabriel's magic and forces him to fight without it. I had hoped that this is how the battle would go. Instead over the course of the fight Pan gives Gabriel his magic back, first the Light, then the Shadow.

With the magic restored this fight almost became to easy. Pan keeps talking about how Light and Shadow magic are two sides of the same coin (no duh!). What keeps this fight interesting is that Pan will use Light and Shadow magic. Pan is trying to teach a lesson. Shadow magic is ineffective against Shadow and Light magic is ineffective against light. Surprisingly the two actually work against each other quite well (I'm kidding, it's not a surprise). The final QTE scene against Pan has one of the fastest button presses I have ever seen in a game. Make sure you're ready for it.

Turns out that Pan's death was just a sacrifice that would allow Gabriel to move on. Well go on Gabriel and kill everything else that is in your way. And smile while you do it.

Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow - And that is Chapter IX

Lets talk a little bit about Chapter IX. It was short. Parts of it were entertaining. Many parts were odd and didn't make a lot of sense. Especially the part about the witch. First, why is Zobek following Gabriel around? And is he the jerk holding the camera? No matter how much I love Cloverfield, shaky cam always makes me nauseous. This is no better. So if Zobek is holding the camera tell him to put the dumb thing on a tripod.

The first section of Chapter IX is easy and straight forward. It would be uneventful except for the fact that a designer remembered the Chupacabras. One of those annoying little guys shows up in this area. He's remarkably easy to find, you just need a troll to help smash a wall. I am just glad the whole Chupacabra section was short. I despise those things. And I might even despise the designer who came up with them.

The next section is actually a little more interesting. First Gabriel meets a Witch. This Witch reminds me of the garbage lady from Labyrinth.The Witch wants to be young again and it is up to Gabriel to help her. First he has to get to the key for her music box and some mean old Scarecrows have stolen it from her. Gabriel promises to help the Witch as long as she helps him. Sounds like a winning deal. I would like to point out that Zobek is calling for the Witch's death the entire time. Seriously, the guy is pretty adamant about it.

Gabriel has to defeat some Scarecrows and he can only do that by luring crows onto the Scarecrow. Yes that sounds counter-productive and it probably is. The puzzle isn't hard. You just have to fill up all of the posts in the area with crows and this eventually forces one murder of crows to land on the Scarecrow. The Scarecrows then get down off of their perch and attack Gabriel. Do this three times to win.

The Scarecrows can be a little tough though. They are fast and they have a pretty good reach. Thankfully Gabriel is feeling a little more powerful these days so I wasn't overly concerned. I just had to make sure I was careful. There's a neutral orb fountain in the area and that can help get health back. There are also Mandragoras in the area. They are perfect for beating down and restoring life as Gabriel needs it.

With the keys in hand Gabriel can return to the Witch for part three of Chapter IX.Gabriel really needs to pay attention. The Witch specifically said that she needed the Blue Rose from the music box and to get it she will have to shrink down Gabriel and stick him in the box. Naturally Gabriel is surprised when the Witch shrinks him down and shoves him into the box. This guy needs to pay a little more attention.

So here we are inside of the music box. This area was frustrating for me. A lot of it required pretty precise timing to get through. Gabriel had to collect these colored cylinders and use them in the main part of the music box. Depending on what color was playing certain traps were disabled. Thankfully the this would match to the floor. If the red cylinder was playing the traps at the end of the red carpet would be deactivated, or activated depending on how you look at it. The yellow cylinder doesn't shut off the flames that block Gabriel's path, but it does cause them to move. The timing of the traps was pretty specific, but they were off just enough to throw me off. I kept running into them. Eventually the whole thing comes down to memorization. Frustrating, but I felt satisfied once I beat the level.

Once Gabriel has the Blue Rose he returns to the Witch and do you know what he does? He demands that the Witch help him. So she does. That's it. Gabriel doesn't kill her. There are no big boss fights at this point. The Witch just sends Gabriel on his way to the Abyss. Maybe he'll find Kratos there, that does appear to be his summer vacation spot.

Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3 - Really?

Back in the day Capcom released Street Fighter IV. My understanding is that this was a last ditch effort for Street Fighter, the game was expected to fail. Street Fighter III had been a monstrous flop years before. Because of this Capcom closed out the disc. This meant that no DLC could be added later on. The game ended up being a huge success. Because of this more fighters were developed and Super Street Fighter IV game was released.

Now remember that I had said that Street Fighter IV could not be added too via DLC so this actually made sense. Of course, that all depends on if the story I read was true. You can never fully tell with the internet. The Super version was only $39.99, a $20 saving versus the initial release. Yes it could be seen as a blow to purchasers of the original. It was more content for less, but at least there was sound reasoning.

Street Fighter IV helped revitalize the lumbering fighting genre. With this new age of fighters would come a game that players had been asking for for over 10 years. Marvel vs Capcom 3. I was a fan of the second game, having purchased it for my Dreamcast (yes I own a Dreamcast). The fast pace of the game and the large variety in fighters just made the game a ton of fun. Now Marvel vs Capcom 2 had such a large cast because Capcom was easily able to reuse sprites from previous fighting games. This is where the madhouse of characters came from. The new game would not be able to reuse sprites so the cast would have to be diminished. This was expected.

Marvel vs Capcom 3 launched with only 36 (38 if you count the DLC) fighters in it. It wasn't the dream cast that I had been hoping for. Some characters felt very out of place or that a more top-tier character should've had a slot. The game was still frantic fun and that is, in the end, what matters. Now the when the game launched there was already two DLC characters announced. Shuma-Gorath and Jill Valentine. Now this set the stage for more downloadable characters in the future. I was excited about this. I wanted to grow my cast list with new and awesome characters.

Sadly all we seemed to be getting for Marvel vs Capcom 3 had been these Shadow Battles. You battled against characters that had a play style similar to Capcom employees that worked on the game. Yes, that does not sound like a ton of fun to anyone. There were some costume packs but no mention of any DLC beyond that.

It was then that rumors started to swirl of a Super version for Marvel vs Capcom 3. I was hoping that with the release of the Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition that Capcom wouldn't pull this stunt. I didn't mind paying $19.99 for a DLC pack if is was something similar to the Arcade Edition, but for Marvel vs Capcom 3 instead.

Sadly that is not the case. Instead we are getting Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3. It will include 12 new characters and will retail for $39.99. Looks like Capcom is double dipping. I'm not excited about this and as I learn what characters are being release with it I am even less excited.

First we have Strider and Ghost Rider. I can happily admit to being excited about these two characters. Very nice additions. Next up is Firebrand and Hawkeye. Hawkeye is probably in so they can push the character in preparation for the Avenger movie. But Firebrand? I barely remembered Arthur from Ghosts 'n Goblins. I can only assume that Firebrand was the big bad guy of that game.

It looks like the rest of the cast has been leaked. I am really not impressed with the choices. I will try to make this quick.

Virgil is a completely unecessary character. We already have Dante and Trish from Devil May Cry. We don't need to bog it down with another character.Especially since Capcom is rebooting the entire series anyways.

Frank West. Not the first character I would go for. Looks like he was quickly recycled from Capcom vs Tatsunoko. That is probably how he found his way into the game.
 

Doctor Strange. I love Doctor Strange. I have no complaint about his addition.

Iron Fist? Really? Iron Fist of all characters? I would have loved to have had Ms. Marvel instead. Or maybe Psylocke or Rogue. Their were better options than this. I would have preferred Luke Cage to Iron Fist.

We do NOT need Nemesis in this game. We already have enough Resident Evil characters. This is a completely wasted slot.

Who the hell is this guy? I may not be the best comic book geek on the planet but can we at least go with a familiar character? His name appears to be Nova... is it just Nova? Yep, just plain old Nova.

This one I also blame on Capcom vs Tatsunoko. Originally Phoenix Wright had been planned for the game. He was eventually nixed but there has been a fairly vocal base of fans crying for him ever since. Well here he is. I don't mind him too much. He's just not a major selling point for me. At least he is from an original franchise.

And finally... what the hell is this thing? Rocket Raccoon? Or is it Raccoon Rocket? I don't care. I just want it gone. Talk about a massively wasted spot. Where the heck is Mega Man?!






And that appears to be them. No Venom, no Squirrel Girl. No one from Rival Schools or Onimusha. Very few characters that are actually cool and actually have you looking forward to playing them. I guess I will wait until this version is cheap used. Maybe then I will pick it up. Unless Capcom releases DLC characters for it that are actually worthwhile.

Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow - Carmilla

Boy Carmilla has come a long ways since her original creation. Carmilla was originally created by the Irish writer Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu in 1872, which predated Dracula by 25 years. She wasn't presented as any sort of Vampire lord at the time. In the original novel she was just a mysterious young woman who befriend other young women. She would live with them and during the night she would drain their blood. It was a fairly simple tale but captivating.

Well here we are 139 laters and Carmilla has done pretty well for herself. She is now Lord of the Vampires. This still leaves me wondering where Dracula is in the grand scheme of things. I am starting to get a suspicion, but that will have to be saved for another time. I think she's supposed to be displayed at sexy, but I found her rather unattractive looking. Maybe it was the inhuman eyes. Or that there was no subtlety to her sexuality. It was pretty blatantly obvious from the moment you met her.

Carmilla initially tries to seduce Gabriel. She offers him treasures, pleasures, power, and immortality. The things that a Vampire typically offers. Gabriel will, of course, have none of that. So Carmilla tries a different tactic. She tells Gabriel that he is on a fools errand. The God Mask cannot resurrect the dead. Surprisingly, this is the first time anyone has mentioned that the hoped for resurrection might not work or that it might even be a bad idea to try. I mean, how often does this sort of thing actually work out the way you want it to? Carmilla's is trying to destroy Gabriel's hope and since hope is pretty useless anyways (just ask Kratos) she is obviously wasting her time. So get ready for the weakest, lamest boss fight I have yet to encounter.

Round 1. Carmilla summons normal Vampires while she hides in a protective shield and occassonally throws lightning at Gabriel. I don't know when Vampires learned to be all Sith Lord-like and started throwing around lightning. But if I think about it, Dracula used lightning on a regular basis in the older games, so I will let is slide since there is precedence for it. The round is lame. Vampires are pretty easy enemies especially if you are nailing them with holy water and since Vampires drop holy water you should find yourself with a pretty nice supply of the stuff. Go nuts, this round is a cake walk.

Now the last Lord of Shadow, Cornell, also had an easy first round. Then he transformed and things got tough. Carmilla gets half of this right. She transforms and while Cornell was a cool looking Werewolf, Carmilla is a lame looking Vampire. She has a very anorexic look and I just can't take that seriously. She's also an almost boringly easy fight. I was kind of shocked by how easy she was. Her attacks are fairly limited, easy to predict and easy to dodge. I never had to work during this fight. I was almost always getting neutral orbs so I always had full health.

I don't think I need to provide any more description of Carmilla than that. She has a third round, but it is even easier than the second. Get ready for her for death though. That is a really long, drawn out scene and very cool at the same time. Just be ready for the Quick Time moments, you don't want to repeat this event. It is way too cool to have to do it twice.

With the boring Carmilla dead Gabriel acquires the second half of the God Mask. Pan shows up and Gabriel gets to vent some steam for a moment. He's pretty peeved that the Lords of Shadow are the original founders of the Holy Order and that he has to kill them.It was nice to see some genuine emotion on Gabriel's face for a moment. It didn't last long enough however. Quickly Pan sends Gabriel on his way after the 3rd Lord of Shadow. I wonder who that will be?

And supposedly there will be some questions answered here too.

Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow - The Clock Tower Of My Dreams?

I was so excited. I don’t think you know how excited I really was, but I was really excited. Here it was before me. A staple of the Castlevania series and one of the levels that I normally love for the challenge it provides. I speak about none other then the Clock Tower.  

Most Castlevania games have a Clock Tower of some sort. They normally involve tricky jumps and annoyingly placed enemies. This one has, well, neither I’m afraid. It’s a very straight forward level and they do try some platforming segments. But the game just isn’t designed for it. I missed so many jumps do to Gabriel’s jumping style. He lacks any real air control which is pretty crucial for platformers, especially in 3D. There are a few timing segments to overcome but nothing complicated. I felt pretty let down in the end. It didn’t really feel like a Clock Tower level. Plus, I’m missing the classic Castlevania music. I think I need to play Super Castlevania IV, such a classic game.

To top it all off, Gabriel has to fight the GMSTIPBAF again. This round is even easier than the last round. The Scorpion has picked up this new trick where it levitates items and then throws them at you. That’s fine, but it doesn’t increase the difficulty. At all. The items are easy to dodge and I found that if I was in the Scorpion’s face he couldn’t hit me with them. And he used that attack 80% of the time. He rarely tried to electrocute or even punch Gabriel. This fight lasted just over a minute and then it was done. And it felt stupid.

Next area is an even bigger boss fight against a decently difficult boss. The unfortunately named Olrox is the brother of Brauner. This means a giant Vampire is here to kill Gabriel and avenge his brother. What makes Olrox difficult is actually his basic attack. He doesn’t telegraph it. He just sprints forward and then he might turn it into a one-two combo. And he can change direction during the combo.  Olrox’s biggest mistake is when he throws out his sword. This one you can see coming a mile away making it easy to dodge. While his swords are out Olrox is defenseless, I used this time to lay some Guillotine action on him and net some nice orbs.

Olrox will also heal himself. He has two bodies (werewolves?) pinned up in iron maidens. He’ll drink the blood of the werewolves to restore his health. Now wait just a minute here! I thought that Vampires and Werewolves were natural enemies, like Pirates and Ninjas. I also thought that Werewolf blood was poisonous to Vampires. Tell me how this works out huh? Drinking Werewolf blood to heal himself that is just cheap. If it had been a couple of Knights of the Order that would have been a nice little trick to pull. Gabriel has to destroy the bodies in the Iron Maidens to prevent Olrox from healing, only then can he finally be killed. This can make the fight last a good while if you’re not fast.

I have to admit that Olrox was tricky enough to combat. His quick attacks had me on my toes, but only until I figured out his attack pattern. Once you get it down Olrox becomes easier. What makes him a little more fun is that you still need to remain on your toes. Once he goes down he fills some large plate on the ground with his blood. How convenient.

The large plate is “puzzel” and I use the term lightly. Really have to drag the blood from one hub to the next and there’s a limited amount of time to reach the next hub before you have to start over again from the last hub. I hope that makes sense. The problem I had with the “puzzle” is that there is nothing to figure out. You just have to drag the blood quickly from one spot to the next. Yes there are multiple paths, but the correct path was pretty obvious to me.

Next time is the battle against the Vampire Lord Carmilla. I think she deserves her own blog post.

Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow - This Is For Love!

Bet you were wondering where my last play session was.

So I moved in to the Lens Changing Room in Chapter VII. You may remember that I stated I had been stuck in this room during my last playthrough. Well I finally figured it out. Gabriel has this move where he can shoulder rush things when he’s using his Shadow Magic. I thought this move was only for breaking down walls and such.  It doesn’t seem like it would be much help during combat since it takes a moment to charge. It turns out that this move is extremely important in this section.

You have this giant contraption that has a spot for three different colored lenses. As you use these lenses doors open. Each door has the same basic puzzle. There are sections of floor with arrows on it. You have to stand on the starting point and use the shoulder rush move to dash across the arrows. This lights them up. Complete the whole puzzle quickly enough and you’re done. Not exactly a complicated puzzle but it makes me think about the moves Gabriel has that I take for granted.

That’s really how this room works. You repeat this simple process until you have completed every room. There is one room that doesn’t have a puzzle but it does have a Gem in it. You might also activate two Animated Armors. These guys are never tough so I purposefully took them on. The final door though leads to a pseudo-boss fight. The little vampire girl, Laura, show up and she accuses you of cheating , that she never loses and since she lost you must have cheated. She didn’t seem that pissed off when I last saw her. But she’s pretty pissed this time. She calls in three stupid doll enemies that Gabriel has to fight. They tend to lean towards annoying more than hard. Following basic combat rules worked pretty well.

Now Laura’s mad that you broke her toys. What did she think was going to happen? In retaliation she goes all Sith Lord on Gabriel and blasts Gabriel with lightning. This scene got my hopes up. For just a brief moment I thought we were going to see Gabriel truly get mad. Patrick Stewart keeps saying that Gabriel is full of anger and has no room for mercy, but we never see that. Instead the scene goes the other way, Gabriel is ready to give up and die. At least he’s showing some sort of emotion.

Yes Gabriel wants to call it quits, but Marie (his dead wife) shows up and tells him to keep on. Fight the good fight and all of that. Laura can see Marie and the feelings between Gabriel and Marie are able to reach her. She actually feels pity, envy, loss, perhaps all of those things. Laura is an immortal little girl. She never gets those types of things anymore. It would probably be a more touching scene if we knew Gabriel a little better. Laura decides to let Gabriel live. This would be nice but she shocked the poor guy into an irregular heartbeat! How is she going to fix this? She’s not? We’re just going to skip right over it? Fine, be that way. Let’s go the Chapter VIII (8).

When I hit Chapter VIII I finally realized that I was climbing a giant castle. Yes it took me this long to figure it out. I also keep wondering where Dracula is? This seems like the kind of place that he would be hiding in. Most Castlevania games have the protagonist climbing through Dracula’s castle to reach him. But I know Dracula isn’t the final goal in this castle, Carmilla is. So I continue the long climb.

Early on in this section there is a fight which involves Vampires and Skeletons. I was horrified by this concept. There is no way I was going to try to fight my way through that. Instead I pulled out my crystal so I could bypass the fight. I’ve been using my crystal a lot recently. It helps that it can be restored pretty quickly.

The rest of the level is just running along a giant chain that looks like it’s connected to a fish. As I run along I keep wishing that this was Dracula’s castle. I keep hoping that I’m moving closer to the tower where he resides. Instead I just keep running towards Carmilla and Gabriel is supposedly filled with hate. Can’t always get what we want.

The Mysterious Message

I logged in to the PlayStation Network the other day and found I had received a message. My friends list isn’t very long and I noticed that none of them had been online in a few days. So I was wondering who this message was from? I play most nights so I should have noticed a message if it had come through earlier. So I went to check it out.

Now here is where I wish I could take screenshots from my PS3. The message came from Sony. A few months ago they had a ‘Choose the Best Game on the PlayStation Network’ thing going on. I don’t fully remember the choices, but I know that Scott Pilgrim, Pac-Man Championship Edition DX, and Castle Crashers were on there. There was a 4^th, but I can’t remember.

Now I only voted for a game that I had played. I have both Scott Pilgrim and Pac-Man. Love them both, so this was a hard choice. I eventually went with Scott Pilgrim because I love everything Scott Pilgrim. The movie was awesome and if you didn’t see you have done yourself a massive injustice, which is unacceptable. You need to immediately rectify this. The comics are very well done and you need to go out and read them too. So I made my choice and I was happy. Scott Pilgrim didn’t win though. I think it was Castle Crashers that did. Oh well.

What does this have to do with this mysterious message from Sony I received? Well, Sony was saying “Thank you for voting.” It was a little late, but still a nice gesture. But then they offered me 30% off of Scott Pilgrim and the Knives Chau add-on pack, since I had voted for Scott Pilgrim. Huh.

Let’s go back two paragraphs and look at how I voted. The key is that I made sure I had played the game. This is important to making an informed decision. Now how did I play these games you may ask? It wasn’t from a demo that’s for sure. Demos only give you a small taste of the game. No, I had purchased these games. I have full ownership over them.

Do you see the problem? Sony just gave me a discount that I have no use for. I own Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. I already have the Knives Chau add-on pack. So, thanks Sony. It doesn’t actually do anything for me, not in the slightest. I can’t pass it on to anyone else either. I really don’t understand this.

Collection Cover Art

Cover art, I’ve been threatening to talk about this for a very long time now. I think it is something I need to get into. Let’s focus on the Collections that have been coming out for the PS3 recently. Now I like having the God of War Collection. I still want to get the Tomb Raider Trilogy and Sly Cooper Trilogy. But have you seen the cover art for these games? Let’s talk about some lazy design.

Here it is, this is the set that started it all. The God of War collection. There was a chance here to do something interesting. To have some fun with it. Instead we get the original covers of both games now sharing space on the same box. Who thought that this was a good idea? I want to know. This is ugly and lazy. These collections are awesome things. I like that they are coming out, but why can’t the studios try just a little harder?

Here is the sly Cooper Collection that I was talking about. Yes I want this set, but only for the same reason I got the God of War Collection. I don’t own any of these games. Now when I pick it up I’m going to have this absolutely hideous cover art to deal with.

Tomb Raider Trilogy? Same deal. It’s just the covers from the original games. This time they decided crop the original covers and slap on a lot of blank space.  It is a completely unattractive cover.

Now I do understand the logic behind them. What you see when you look at it is three distinct images. Already you begin to wonder, “How many games are in this set?” Then you can see the trilogy words and you begin to understand. Personally I wish that studios would take a little more pride and have more fun with this sort of thing. Why do the covers have to be boring?

I fully intend to replace these covers when I purchase the games. I want to find something that’s nicer to look at. Here’s an example from The Cover Project:

Now, ignoring the bizarre Blu-Ray logo on the front, I find this to be a far better cover. It tells me all I need to know. This game stars Kratos. It has the word Collection. The back tells me that there are mutlitple games in it. Now I need to change out the top border, but this is a pretty sexy cover. This is the sort of thing I will replace my game covers with.

Now there is one more cover that I want to talk about. This one is just completely unexcusable.

This is completely uncalled for from Ubisoft. Why they have hit such a level of lazyness with their games I do not know. I do not claim to understand the method to their madness. Now you may say, “It’s no different from the other games pictured here.” I will tell you that you are wrong. This cover is Ubisoft at it’s most lazy. And here is my proof.

Look at them. Look at the Prince on them. The pose is nearly identical. It wasn’t until I had the two next to each other that I learned there was a difference. It is almost like Ubisoflt slightly altered the background from Forgotten Sands, grayed out the Prince, and slapped three cover art pictures in front of it all. The Sands of Time is one of  my favorite games of all times, it deserved better then this. Better by a longshot.

Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow - 2 Out Of 3

Chapter VII has been reached. I was hoping to finish it in one playthrough but I didn’t have enough time and then I got stuck in the third area. But that’s ok, I was having fun overall.

The first area, The Balcony, is pretty straightforward. The only real trouble I had was with a trio of Swordmasters that appeared.  I could take care of the first one pretty easily, but the other two would spawn right on top of each other and that would complicate things. They seem to have improved since the last time I saw them. I don’t remember them being this tough. I found air grappling and fairies to be pretty useful. I do love their auto-kill sequence where Gabriel steals their sword. The third swordmaster drops tons of items so don’t be afraid to use what you have.

I don’t get the logic behind this idea though. I have never found myself lacking for items. Typically if I’m running low on an item I just smash the furniture in the area and it will be refilled. This even includes the crystal. I used the crystal on the Butcher. Afterwards I ran into the side room where the tub of meat is at and I broke everything. I had my crystal restored before I walked into the locked room there. So I have never found myself wanting.

There’s also a little pachinko switch puzzle here. Drop a ball down a lane and it will hit switches. Turn all of the switches green and you are good to go. This one took me a little to figure out. I mainly passed it based off o f luck and a couple of good hunches. For anyone that wanders in here looking for a walkthrough here ya go:

1. Left

2. Middle

3. Middle

4. Middle

5. Middle

6. Middle

7. Right

There, that’s the end of the level.

The next area is the Electrical Laboratory.  This place talks about Dr. Frankenstein and gives a pretty cool backstory for him and Vampire Lord. (As a reminder Frankenstein is a human and the creature he creates is called Frankenstein’s Monster). The narrative also gives some good setup for Carmilla and how she thinks and behaves. Now, while this is a cool story, I still wish it had  been told during actual gameplay and not in the level voiceover. It would have had more impact.

Frankenstein is painted as an inventor of many things. So I figure that this laboratory Gabriel is in used to belong to him. This area actually confused me at first. You walk into a room with red and blue electrically charged orbs. If a blue orb is next to a red orb they create an electrical barrier between them and Gabriel cannot pass. This is a puzzle that needs to be solved. The trick is, this is a level long puzzle. I thought the puzzle was for this room only. I kept trying to shut off all of the orbs and get my xp, but that is not how the puzzle works. The goal of the puzzle is to make to the very end of the level. There are 3 rooms to clear through in this level.

You have to punch switches on the ground to send a current get the color of the orbs to change. I was using this jump punch attack (L2 + Square) while in the air. Turns out there was a much easier way to do this. L2+Triangle while on the ground. Yeah, I feel pretty stupid since I learned that after the big boss fight where punching a switch is crucial to success.

You end up fighting Frankenstein’s…Giant Mechanical Scorpion That Is Piloted By A Frog. Or GMSTIPBAF for short. Seriously, I don’t get this thing. It feels way out of place. Where is Frankenstein’s Monster in all of this? Why am I fighting a mecha-scorpion? It does not look like it belongs. The fight isn’t hard, unless you’re doing stupid moves like I was. I had a full combo meter almost the entire battle, but I made the battle last longer then was necessary by doing the stupid jumping punch. Once the Scorpion has taken enough damage it goes to this recharging station. You have to punch a switch that will cause the recharge station to damage the Scorpion instead. I kept trying to jump punch the stupid switch, but the jump punch is really hard to target. It seems to head in some random direction on a regular basis. So I would miss the switch and have to repeat the round. This made the fight last a really long time. Seriously, the music stopped playing and everything, it took that long.

The fight isn’t helped that you are locked in an electrical cage with the Scorpion. Or that the camera will freak out and give a bad angle if you get to close to the wall. I don’t know how many times that came back to haunt me. I had more problems with the camera angle than the electrical barrier. The Scorpion also has a long reach, I needed to adjust for that. Once you have all of that figured out, he’s cake.

No, I’m not giving help for the rest of the electrical puzzle. I’m not here for walkthroughs, just thoughts. Besides, I don’t even know what I did. All that I do know is that I bought a really cool Light Magic ability once I had finished the level. Go Light Blast Kamehameha!  

Custom Cover

I bought Castlevania I bought it used. That’s right, I’m not afraid to admit to buying a used game. Gamestop was having a buy two get one free weekend and I was in a position to take advantage of it. I got Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Hey look! They all have subtitles! While the first two were in excellent condition, Castlevania was missing it's case. So I ended up with this floppy feeling black case with a Gamestop advertisement for a cover. Not very attractive looking.

Something similar to this.
But for the PS3 and uglier

This needed to be fixed. I can’t stand ugly covers and I hate my collection not being uniform (to a point at least). Sure I would like to get a hold of some clear PlayStatiion 3 game cases, but that’s harder to pull off. What I can do is print a new game cover. First, I find most cover art to be pretty boring. They typically show a picture of the hero and slap the name on it. Castlevania’s cover isn’t much better.

No, that cover will never do. I needed a new cover. One that will really pop. I found this great place called the Cover Project. There are some custom covers there, but not what I was looking for. They actually don’t even have Castlevania: Lords of Shadow at all, but I really do like the place. So I continued looking. I eventually found one that I liked but it was designed for Europe.

Big file ahead!

Now that was a great start, but I really wanted to cover to look professional. I want people look at it and not immediately realize that it’s a custom cover. So I went looking for all the assets I needed to make it look American. After some additions I decided I finally had what I was looking for, a custom cover for my Castlevania game. Here it is:

This is the cover that I use for my game

Pretty nice huh? I’m happy with it. I like that it's a bit of a throwback to the older Castlevania games.

Gotta love the 80s!

There’s a custom God of War Collection cover up on Cover Projects that I’m thinking about using on my copy of the game. The Collections really have ugly boxart, but I want to cover that a little more in detail later.

Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow - Hair And Butcher

I did it! I finished Chapter VI last night! I forced myself to finish the Chapter and boy did I regret it in the end. But there was some fun gameplay to be had and one really odd boss fight, but we’ll get to that.

Let’s start with the Castle Hall. This area has vampires that spawn out of holes similar to the ghouls in the cemetery. Same mechanic applies; you have to find a way to prevent them from coming out of the hole. It really is a fun mechanic and it creates a nice hustle to the combat. You need to rip boards off of the wall so Gabriel can open a curtain. But you can only do that while the vampires are dead. But you only have a limited time before they respawn.  There are also other curtains in the area that can be opened to damage vampires during combat. This makes the combat feel more versatile too me. I found it to be fun and enjoyable.

Well, I found the first room to be fun and enjoyable,  I hated the second room. Sure there’s an Animated Armor in their but those guys aren’t tough. Vampires are tougher. No, what got to me in the second room is the camera. Not the normal shake that I nag on about, but the fixed camera. I would be fighting vampires when my combo would carry Gabriel too far to the right (or any other direction) and suddenly the camera angle would change and I couldn’t see Gabriel or the enemy he was fighting. Yeah, this sort of thing tends to cause death.

Then there was a simple puzzle to solve. I do find these magic plate puzzles to be very simple. I just have to worry about getting it wrong. Every time you screw up you take damage. That’s a mean little trick they like to pull.

Once the puzzle is over the sun sets and vampires start pouring out of the hole again. This area is awesome! I gained so much xp here just slaying vampires endlessly. I don’t know if they constantly spawn or if there’s an end, but I had a ton of fun killing them off for a while. Seems like a good place to grind xp.

Laura and her hair

This area also introduces Laura, a little vampire girl who can take a human form. She has a massive head of hair and she’s desperate to play a game with Gabriel. Now, I only know that her name is Laura from the narrative Patrick Stewart provides. I also know that she’s a vampire because Patrick Stewart told me. Sure I would have expected her to be a vampire the entire time but can this not be revealed during gameplay? Is there some mysterious reason that the narratives have to be an info dump? I would like to have characters introduce themselves. I would like to be surprised during gameplay.

The game Laura wants to play is some odd combination of Chess and Heroclix. I love Heroclix. I managed to beat her, but I have to be honest, I had no idea what I was doing. I just kept ganging up on her pieces until I won. And I would summon in zombies. It appears that she will go out of her way to kill a zombie.

Onto the next area. This area is all about the boss fight with the Butcher. But first you have to get to him. It’s not really complicated, you have to lure out some ghouls from their holes and once they exit you can use your hookshot to enter. The hole leads to the Butcher.

Oh how I hate the Butcher, but he makes me laugh all at the same time. I would call this an abusive relationship. The Butcher requires tons of dodging. He doesn’t seem to hit hard, but he suffers very little knockback so Gabriel needs to be on his toes. He doesn’t seem to be weak against anything in particular so I just kept pounding away at him. I got my combo meter filled up a few times and that is always a help. The Butcher will eat drumsticks occasionally to regain his health. If you catch him doing this you actually have a few moments for some free hits and that can negate his health regen. I recommend going for it.

The Butcher is just a bizarre guy to fight though. He likes to runaway and grab things. Like butcher knives (that he throws), drumsticks (that he eats), and alcohol jugs (that he uses to breath fire). Yes, he can breathe fire. Once he’s nearly dead he will run to the oven and grab a boiling pot. He will drink the rancid looking contents and then put the pot on his head. This signals the start of round two.

I don’t really know what I did right here, but boy did it make me laugh. I guess I hit him while in the air, but I saw his sword begin to shine so I pressed the R2 button to begin the killing. There’s this great tug-o-war scene between Gabriel and the Butcher.  Gabriel lets go of his cross and causes the Butcher’s blade to land right in his own head. Maybe it’s a little morbid of me, or maybe it was the smug look on Gabriel’s face when he let go of his cross, but I couldn’t stop laughing. This scene was just too much. It was nearly cartoony in its’ execution. It’s nice to know that there’s some personality under all the gothic trappings.

The level ends with another magic plate puzzle. First you have to get through an Animated Armor and some Skeletons. Lovely. I made it through the first time, but I got the plate puzzle wrong (by one plate!) and I died. So when I came back to the room I just pulled out my tit demon to kill everything. Man this is one stupid looking summon. I would rather have the biker chicks from Final Fantasy XIII then this stupid thing. Maybe I can upgrade it later…

Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow - Courtyards And Hedge Mazes

So I wasn’t able to make it through three more areas, only two this time and the second area made that really tough. But we’re here to talk about the first area and then we’ll worry about the second area.

Chapter VI, I get to run around the vampires’ courtyard. What fun. It’s actually a really simple area, except for the skeletons, they are still nasty customers. The first section is killing Armors, they are nice a simple. I don’t mind fighting them. Then it’s down through a grate where some skeletons are hiding.

As always, skeletons will prove to be a royal pain the rear. Then to make matters worse some vampires will release a warg into the middle of the fight. The warg is your way out of here. Kill the skeletons and tame the warg. The warg goes right up a pillar where you can kill the vampires if you so please, I know that I did. Go ahead and explore up here, it’s well worth it. Once you’re done with that you get to jump down into a hole with more skeletons.

Just power past the skeletons as best as you can and this area is done. I will give points for the warg thing earlier in the area. That was a good bit of fun. If you killed the warg prematurely the vampires just let out a different one arena-combat style. Great way to solve a problem and preventing it from being completely obvious what they are doing.

The next area is the hedge maze and I hate this place. I hate this place because I have to ride a giant spider and there is nothing good about riding a giant spider. EVER! Riding a wolf, boar, Tron-horse, these are all fine, but keep the spider away from me. *shudder*

There is a new type of enemy called Mandragoras in the hedge maze. They are simple little creatures and easy to kill, but they can be dangerous in a group. They just stand there and suck out Gabriel’s life force. You have to kill them quickly or they will team up and slaughter Gabriel. But they die quickly and so you just have to pay attention and you’ll be fine. The giant spider is a deadlier enemy. He’s needed for various locations around the maze. He opens up two doors and creates two web bridges. I had to capture the dumb spider three times since I kept killing him off prematurely.

There’s a little puzzle in here that involves turning statues. If you came here looking for help with them, you came to the wrong place. I have no idea how I beat this puzzle. I just kept turning statues until the all faced forward. I didn’t even need any help. If you need help then I recommend going to Gamefaqs.

With the puzzle solved and all of the spider doors open you can finally leave the hedge maze, which wasn’t much of a maze. It is really easy to learn the layout of this area, so it calling it a hedge maze is insulting to hedge mazes all over the world.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Plowing Through Chapter V

I feel like I’m taking forever with Castlevania. I seem to only play one section at a time and that’s because I normally feel queasy after finishing an area. It’s really starting to grate on me. I want to be moving faster. I keep trying to move faster. That’s why I finally pushed myself to complete Chapter V. I had three more sections left so I decided to plow through it. I’m glad I did.

This chapter reveals something really major about Zobek. He’s a jerk. He is quite literally a massive jerk. After he and Gabriel were split up in the library Zobek revealed, during a narrative voiceover, that he knows a secret way to the top of the tower. He left Gabriel alone to scale the outside of the tower. What a stupid jerk! Poor Gabriel is grappling all around this tower and Zobek just takes some stairs.

When we finally reach the top I’m thinking that it’s time for a boss fight. This Abbot has been a lot of trouble and he’s worked hard to guard this sacred relic that Gabriel and Zobek are after, surely he won’t give it up without a fight. Well the Abbot does just that. Sure he whines when Gabriel takes it, but he doesn’t put forth any real effort to keep it.

Turns out the relic was just a flask of Holy Water. I’m not sure how this would prevent vampires from attacking by just sitting there though. It doesn’t stop them from attacking Gabriel. Holy Water is just another thrown item like daggers or fairies. They work pretty well against the undead in combat, but vampires will still attack Gabriel.

With that in tow it’s back to the village. Which is under attack by vampires and they want to face Gabriel alone. So here’s where the  boss fight occurs. Sure enough, after beating some basic vampires you get to fight Brauner. He’s a massive vampire who’s name I only learned from a narrative voiceover. Couldn’t Brauner have been, “I am Brauner! I get the privalige of ending your life.” Or some generic bad guy line? That would have been batter then what he did, which was suddenly lean forward and roar. Because that’s never been done before. Brauner can obviously talk since he constantly taunts Gabriel during the fight

The fight is pretty simple. I just kept dodging and whipping.  Brauner does this thing where he will throw his weapon at Gabriel and if you can catch it and throw it back it stuns Brauner. I never figured out how to do this. I tried, but I always failed. Brauner went down with very little trouble though. It is cool to watch Gabriel do his opponents in with their own weapons though.

And that is actually one of the points where Castlevania has made me happy. I figured when Gabriel killed the Werewolf Lord Cornell with his own hammer that Gabriel would acquire the hammer. Nope, Gabriel breaks the thing and leaves it to rot. Same here. Gabriel uses Brauner’s weapon to kill him, but Gabriel doesn’t keep the weapon afterwards. No secondary weapons for Gabriel, it’s all about the Combat Cross. This is a concept that I highly approve of. Games like God of War and Devil May Cry give the main character a lot of secondary weapons that I never use or I force myself to use them out of boredom. They are normally not as strong as the main weapon and I’m not as familiar with them. I like the idea of just having one main weapon and calling it good. Heavenly Sword also had a good feature for this. Nariko only had the titular sword, but she could use it in three distinct ways that changed its’ damage output and attack style. This was smart design. So I’m glad Gabriel doesn’t use any other main weapon. I hope this stays true to the end of the game.

Alright, Brauner’s down, it’s time to tackle the last area of the Chapter, The Castle Sewers. The hardest part of the sewers is the skeletons. They can be a pain to fight. I keep wondering where an upgrade is hiding that will up Gabriel’s damage output. Holy Water is a really useful tactic against them and I recommend using it when you get the chance. Especially if they are lying on the ground bouncing around as a pile of bones, Holy Water will finish them off then.

There’s another puzzle that involves a spike trap and daggers. Again, it’s not hard. It’s actually kind of clever. A good puzzle makes you think about what objects you have in your inventory and makes you use them in unique ways. I had never used my daggers to open a door and here that became a requirement. You have to press a button, dash across a one-hit-kill spike trap, turn back around, activate shadow magic, and then throw a dagger, trap complete. Level complete. Chapter complete.

So I made it through three areas in one playthrough. Here’s hoping I can do more next time.