brunoafh wrote:Rurouni_Fencer wrote:Curse of Darkness and Lament of Innocence
I've always meant to check these out but for me Castlevania and 3D has always spelled disaster. What are these like, gameplay wise? Is there Metroidvania/exploration elements? Is it like a hack n slash? I'm totally in the dark with these games. Can always do some quick research but I figured I'd ask you fine chaps.
Well I played a big chunk of Lament of Innocence myself. It was a decent experience to say the least, and certainly felt far more like "Castlevania" than Lords of Darkness or whatnot.
Never finished it though because I got kind of bored eventually. The game literally takes the Metroidvania formula into 3D, but it's a bit overkill. By this I mean it has the onslaught of hallways like in the 2D games, but in 3D it just feels all the more tedious. Rooms get repeated 10 times over, and the game is a lot more about fighting than exploration, from the chunk I played. The dungeon layouts just didn't feel that great to me and kind of reminded me of Dark Cloud, it almost felt randomly generated, but in a way that the rooms and everything were just so basic and copy/paste repeated constantly (if that makes sense).
The music, atmosphere, and bosses were really good. Story seemed cool as well. But yeah, the simplistic combat and repetitive nature of the game got to me after awhile.
It was interesting and decent enough that I'd certainly recommend it to anyone that's interested though. I hear Curse of Darkness ditches the leveling system I think and has some other weird changes, but I want to give it a shot myself sometime. But yeah, you seem to love the Musou series and whatnot, maybe the repetition wouldn't bother you here so you'd dig it.
In a really weird way and random comparison though I'd say Vagrant Story is what a cool 3D Castlevania would be like to me. Amazing gothic atmosphere, great level design, and everything. Didn't feel repetitive at all.
All that said, I kind of want to replay LoI myself and try to beat it sometime, lol. Maybe it's a "mood" kind of game. But here's a decent video showing it off early on:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu6RdGXH40QLike I said, amazing music!