Castlevania: Lord of Shadows 2

[Wrathborne]

http://the-magicbox.com/1306/game130615d.shtml

looks interesting, I loved the visual style the previous game had, glad they've expanded on it.
Hope the game doesn't suck.

[Code_R]

The first one was surprisingly good so hopefully they build on that

[REmaster]

So I've clocked in about 8 or 9 hours so far in this game.
Looks like Mercury Steam went with a "Arkham City" approach. It's kind of like two separate games, with the city area in the present and the castle area in the past (which you can switch to any time you like. The city was built upon the remains of Dracula's castle so the city still retains many gothic style elements. I'm also glad they re-introduced the shop, which was of course a staple of the metroidvania titles.

[Carnivol]

Got the PAL Collector's Edition for 360, but don't have time to play it until after work tomorrow... Pretty much about to cancel all weekend plans and stuff for this

[REmaster]

Got the PAL Collector's Edition for 360, but don't have time to play it until after work tomorrow... Pretty much about to cancel all weekend plans and stuff for this

Nice, I'll have to get that badass version eventually, hell I'll still need to get the PAL CE of LOS1 that came with the god mask. Man, I took two days off work and I've been playing it pretty much non-stop and still have yet to beat it. The game's so fucking long and the world's so big, not that I'm complaining lol. It's amazing how every area looks beautiful in a game that's so gigantic.

[Dracarys]

I've not played Mirror of Fate yet, do I need to, story wise?

[REmaster]

I've not played Mirror of Fate yet, do I need to, story wise?

Not really, they do a nice little story recap at the start of the game.

[Code_R]

Forced stealth sounds horrible, but I want to try it anyway because of the general aesthetic feel and music.

[REmaster]

Forced stealth sounds horrible, but I want to try it anyway because of the general aesthetic feel and music.

Yea the stealth missions don't work very well and feel out of place, but luckily there's not that many.

For anyone who's beat it: Spoiler:

show spoiler

I felt like the ending was a bit...nonexistent. I was kinda pissed that there was such a build-up for Satan's return and then you don't even fight him directly. Alucard was cool and all but the suit looked pretty whack, really shows off how disproportionate Alucard's body is. Then Gabriel/Dracula doesn't even die and just walks off. The whole point of the game was that this was the end and after a thousand years of torment he would finally break the curse and rest in peace. After 3.5 years and all the hype for the FINAL entry, I really wanted some closure.

The ending just feels very incomplete and it left a sour taste in my mouth after playing a really great game. Hopefully they make some Alucard DLC or at least a proper ending. They've never been very straightforward with their endings. With LOS1 you had to buy the DLC to get the real ending, and in MOF you had to clear the game with 100% completion for every character to see the "true ending" so it's not out the question. Otherwise it was a gorgeous game, with a beatiful soundtrack and decent story to boot.

To me it feels kind of like a vampire Arkham City. I absolutely loved the Toy Maker portion and was glad to see Zobek finally take the grim reaper form of death. Victor Belmont was kind of cool, but the dude's only in the game for like 10 minutes. It was interesting how he used all of Gabriel's old weapons and skills and tried to unleash the old demon shard from LOS1 and Dracula just massacres it lol. The chupacabras shop was a nice little throwback as well.