Gaming Castlevania: Lament of Innocence (Image Heavy)

[Guest Musahi]

[b][u][center]The King returns...

Castlevania: Lament of Innocence[/center][/b][/u]

Castlevania: Lament of Innocence is going to be the first 3D game in the Castlevania series since Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness (N64). Unfortunately Castlevania: LOD was the most horrible Konami game that [i]I've[/i] ever played. Let's hope this version doesn't turn out as horrible as LOD. In LOI you will play as Leon, who is "the forefather of the Belmont clan". From what I have read the controls are tight, and the gameplay is enjoyable. But the graphics aren't [i]quite[/i] as good as other games in the same genre. I personally don't care much for graphics, aside from framerate. But other people base all their opinions on the graphics. =(

Here are some screens.
[center]
[img]http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/e32003/castlevanialoi_screen001.jpg[/img]
The graphics look fine here.
[img]http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/e32003/castlevanialoi_screen002.jpg[/img]
Lots of blocky-ness on the charcater model.
[img]http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/e32003/castlevanialoi_screen003.jpg[/img]
Looks [i]great[/i] here too.
[img]http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/e32003/castlevanialoi_screen004.jpg[/img]
Nice lighting effects, but the charcater model looks like it's from a Dreamcast game.[/center]

-The [b]King[/b]

[XeEmO]

It looks like it's going to be pretty good to me. I really didn't care for Castlevania on the N64 but the recent titles on the GBA were pretty fun. I heard somewhere that one of the guys involved with the GBA games was working on this one. Hopefully that means something good.

[Turkey]

Considering I'm part of the 0.0000001% of the people who found Castlevania 64 to be an excellent game, I'm really interested in this one. The visuals are pretty nice, but nothing there looks as artistic as the PSX game. The only thing that I really hope they don't forget for this game is the Metroid-like gameplay.

[James]

[color=#335062]I think that Castlevania: LoD is one of [i]the[/i] most underrated games on the planet. I really enjoyed it. The first level is a bit slow, but as you continue through the game, you'll definitely discover quite a lot of variety and challenge.

Having said that, LoD was a bit ambitious. It didn't have the same level of expression that the 2D games posess. So in a sense, it was a bit disappointing. But it wasn't a failure.

This game could be the game that gets it right. Controls are the most important thing, but so is atmosphere. That last shot in particular looks pretty atmospheric to me. Of course, the visuals here are a bit poor...but it's early days yet. Hopefully they'll improve. Castlevania is really worthy of Devil May Cry treatment, in terms of visuals and control. Hopefully, [i]hopefully[/i] they'll do it some justice.[/color]

[Syk3]

Ah yes, this game was EGM's cover feature for this month. It will be very exciting to see the series' transition into 3D after three fantastic GBA titles. Sure, Konami did the same thing on the Nintendo 64, and I even have one of those games, but I rarely played it and from what I hear, Lament of Innocence it going to blow it out of the water.

I like the fact that LoI is going to be coming to PS2, since I have the system, but I would have really preffered that it have come to all of the systems, or at least GCN, since my GameCube friends are whining about it, lol. I find it to be surprising that the game will be exclusive for Sony's system, in my opinion, but at the same time it would be understandable because of Symphony of the Night being for the PlayStation.

As for the game itself, it looks very interesting. The story about how the main character is the forefather of the Belmonts is an interesting point that I'm surprised Konami aparently hasn't covered earlier. The graphics may not be the best using the PlayStation 2's system, but the game looks very polished when looking at the screens nonetheless. I read that they are taking their sweet time to make this title the best Castlevania yet, and aparently throwing out the style of camra from Devil May Cry for one more like Ico. It very well may be the best installment in the series' as long as they can carefully bring the elements from the 2D games that made them so good into 3 dimensions. We'll see.