Topic: Team Microtransactions (MTX) PS3 Library Deliberation Thread

@Ralizah
Ok I have an appeal!
Ok, so here are my thought on Castlevania: Lords of Shadow and why it's important.

We have the legendary Castlevania series, one of the biggest names in video game history with a very strong attempt to reboot the series back in 2010 with the latest graphics, story telling and game play. I really feel they didn't hold much back here. They had several very well known voice actors including the amazing Patrick Stewart in a key role, and not just 60 seconds at the start of a game and then he's dead type of key role.

For game play they've taken inspiration from big blockbuster games such as SOTC, DMC, GoW, Uncharted etc as well as adding their own unique elements and tying them altogether nicely without being a poor imitation of any of its sums. Rather than just sticking to one genre, the developer bravely attempts to create its own unique blend and does so very competently.

The game requires you to fight with skill so that when you do succeed you feel like a badass vampire hunter. Button bashing won't cut it here, you need to time your moves well and use the best dark and light combos depending on the situation, as well as secondary weapons at your disposal, taking your enemies weaknesses into consideration.

The story feels fresh, giving the player so many exciting twists and turns, especially nearing the end of the game where the player is rewarded with so many answers to the questions that have been asked throughout. The art is great, with so many different areas to explore and fight in, each is very well realised.
The game isn't particularly groundbreaking though in terms of creating an entirely new way to play games and I do recall the camera being awkward on the very occasional climb segment thus I don't feel it quite deserves a very important placement. But important? Absolutely.

So there we have it, any thoughts? I'm happy to discuss it further if people want to, thanks.

Wrong thread.

@LieutenantFatman Just for some perspective — I helped to rate Lords of Shadow and I did actually play it. I did vote for it to be “existing” but I was on the fence to call it “important.”
From what I recall, it is rather iterative of the action adventure genre. As you say it wasn’t groundbreaking, per se. The Castlevania name carried it a little bit, but it lacked a bit of the soul of a Castlevania game, imo. But it was a decent game, heavily overshadowed by the God of War series at the time. I believe GoW 3 came out around the same time.
Like I said, I considered maybe putting it in “important” because although it didn’t set the world on fire, it was decent and it did lead to a sequel. Also Hideo Kojima at the helm has got to account to something 😉. But we had a fairly convincing case made by Mookysam that Lords of Shadow 2 was the superior game. It was open world, more polished, and wrapped up the story. I hadn’t played the sequel, so since I wasn’t convinced both games were all that Important, Lords 2 ended up being the important game and Lords 1 just existed to lead the way to the better more important sequel.
Depending how you think of it, the predecessor may be the more important of the two, but at least from someone who played both games, they say Lords 2 was more important (despite it having lower Metacritic scores, for whatever that’s worth).

I’m willing to live with either way. For a series that died off quickly, it does seem to me a stretch to call both games important, but perhaps that’s the case.

@Fight_Sora_Fight Actually that’s my team, 404, that had those games too. I’ll respond in the other thread so I don’t muck up MTX who are looking at Lords of Shadow.

@Th3solution
Well as you say yourself, the 2nd game wrapped up the story so is that really a series dying off? Worth keeping in mind as well, that Konami the publisher stopped making these sorts of games after LoS2 anyway, which like so many publishers is a business decision, many of them aren't so keen now on purely single player experiences, sadly.
The closest thing they pushed out after that was MGS5 on PS4 where the story was left unfinished. And personally I wouldn't agree that a game being open world makes it better, I think if all games strived for that, it would become tiresome very quickly.
Personally I see no problem with both LoS games being in the important category. It's something we will see in this process a great deal I have no doubt, with the most popular series having almost every game in very important.

@LieutenantFatman Yeah, I agree that open world doesn’t necessarily make a game better. In fact I used the ‘Arkham Asylum led to Arkham City’ example that many would say the former more linear game is the more important one. But it’s the total package that I think escalated LoS 2 in our mind. Again, this is just going off other people’s experience since for me personally, LoS 1 didn’t garner enough interest in me to even play the second game. Not that it wasn’t a reasonably enjoyable jaunt, but at the time the sequel was partly a victim of being the end of a console generation; LoS 2 actually came out after the release of PS4, which was probably the kiss of death right there for any meaningful success.

And, as I say, I am fine with LoS 1 being “important” as I almost placed it there myself. I’m a big Kojima fan.

@Th3solution
Yes, I agree, releasing on old hardware definitely can't have done it any favours. But I digress, I've said my piece and your and your team have made some fair points as well. Happy to let the final judgement commence, haha.

@LieutenantFatman Yes, perfectly logical reasoning on your part. I think you and I aren’t too far off on our opinions.
I believe your judge is @Ralizah so it will be him who has the final say to change the ranking or not. He can take a vote from your team or whatever method he chooses.
And I don’t mean to imply that I speak for my team — if @Jaz007 @themcnoisy @TowaHerschel7 @RogerRoger @Frigate have anything to contribute in the proposed escalation of Castlevania Lords of Shadow, then they can weigh in as well.

@LieutenantFatman @Th3solution - i've played neither castlevania LoS game, but on metacritic, there is quite a substantial difference between the average for the first one (85 from 62 critics) and the second (63 from 55 critics). what gives?. purely on that circumstantial evidence, if you were going to rate one of them as important, it wouldn't be the second?.

@ZeD @kyleforrester87 @Rudy_Manchego
Any opinions on this motion to elevate Lords of Shadow?

@leucocyte Yeah, I noticed that as well, but the feeling of @mookysam who played both was that the second was superior and an under appreciated gem. I think the thought was it actually pushed gaming forward more and was artistically and narratively better, as well as improved gameplay. The first hand experience of a Push Square user pulled some weight there. The reviews if you look at them are quite varied. In fact a 4/10 was given by Edge and the game director, Alvarez, actually called them out about how ridiculous a score it was in his opinion.

@Th3solution this sounds like the Arkham Asylum / City debate ofthe 1st being a master piece but the second just ramped up the action and gameplay to 11

@ZeD Agreed. Which is more important, the inaugural game of a series which sets a fresh, new tone or the second game which fine tunes the things the first game lacked? It’s highly subjective.

Depends on how much "fine-tuning" is involved, imo. If a second game radically influences the direction of a series going forward, I think it's inarguable that it's the more important game. You could say the second one relied on the first to even exist, but, then, going that route, you could trace a line of causality all the way back to the dawn of gaming.

I think it's best to look directly at public influence and game design and go from there.

Of course, the importance of either LoS game is pretty iffy to begin with. They radically changed an established series, but neither game saw humongous sales or influenced much of anything else, and the series seems to have died on the vine.

Anyway, the deadline is apparently soon, so I need to hear from as many people on the team as possible. I believe @Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy already said she was OK with the appeal, so I need a "yea" or "nay" on the motion to elevate LoS to the category of "important" from other people.

10pm UK time is the deadline, right? That's 4pm where I live. At 3:30pm my time I'm voting, so if anyone wants to make their opinion heard, do it before then.

@ZeD @leucocyte @LieutenantFatman @Rudy_Manchego

I would be cautious going forward of labelling something as important to gaming based on the number of sequels. By that logic Portal isn't really worth mentioning, Okami is awful and the Army Men games are to be highly celebrated.
Similar caution for how well a game sells. It's amazing what a bit of advertising and a big name can do, just look at Fallout 76 and Anthem, they've sold pretty well considering what's on offer.

@Ralizah @LieutenantFatman You both bring up very good points.

Updated the first post.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14uRdE72JtbW4N3dPmgzaf...

Here's the spreadsheet link again.

Ok, these are the games I've played in this list, although Diablo 3 and Destiny were on the PS4. Some incredible games in this list. As great as DMC is, as I recall this collection is just a simple upscale of the PS2 games.

Dark Souls From Software - very important
Dead or Alive 5 Team Ninja / Sega AM2 - existing
Dead Space EA Redwood Shores - very important
Dead Space 2 Visceral Games - very important
Dead Space 3 Visceral Games - exisiting
Demon's Souls From Software - very important
Destiny Bungie - not important
Deus Ex: Human Revolution Eidos Montréal - very important
Devil May Cry HD Collection Capcom - existing
Diablo III Blizzard Entertainment - very important
Dirt 3 Codemasters Birmingham - important

@LieutenantFatman Can you add your scores the the "Scores" tab on the spreadsheet. 1-5, 1 being not important and 5 being very. 😊

These are mine;
Dark Void Airtight Games 2
de Blob 2 Blue Tongue Entertainment 2
Dead Island: Riptide Techland 2
Dead Space 3 Visceral Games 2
Darksiders Vigil Games 3
DC Universe Online Sony Online Entertainment 3
Dante's Inferno Visceral Games 4
Darksiders II Vigil Games 4
Dead Island Techland 4
Dead Rising 2 Blue Castle Games 4
Devil May Cry 4 Capcom 4
Dead Space EA Redwood Shores 5
Dead Space 2 Visceral Games 5

I have never played a Souls game. Do not see the big deal in them tbh plus I am not a fan of the difficulty being a gameplay feature.

@ZeD
No problem, done. Yes, the reputation for difficulty on DS does put a lot of people off. They're generally not as hard as people make out though. Considerably easier and kinder than most retro games back in the day where there was no save facility and you had to start over once you were out of lives / continues. Not something I particularly miss!