Summer of Arcade

[joefro]

I can't wait to play Limbo and Laura Croft. I'll probably try the other games, but I haven't heard much about them.

Any arcade games y'all looking forward too this Summer?

[AC9breaker]

The Giant Bomb review of Limbo totally sold me. I mean, the game looked pretty interesting to begin with, but the bold claims in the giantbomb review totally got me excited for this game.

[Jaspaller]

Limbo looks really interesting but the main one I'm looking forward to is Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance. Other ones don't really seem to catch my interest all that much.

[CupOfCoffee]

Limbo looks great. I'll definitely be picking that one up. Haven't seen much else that has immediately piqued my interest, though.

[Kent]

Diablo-style Tomb Raider game, eh? It's at least worth looking into.

Though, I'm much more interested in Castlevania.

[joefro]

I love Limbo. I've never seen a little boy be decapitated by a bear trap so many times. It's awesome.

[Weeaboolits]

That depends, did they anounce a date for VO: Force yet?

[Kent]

Limbo is interesting, and certainly great to look at and play, though I only have the trial of it.

It seems like a game that would be over rather quickly though.

[AC9breaker]

Yeah I managed to beat it in one sitting. It's fantastic though. After you beat the game, you just gotta let the experience marinate through your body. Love the minimalist design. Well worth the time.

[AC9breaker]

So anyone here picked up Castlevania HD? I'm surprised at how fun it is. It's a blast running through with friends. initially I was lost as all hell and I still don't know a lot of whats going on, but it's a ton of fun. So far I've been sticking to Jonathan.

[Delete]

So anyone here picked up Castlevania HD? I'm surprised at how fun it is. It's a blast running through with friends. initially I was lost as all hell and I still don't know a lot of whats going on, but it's a ton of fun. So far I've been sticking to Jonathan.

Not yet, but on my next day off....I do wanna pick it up.

On the other hand, Limbo did kick ass even if the ending left me wanting more.

[Akaimizu]

Castlevania HD is pretty awesome. It had an initial lukewarm reception from reviewers, but once the gamers got their hands on it, it kind of exploded.

Best way to sum it up is that somebody crossed a dungeon-crawler with my Castlevania (or Metroidvania for the linear purists).

Of course, some of that was present in some of the more recent games, but it's altered to be a bit more so given the multiplayer nature of it. You don't raise character levels, but you do gain powers based on loot (and in some cases, powering up from repeated use of certain abilities).

At first, it doesn't look like much, but this is the first Castlevania in which the entire Castle is loaded up at once, and every single action, item, projectile, etc. is being handled and processed during the entire duration of play. Each level is a different entire castle, all with a Boss you'll have to defeat. You have to deal with some work to get good drops, though. But that's with anything with a percentage, and yes there is a luck stat to help boost percentage a bit. There's also a drop called the Gambler's Glasses, which you want to keep so you can view the Monster Compendium to see loot percentages once you've gotten the item once.

As of right now, the game has gotten a lot of player attention and I have a couple of friends, on my friends list already playing and I've hooked up with them. I'm currently working on Jonathan and adding Shanoa to my list of players. Jon takes some good work to level his sub-weapons, which are key to powering up the character in total. So far, I've gotten every sub-weapon (sans I believe 1) to level 4 and almost have a couple to 5. I also noticed that my first subweapon to 5 completely changed it's attack graphic when I reached there. My Axe (the good ol' traditional belmont subweapon) only looked like the traditional one until level 5. At level 5, it became a larger double-bladed axe.

[Kent]

I've been playing the hell out of Castlevania HD lately. There are only three non-boss souls I don't have maxed for Soma (damn you, Witch/Frozen Shade/The Creature), and I've found two of the rarest weapons in the game for him (Valmanway a.k.a. Crissaegrim and Claimh Solais, though I like the latter better, because it's not easymode).

Jonathan is easily the least-common character to see online, mostly because of how he has to go about getting more powerful: Basically, he has to grind the crap out of his sub-weapons (just like Shanoa does with her glyphs). It's kind of unfortunate, the level of tedium there is in doing something like that... Especially since characters like Soma and Alucard just gain in power by getting drops from enemies (be it equipment, souls or scrolls) and Charlotte just needs some patience in absorbing anything that looks remotely like a spell from an enemy.

Any of the characters seem like they could be stupidly-powerful if you put the effort into maxing out their abilities, it's just that some of these are a lot less entertaining than others (grinding subweapons/glyphs) and some are just easy to do actively (Charlotte). And then there are things like the infamous Super Saiyan Charlotte combo...

I am really enjoying the game though. It's a lot of fun, even if the individual levels are static, with no variations.

[Jaspaller]

I've played nothing but Castlevania HD since it came out. I can't seem to stop myself. Love just about all of the arranged versions of songs, but there's a few I don't recognize like the Chapter 3 theme (new track made specially for that stage?)

Shanoa was my main until hard mode. Once I learned that Alucard can spam the yasutsuna I switched haha. Yasutsuna + Berserker Mail = Death to everything. I'm still hunting the Valmanway and Death's Robe... but I've found other goodies along the way (Claimh Solais, Dracula's Tunic, 2x Chaos Rings, Winged Boots). I enjoy hitting final guards with the Claimh Solais special for 30+ damage. Three hits and they're down. Got all of my souls except for Dracula and Death to max. Charlotte's maxed out and I've got about 5 levels on every subweapon with Jonathan. Soma's my new main due to the soul system but I still put my time into the other characters.

Sucks that they really stripped Shanoa of all the weapons she had in OOE but I guess it's less to work level up (or maybe it's in the DLC).

Speaking of DLC, if you haven't already heard, it's very likely that they will be releasing new content (actually an unlock key lulz). DLC includes the Temple stage from PoR with Astarte as a boss (A new soul for Soma and a new Spell to learn with Charlotte). New characters are supposedly included too. Child Maria, as well as Julius Belmont from DoS. Julius can whip in eight directions, has less subweapons than Jonathan, and can use item crashes. Apparently they changed his funny walk in DoS lol.

[Akaimizu]

To a certain degree, I can see why they kind of tried to keep Jonathan from getting stuff too powerful. It's mainly his cancels that could be abused if given a little bit more stuff. His secondaries get powerful (and some will travel as far as they can go until they hit something), but his martial arts also tend to maintain a very high damage compared to his vampire killer. Pretty much any whip attack can be cancelled in some fashion. His Martial Arts cancel his whip animation for an instant 1-2 death punch.

He's probably lower on the tier list, but he is really fun to use. Some of the ways he does an insta kill combo is almost like playing a fighting game. That is, when you aren't just whipping and jumping like a traditional Belmont.

[Kent]

Speaking of DLC, if you haven't already heard, it's very likely that they will be releasing new content (actually an unlock key lulz).
If by "very likely" you mean "made official before the game came out and the first batch of it was recently revealed," then you're right.

Although it's been proven by people tinkering away at the game's files that it's actually not an unlock code that we'll be downloading - it's actual new content (with, of course, some screenshots that have been leaked showing how much data each of the characters comprises, because they're listed separately in the 360's memory management menu; about 7MB each). The only things accessible from DLC that are already put into the game are some spells - so you can use them in games with people who don't have the DLC.

Bonus: People have already deduced from these leaked files who the rest of the planned DLC cast will be (by examining the sound files for calling out to others for Dual Crushes) - Julius and Child Maria aside (since they've been officially announced): Richter, Simon, Yoko and... Hammer.

[Bitzen]

Just got Scott Pilgrim vs. The World for the PSN. It's amazing how many little nods it gives towards other games. It's alot of fun Co-Op too. The biggest downfall is lack of Online Co-Op though. Plenty of codes based off of old game codes too. Paul Robertson's animations/pixel art is pretty top notch too.

[Nitro Vordex]

I'm mad at all of you for not talking about Hydro Thunder.

[AC9breaker]

I've heard framerate is shit.

[joefro]

Tried the Laura Croft demo this morning, it's pretty cool. The story is complete shit but the gameplay is really fun. I really wish this had online coop though. I might wait to buy it when they patch coop in.

[Nitro Vordex]

I've heard framerate is shit.
I have never seen any framerate issues.

[Jaspaller]

If by "very likely" you mean "made official before the game came out and the first batch of it was recently revealed," then you're right.

Although it's been proven by people tinkering away at the game's files that it's actually not an unlock code that we'll be downloading - it's actual new content (with, of course, some screenshots that have been leaked showing how much data each of the characters comprises, because they're listed separately in the 360's memory management menu; about 7MB each). The only things accessible from DLC that are already put into the game are some spells - so you can use them in games with people who don't have the DLC.


Ah, much appreciated for the clearup. I've just been gathering bits of and pieces from the GameFAQs boards whenever I get a chance or need to find item drops.


Bonus: People have already deduced from these leaked files who the rest of the planned DLC cast will be (by examining the sound files for calling out to others for Dual Crushes) - Julius and Child Maria aside (since they've been officially announced): Richter, Simon, Yoko and... Hammer.
Lolwut to Hammer.

Looking forward to hearing how Richter and Simon will play. Especially Simon since he was the only one to recieve 8-way whipping in past CV games... and now Julius gets it.

Finally got my Valmanway a few days ago! The hunt is on for the second one now!

[Kent]

Valmanway and Yasutsuna need to be patched out of the game. They don't belong in this world.

If they did that, I could forgive the fact that levelling any of Jonathan's sub-weapons or Shanoa's glyphs from eight to nine takes probably upwards of several hours each - and that's assuming you're doing nothing but spamming that single ability as hard as you can, with dual Master Rings (+100% mastery rate each) equipped.