Castlevania Lords of Shadow and Darksiders very underrated games?

These two games are fantastic in my opinion and should have been nominated for game of the year. However they weren't because they weren't deemed to be very original. I instead think that they shouldn't have had points taken away from them because of it. Darksiders mixed excellent combat taken from God of War and added in very enjoyable puzzles and dungens from Zelda. How can you get a bad game from that? You really can't. Same goes for Castlevania. A game doesn't need to be innovative to be fun. Games like Call of Duty barley innovate anymore and still get 9's and 10's. I would love to hear your opinions on the subject. What games do you think are very underrated? And why do some games need to be innovative to get high scores and some don't?Darksiders666

A game doesn't necessarily have to be innovative to be enjoyable, but it does have to be innovative to be game of the year material. Games that win that award are generally the ones that push the medium forward. Notice that the game that Gamespot gave GOTY last year (and the year before, IIRC) was not just the game that got the highest score that year.

I kinda expected Darksiders to be a "me too" actioner with a lot of elements ripped right out of GoW, but I can say without a doubt, I had a lot more fun with Darksiders than I did GoW3. I was really impressed. Mostly the game gets knocked for taking elements from other games - there's a Panzer Dragoon style mini-game, which was very cool, a glaive-like weapon that's used in ways similar to Dark Sector, and even a puzzle solving device that turns some of the latter sections of the game into a poor-man's Portal. Amazingly it all worked and instead of feeling ripped-off, to me it felt kindainspired.

Castlevania is not underrated, for me anyway, I loved it. The only thing I can knock Castlevania for...other than borrowing elements from other games, is the camera wasn't always in the best position during combat. The combat was really pretty deep with the combos and the light/dark magic along with the subweapons that gave fights a strategic feel because you would have to alter your tactics depending on what you were fighting, I loved that had a pretty good amount of challenge, and upgrades making itworth replaying levels for, and most of all I LOVED that I got a lot of game for my money. 20 hours for a single playthrough is above average for an action/adventuregame these days, and it gives you reasons to play again, which I'm doing on the hardest difficulty (only unlocked by finishing the game).

Castlevania is one of my top 10 games of 2010. I can't comment on Darksiders though, didn't play it.

[QUOTE="rawsavon"]I LOVED Castlevania. It was my game of the year last year (though I don't play that many games anymore). It destroyed God of War 3 IMO...did everything better. I will say that might be due in part to my extreme disappointment with God of War 3 (biased opinion).SteveTabernacle

My rant on God of War 3:

[spoiler] 1. story is the exact same
-someone betrays Kratos right as he is about to 'win' at the beginning, gets sent to hell (sans powers), work the entire game to get back powers and back where you were
-looking for pandora's box...again
-get 'new' blades...again
2. Action is the exact same
-same exact way of fighting same old enemies (skeletons, cyclops, harpies, minotaurs, etc)...nothing new
...but it is easier, especially the 'challenges'
3. Items are mostly the same
-same weapons (bow and arrow, blades, wings, golden fleece, helios' head replaces the Medusa one, only hermes sandals are new)
-magic is scaled down though. one spell per weapon
4. story starts good and trails off
-Kratos gets all emotional towards the end
-...blah, blah, blah, "hope this, hope that"...is not Kratos (I am exaggerating here. not THAT bad I guess)
5. Short Game
6. Puzzles are the same
-move cranks here, slide blocks there, use wings to glide w/ steam
TBH, GoW II should have been about 5 hours longer and included this...Part 3 is really a drawn out expansion pack of part II (but way better looking) [/spoiler]

So the thread has become a 'I hate GoW3 thread'. *Sigh* Castlevania fans seem to blame GoW for Castlevania's dismalsales, though given that they were released ten months apartand GoW3 isonly on one system while Castlevania is a multiplat, I've never understood why. Since this thread is going to rehash the arguments made in the Castlevania official thread, I'm going to repost my initial impressions of the demo.

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=27463764&page=10

Despite the gorgeous graphics I came away from the demo unimpressed because the camera often fails to capture the battlefield. Enemies often stray outside the range of the camera and I really hate it when I can't see something in plain view of the character.

The fact that often the off camera enemies were in attack range makes the design decision even stranger. Its like the camera designer didn't play the game.

*Shrugs* Once again, I love the art direction, and having Patrick Stewart narrate is always a good thing. I'm hoping this game does well so that the designers have the option to address the camera in the sequel.

No, I couldn't bring myself to get to the halfway point in Castlevania. The only challenge was the horrendous camera. Beating the enemies was painfully easy and can be done on the hardest difficulty without ever getting hit once. Also, they needed to seriously lower the health of some enemies because it took far to long to kill some of them. Oh, and attack attack attack roll, attack attack attack roll, attack attack attack roll is the combo that guaranteed you would never get hit. Well that and the whole "I AM GOING TO ATTACK YOU NOW WITH A JUMPING AREA OF EFFECT ATTACK! YOU MAY WANT TO GET OUT OF THE WAY IN A MOMENT!" It wasn't fun, it wasn't funny, it was sad. Of the levels I played the majority of them weren't necessary and I started to realize that they were desperately trying to pad the length of a poor game and just stopped playing.

Darksiders wasn't very good either. It got very repetitive, very quickly. And that portal gun was terrible and felt out of place. There was also very little reason to use any of the other weapons aside from puzzle solving. Not to mention the puzzles weren't complicated or challenging. I didn't finish this game either because it was so dreadfully boring.

I haven't played Castlevania or Darksiders for that matter.

Actually, I bought Darksiders on a friend's recommendation, but it is gathering dust because of my huge backlog. But, I've heard good things especially the Zelda-esque gameplay or something, got me interested. Also, I like Joe Madureira, so... it was a no-brainer...

I loved GOW3 and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. I don't understand why people have so much hate for these two games. Yes Castlevania wasn't original combat wise but it had a great story. The graphics and back drops were amazing. I loved it's art style. Yea the game had plenty of its faults though. In the 80's and 90's kids like me didn't read review magazines because there weren't many and not many had internet either.

So I didn't have anything to go by except my gut instinct. Today I look back at all those games I chose myself without any opinions from others or "Professional" (I use the term very loosely) reviewers/critics and feel proud that I too have a great taste in Video Games and share a common goal with fellow gamers who look beyond the cosmetics. I feel there is too much influenced opinion nowadays.

Either people buy games based on how AMAZING! the graphics are, scores or "Professional" opinions. Nobody chooses for themselves or chooses to see a great game beyond the 8.5 mark. Even then an 8.5 is considered a "flop" to people. Its ridiculous and I'm really starting to hate the gaming community because of it. Everyone is too over critical and greedy. Not every game is going to hit the mark. Not every game is going to be as flawless as the next but people don't care and refuse to see through the looking glass because this Gen of gamers old or new are either too pampered or are getting to that point.

Games like Darksiders get overlooked while other games that also fail to do anything new or groundbreaking except exceed in a lot of sales because people are ignorant get 9.0s and 10s. Call of Duty, Halo, Gears of War etc. I don't hate these games but they don't deserve perfect scores just because they are a hit series and bring in a lot of money. Gamers and Critics a like forget to see these games flaws which are sometimes more then not while other games get nit picked to crapjust as much as theseblockbuster titles if not worse that Imentioned and get scored lower while they say no biggy about Halo or COD and still give them overly high scores.

Games and the tech used in them are getting better year after year and people's expectations are getting higher and higher which is understandable but some of you are getting more greedier and greedier and more critical but in a whinning way because of it. You also reach for the impossible sometimes. Not saying GOW3 or Castlevania couldn't have been better but in my honest opinion my ony gripe with GOW3 was it's length but other then that it's my favorite one in the franchise. Granted I've never played the PSP games yet but I hear great things about Ghost of Sparta.

I know complaining and whinning is life and it's in are human nature to be mean, over-observant, over-critical and selfish but I have to be honest it's really starting to urk me bad. Nobody is ever gonna agree but I honestly think people expect and ask for too much. All I can say is do your homework before you buy the game if you have these many problems with a specific game that you wished you have never bought.

I can't speak for Darksiders but I heard great things. I also know some of you smug people will respond and say I'm complaining right now so I'm being a Hyprocrite blah blah blah because you feel the need to get the last word in and go ahead I invite you to do so if it makes you feel better and superior. It won't bother me. Just remember while you choose to ignore the simple facts and neg my comments on the matter I'm right and thats whatcompels you to be smug about it.