Did anyone in the EU manage to get the limited edition, i havent seen one anywhere.

I didn't say it fails as a game compared to Lament... it doesn't as its clearlly more technically sound. However its been 7 years since the two and standards for what is considered a 3D technical achievement have changed drastically. Id say that both are on par when adjusted for time inflation.

As a Castlevania game though, the two couldn't be any more different. Style, story and music aside, which obviously favors Lament when to comes to being more Castlevania-esqe...and the fact that Lament had the RPG elements and was giving you the many weapons to find, leveling up, strength of your attacks and other things which came in to the fold after Symphony...  The main difference I find between the two is that Lords of Shadow takes the cinematic approach and guides you along holding your hand from chapter to chapter and Lament drops you in to the castle and says "have fun...see ya when credits roll".

It really depends on why one plays the castlevania games.

I don't give a rats bottom about the story in any of them, nor the dialoge...infact the worse it is the better as at least I'll get a good laugh. What I like is the thinking about where I can go next, what the power I have just discovered by beating the boss will open up and what weapon with what attack does best damage for the enemy at hand. I like the combat and paltforming and all the other elemsnts of old Castlevaina games but most of all I like being left alone to think for myself and to be free to play the damn game as I want...

I didn't get any of this sense in lords of shadow as it constantly intrudes on the player with Captain Pickards dialoge and chapter readings, a really boring story which I can't detect any *wink* like moments as you were saying before, straightforward combat and liear paths. Even the camera is only focused on what they want you to see at any given moment... It all adds to the cinematics of the game as they control what the user is doing and can have great scripted battles like the titan fights, but its not the draw for me when it comes to castevania games.

Is the game really that good?  I played the demo, but felt that aside from the graphics it was only so-so.

Is the demo a decent indication of how the entire game plays?

Granted, I've never been very big on hack n' slash.  I enjoyed the God of War games for their spectacle, but have always found them to be somewhat tedious to replay, and I haven't really gotten into anything else in the genre save Dynasty Warriors.

The Demo is not a very good indicator of the true game. The full game is way better because you purchase new moves, weapon upgrades and have powers. The bosses are pretty good as well. The variety in bosses is great. They all provide something different and unlike god of war 3 beating them has greater rewards. God of War 3 is still better, but Castlevania LOS has the right idea in most areas. The DLC will probably set the full game over 30 hours as well.

Another note:

God of War 3 had you win weapons that had nothing to do with the overall game; in essence, they just provided variety. In Castlevania every weapon has a purpose to help you get through the game, find clues, solve puzzles, etc. The game also rewards you for playing levels over again complete with trials and duties. Riding beasts also has more use than in God of War 3. There is a reason why you need to tame them.

@disolitude:

As with the best of its kind, you can gladly just skip all the dialogue/cutscenes in the game. The only things you actually have to sit through is Stewart's talk for the amount of time it takes a level to load. Now granted the exploration aspect is much lower than Igavania, but I cut my eye-teeth on Simon's Quest and it doesn't bother me much.

I would also argue that 3-D action titles haven't advanced THAT much since Lament of Innocence's release, at least not mechanically, so there's no real inflation of mechanics to take into account.

EDIT: Also you can turn on damage indicators in the extras menu, and it's great. Gives you a much better idea of what works best.

@makingmusic:

It's a slow burn. I didn't like the demo at all. It... well, it gets better in every single level, as well as every single chapter making a big leap. It's like FFXIII kind of, only you don't slog through twenty hours to get to the good shit, and the good shit just keeps ramping up and up and up and up. By the end it was doing things and showing me things like I hadn't seen anywhere else this year.

The combat gets better and deeper with every new combo you unlock. It really gets great.

yeah I agree fantastic game. Almost as awesome as God of War 3.

And you certainly get enough for you money.

This is only really true if you haven't figured out how to fight effectively yet. Countering staggers every single enemy in the game long enough to get a good combo going, and the Direct Heavy Combo just stuns people over and over and over unless they're real heavies.

Larger enemies can be flipped over and you can do combos behind them. You are rewarded for not getting hit by taking in their essence to fill your shadow power bars. The red bar can be refilled and your hits do like 10x the damage they did before without power augment. Theres also the power crystal to lower their health and the holy water to stun them so you can pull off a combo. I also rather like to jump in the air, attach my cross to their head and lunge down for a drop kick to the face. Strong moves and strong combos mess up the larger enemies as well. It's also common knowledge that you must dodge the bosses and larger enemies no matter what. You should really get acquainted with some of the harder moves to pull off in the game. It's quite rewarding how much HP it takes from bosses and larger enemies.

P.S.

Counter your enemies to deflect their attacks. To have enough counter time for combos, purchase the holy light augment for your hand armor so that when you block it repels them back with holy light. When they are stunned clobber them with a sick combo.

Oh yeah, and...

Dragon Punches are fun. :)

More, certain combos stun enemies around you, and damn near anything is stunned by a liberal application of holy water or Light Magic-infused fairies.

That's another nice thing about this game. It gives you lots of items and plenty of opportunities to build magic, which encourages magic use.

Very dynamic, very nice.

Fairies are fun to watch because your enemies forget you even exist. If you kill an enemy and send two fairies they are screwed, lol. Using light or shadow magic on daggers is fun as well.