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Forums - Gaming - Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is great. Let's talk about it.

Khuutra on 02 January 2011
KylieDog said:
Khuutra said:

I apologize if it seems like I'm harping on you about this, but this is for the benefits of everyone else, too. Here are some numbers on this point:

The first two hits in your combo do 25 and 35 damage, for a total of 60.

Subsequent hits do 40, 45, and then 60, bringing your total up to a respectable 205. You triple your damage with those few extra hits.

Your counter ability does 45, 60, 70, and 70. That's 255 damage just for countering, and the counter takes about as much time as the two-hit you've been doing the whole time.

This is just one example of how you can be a lot more efficient by figuring out how to lengthen your combos.

I know the intended benefit of long combos, but I think is is wasted in actual execution a majority of the time on hardest especially when you start doing one the enemy will do a unblockable/uncounterable attack, the only option you have is to dodge it, breaking the combo.  Stuns do not last an entire combo and are ended with the first hit, it even says so in the description.

It also makes no sense the guard breaker moves are the final hit of heavy combos since the enemies do the unblockable even more if you bash on them while blocking.  From my hardest run experience doing a bunch of short combos folowed by a dodge and another short combo and repeating takes you through the game a lot faster than trying to long combo and needing abandone it 80% of the time since you open yourself up for attack too much and only 2 hits from many enemies can kill.

Anyway, I got the plat since first posting in this thread and I think I have no reason to ever play this game again.  There just isn't anything to do.  Two playthroughs it took only and a repeat of only 3 additional levels for trials.

Well, I guess if you can't make it work then you can't make it work.



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Khuutra on 02 January 2011

As I mentioned before, they start doing that more and more often when you continue to use the same combo constantly. Some enemies use unblockables more often than others (particularly bosses), but none of them use them as often as their normal attacks unless you don't change up your combo routine a little bit.

Countering and mixing up between air combos and ground combos keeps them on their toes - and as has been mentioned before, certain ground combos knock smaller enemies away.

Blindness goes away with the first hit, but stun animations take a lot longer than that to get through, which is (except for their cooldown frames after big attacks) the best time to get in a decent-length combo. Countering takes as long as the one-two hits you like but does quadruple the damage.

If an enemy is small, you can probably roast the lot of them with a holy water, but small enemies don't have unblockable attacks anyway.

If an enemy is medium, they can be stunned by the guillotine and then taken to town. Or taken into the air and taken to town. Or stunned by Direct, Area, Area - or Area, Direct Direct (I like that combo). Yes, sometimes your combo will be interrupted, but there are other combos besides your default that do more DPS in a smaller timeframe, and most medium enemies are stunned by the opening few hits anyway (except for things like Skeleton Knights, they might need a Holy Water).

If the enemy is big, they're slow enough that you're going to murder them with counters and various combos anyway.

This is true of every enemy in the game. The only ones that begin to be problematic are the Greater Lycanthropes, who need a much more intense Counter treatment than the norm.

Again: if they're using unblockables that much, it's because you are using the same combo too often. This is mentioned in-game via a scroll.



S.T.A.G.E. on 02 January 2011
KylieDog said:
Khuutra said:
KylieDog said:

- The combo system I feel is wasted since while you're busy comboing an enemy it'll ignore the fact it is being hit after about 2-3 hits and just attack you, making any long combo pretty worthless.  Game ends up square, square, dodge, square, square, dodge, square, square, dodge, square, square, dodge etc etc.  Air combos the exception but many enemies cannot be lifted for an air combo.

I apologize if it seems like I'm harping on you about this, but this is for the benefits of everyone else, too. Here are some numbers on this point:

The first two hits in your combo do 25 and 35 damage, for a total of 60.

Subsequent hits do 40, 45, and then 60, bringing your total up to a respectable 205. You triple your damage with those few extra hits.

Your counter ability does 45, 60, 70, and 70. That's 255 damage just for countering, and the counter takes about as much time as the two-hit you've been doing the whole time.

This is just one example of how you can be a lot more efficient by figuring out how to lengthen your combos.


I know the intended benefit of long combos, but I think is is wasted in actual execution a majority of the time on hardest especially when you start doing one the enemy will do a unblockable/uncounterable attack, the only option you have is to dodge it, breaking the combo.  Stuns do not last an entire combo and are ended with the first hit, it even says so in the description.

 

It also makes no sense the guard breaker moves are the final hit of heavy combos since the enemies do the unblockable even more if you bash on them while blocking.  From my hardest run experience doing a bunch of short combos folowed by a dodge and another short combo and repeating takes you through the game a lot faster than trying to long combo and needing abandone it 80% of the time since you open yourself up for attack too much and only 2 hits from many enemies can kill.

 

Anyway, I got the plat since first posting in this thread and I think I have no reason to ever play this game again.  There just isn't anything to do.  Two playthroughs it took only and a repeat of only 3 additional levels for trials.

So no DLC for you then?



Khuutra on 02 January 2011
KylieDog said:

No DLC for me, not unless it it free of priced at 99p, I may rent it again in that case.  Doubtful though.

 

@Khuutra, why you presume I do same combo over and over?    "A bunch of short combos" to quote myself, do you not read it all?

To quote you, the most efficient combo was "roll square square roll square square".

If your experience suggests that this is true then you are playing wrong. If you suggest that enemies do unblockable attacks that often without repetition of combos, then I'm going to assume your copy of the game is haunted or your own perception is considerably inflating the frequency of these attacks.



Khuutra on 02 January 2011
KylieDog said:

I never said that was most effecient I said that is all that is needed to get through most of the game, I was making a point of how shallow it is since you can get away doing it.  The NEED for long combos just does not exist.  Mixing up a bunch of short combos is all you need.

What is wrong with my opinion of Resident Evil btw, I'm a big fan but still objective, there are several games I fully dislike too.

One would assume that one would tend toward best efficiency, if the game devolves to "square square dodge square square dodge" then the game is not being played efficiently; of course you can get through the game non-optimally, but that's true of any game. Longer combos aren't necessary, but they are more effective and they make the game both more enjoyable and more dynamic.

Talking about Resident Evil would be monstrously off-topic.



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S.T.A.G.E. on 02 January 2011
KylieDog said:

I never said that was most effecient I said that is all that is needed to get through most of the game, I was making a point of how shallow it is since you can get away doing it.  The NEED for long combos just does not exist.  Mixing up a bunch of short combos is all you need.

 

What is wrong with my opinion of Resident Evil btw, I'm a big fan but still objective, there are several games I fully dislike too.


I dunno. Theres times when I've NEEDED long combos and they've served me well.



Khuutra on 02 January 2011

Anyone playing this on the 360: I don't recommend doing an install. It doesn't shorten up load times, and actually makes the cutscenes choppier.



darkknightkryta on 02 January 2011

I'm gonna have to agree with Kylie on this one; combat's too shallow or rather It's not so much the combo system itself is shallow; it's more or less the enemy design.  They don't allow you to string combos together quite often.  If you're lucky enough or use fairies, then you can string a good combo together, even pull off an air combo.  But even air combos are annoying to pull off and hard to recover from once you're in the air and leave you open, doesn't help that most enemies have an attack for you when you're in the air.   The game lacks strategy for the most part and you're relegated to short combos.



Khuutra on 03 January 2011
darkknightkryta said:

I'm gonna have to agree with Kylie on this one; combat's too shallow or rather It's not so much the combo system itself is shallow; it's more or less the enemy design.  They don't allow you to string combos together quite often.  If you're lucky enough or use fairies, then you can string a good combo together, even pull off an air combo.  But even air combos are annoying to pull off and hard to recover from once you're in the air and leave you open, doesn't help that most enemies have an attack for you when you're in the air.   The game lacks strategy for the most part and you're relegated to short combos.

This is just not true. Combos are easy to pull off when you recognize what enemies are doing, and they're supported considerably by your growing repertoire of abilities. You two are complaining about things that are factually untrue.



darkknightkryta on 03 January 2011
Khuutra said:
darkknightkryta said:

I'm gonna have to agree with Kylie on this one; combat's too shallow or rather It's not so much the combo system itself is shallow; it's more or less the enemy design.  They don't allow you to string combos together quite often.  If you're lucky enough or use fairies, then you can string a good combo together, even pull off an air combo.  But even air combos are annoying to pull off and hard to recover from once you're in the air and leave you open, doesn't help that most enemies have an attack for you when you're in the air.   The game lacks strategy for the most part and you're relegated to short combos.

This is just not true. Combos are easy to pull off when you recognize what enemies are doing, and they're supported considerably by your growing repertoire of abilities. You two are complaining about things that are factually untrue.

Combos are easy to pull off, short ones.  Longer ones can be pulled off, but not often enough, especially air combos.  Though to be fair to air combos you have to start them off in combo or else you're going to get hurt.  Hell even when you're in one, if an enemy is close enough they'll get you good breaking your combo.  Same with your long combos, they're hard to keep going cause they rarely hit a huge group of enemies and you're left wide open to attacks.  To top it off it's not easy to juggle in that game period and what repertoire?  Holding square, then holding square for the next attack and repeating that 6 times?  An enemy will swarm around and hit you in the rear trying to keep that up.  Hell most of the extra combos leave you wide open to attack.