Nintendo

Just been replaying Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, but I very much doubt the sequel is what they're working on.

First game - amazing art, very imaginative, solid gameplay, great engine, pretty decent plot, good level design with a reasonable balance between fighting, exploration, and puzzling. A bit flawed - gameplay-wise, the camera hates you, you're a liability in the air, and it takes far too long to get given your basic equipment - and it's also far too QTE and exposition heavy, assumes that you've an attention span of about four seconds before you need a reminder. But it was the style at the time, and it's a great game, especially in the second half.

Sequel sorts out your bad air controls and gives you your weapons up-front. Retains the awesome art and design in the Castlevania sections, but contrasts them with the boring-as-fuck awful 'city' levels where you spend most of your time. Includes far too many lengthy instant-fail sections where you're sneaking about as rats, or hiding behind pillars from some dudes - I'm Dracula, for fuck's sake. Voice actors all sound bored to be there. Still assumes that you're a goldfish that loves doing QTEs. Could also make a great game by only including half of it, but unfortunately the good bits are mixed in with the shite bits, rather than having a slow start and a strong finish.

Really interested to see what they're going to do - rarely have I seen a developer that can achieve such great things, but execute on them so badly, and fail to recognise what needs to be left on the cutting room floor.