A "Thank You" Letter to everyone who worked on "Castlevania Lords Of Shadow "

Castlevania Has always been a part of my life , I remember back when I used to play the Old Castlevania games (Castlevania 1 -2 -3 -4 dracula X) , I Used to enjoy every little Second of them , Then came Symphony Of the night , the game that most fans consider the best in the series .

And it was a masterpiece , No one can deny that , but through the years , Castlevania Kinda became stale , and had nothing new , it felt like a recycled SOTN over and over again ( Even though they were good games ) with new characters , The series starting losing it’s soul , people started to not care about it , And it was indeed sad for me .

But then in E3 2009 , something happened , something that I will never forget , A Castlevania Reboot was announced , and it was called “Castlevania : Lords Of Shadow” And from the very first trailer , I knew right away this was the castlevania I want , the reboot the series deserves

It reminded me of the Old castlevania’s , It wasn’t just focused on the castle , instead it focused on the whole adventure . And the gothic design and feeling was just so amazing .

I kept waiting for it , waiting and waiting and waiting , Until it was released , in October 2010

I Bought the game , and I was filled with excitement , Played it non stop , reached the end and finished the game , I Really loved it , But I kinda felt sad that there wasn’t Dracula or other story elements from the old ones … But that all changed with the scene after the credits .

For the first time in the series , I Actually felt sad for Dracula , For all the things he went through that lead him into darkness in the end , They created the perfect Dracula , They created the perfect story and gave it a deep mythology .

And from that very moment , I knew castlevania was in the right hands , because they knew what Castlevania Meant , they’ve made a perfect reboot , a reboot that is worthy of the name Castlevania .

Amazing Artistic design , Top notch story and writing , Mindblowing Music and graphics , Breathtaking Gothic Atmosphere .

Mercurysteam – Dave Cox – Enric Alvares – Konami – and everyone who had anything with lords of shadow , Thank you , Thank you so much for making one of the Best Reboots ever , Thank you for Bringing Castlevania Back to life , Thank you for making The Perfect Dracula , Thank you for adding your touch to Castlevania , You can’t believe how much it means to me what you’ve done , I Will always support you and Castlevania Lords of shadow , and I can’t wait to get Lords of shadow 2 , and I will get every new product you make , because you have proved yourselves worthy , I wish lots of studios and people like you were in the industry , we would have lots and lots of masterpieces .

This is a letter from a Saudi Arabian Castlevania Fan (@Malik_Zubailah) to  Mercury steam – Dave Cox – Enric Alvares – Konami – and everyone who worked in Castlevania Lords Of Shadow

Thank you for making this reboot , it means a lot to me to see Castlevania treated like this .

Beyond : Two Souls - Review

Beyond : Two Souls is an interactive action adventure games from "Quantic Dreams" , The same studio that brought to you "Heavy Rain" And "Indigo Prophecy" , which are  known for delivering amazing adventure games with top-notch storytelling , But is Quantic Dream's latest creation as good as their old games ??

So Beyond : Two Souls tells the story of "Jodie Holmes" a little girl born with a strange power (She calls it a curse) , Being connected with an entity called "Aiden" . 

So being with her all the times , they begin to develop this kind of relationship together , and throughout the game , you can really feel the character growth in the game , from the start of Jodie's Life , till the end if the game 

The game is told in what i would like to call a weird chronological order , it felt kinda random at the beginning , and it takes you out of the mood , sometimes when you're too much into a specific part of the story that is set in the future life of Jodie , and then in the next chapter it just takes you out of the mood because it'll be set in a past chapter in the story of Jodie's life , which was kinda annoying . 

Also the story Felt "Unfocused" At some parts of the game .

But the performance of all the characters really make up for the game's Weird Narrative , In terms of voice acting and motion capture , Not just Ellen Page (Jodie) And Willem Dafoe (Nathan) , But all the other characters that you will meet in the game , And as a result of their performance and top notch Writing  , They really deliver an Emotionally Engaging experience . 

One of the game's Powerful and emotional scenes 

One of the things that i really liked was the Musical score made by both "Hanz Zimmer" And "Lorne Balfe" , It was so moving and fit the tone of the game perfectly 

Jodie Holmes 

Let's talk about the gameplay now , Anyone who played Heavy rain before will probably have a good idea of how Quanitic Dream's games works and will probably have a good idea how Beyond works , but Here's the interesting part 

Beyond presents a new Innovative game Mechanic that i really liked , which is controlling Aiden  , and controlling aiden really felt  smart and Impressive , you can use him to help Jodie in specific sequences , and also to interact with the world from his Point of view . 

as for the rest parts of the gameplay , it's the usual Quanitc dream's gameplay , making choices that will affect the overall story , but here's the catch , Quantic dream tried to make a new game mechanic for the Action sequences , Which pushing the right direction in the controller same as the direction Jodie is going to move to or attack to or defend to , But it felt Kinda repetitive and Uninspired , also the game suffers from Meaningless QTE's at some points of the game , i don't want to spoil anything , but i'm pretty sure you will know it when you see it .

But i have to praise the Action Sequences that had both Jodie and aiden in the same time , they were very intense and awesome , i personally really loved it .

Back to the story , What i really liked about it , is the approach Quantic Dream took for the whole game , which was filled with supernatural stuff , which i really liked , Because they try to combine Both 2 aspects which are "Realism" And "Supernaturalism" . And it resulted in a story that had a problem in it's Narrative but had top notch writing , Emotionally Engaging Sequences , And an amazing ending that was perfect for the mood of the game .

Finallly i would like to talk about the Graphics and visuals of the game , and i gotta say , Good job Quantic dream ! , They really blew me away with the graphics and visuals , even at some particular scenes , the game feels like it's running on Next Gen Hardware , which is amazing , But the only thing that i didn't like was the Facial movement , which had some weirdness in it , the same problem Heavy rain had , But it really doesn't affect the Mindblowing overall graphics and visuals , Kudos to Quantic Dream !

So to end this Review , Beyond : Two souls is an amazing Interactive action adventure game , and another successful Quantic dream game , That delivers a well written story that is both captivating and smart 

But it's totally not for everyone .

VERDICT : 

PROS : 

+ An emotionally engaging story and ending

+Beautiful Graphics and performance 

+Amazing Soundtracks 

+Smart game mechanics 

Cons :

-A Weird chronological order that takes you out of the mood

-some very stupid QTE's 

-Action sequences could have been better (But there are some good ones)

Written By : Abdulmalik Zubailah 

Welcome to Geeky POV

Hi everyone and welcome to Geeky Point Of View
In this blog , i'll be sharing my thoughts on new Video games releases (Reviews)
So please enjoy