While the first Lords of Shadow enjoyed an 85 Metacritic, the sequel hasn’t fared so well. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 just managed 10th in its UK chart debut.
He says that EDGE’s low score meant most others would be highly critical because some publications ”set trends” that others ”dare not deviate much.”
Enric Alvarez gave this speech in an interview before developers from MercurySteam began coming out, albeit anonymously, to confirm reports that Alvarez and other leads descended the project into ‘development hell’, with one source saying LoS2 is a ”Frankenstein monster due to the lack of a consistent art lead.”
”This Castlevania is a weird experience because everybody has been doing their own stuff without a proper lead. Each department has been minding their own businesses without any kind of communication between teams. They deal with people like… they don’t trust you. It’s a very uncomfortable atmosphere, it’s utterly uncreative. They don’t trust anybody.”
Other anonymous employees have echoed the situation over at MercurySteam. Check out our review of the sequel.
Here’s the interview with Enric Alvarez translated from Spanish to broken English:
He was asked if one publication (EDGE) swayed others. “This is another important issue. There are a few publications that set trends and from here there are other publications that follow and dare not deviate much. The first LOS, which has a 85 on Metacritic, also got bad marks major sites, yet the game was high.”
“It is true that the Edge liked the first and this dislike. But I also find that this has happened is totally unfair. One must be blind or stupid to give it a 4/10 for a game of this quality. With a 4/10 people interpret it is a crappy game, badly done, it breaks, with mechanics that do not work with some awful graphics, and if I were an analyst would know this, which I do not think los2 a score of crappy game deserves.”
“Man, reading as what things I take on the positive side, I’m glad that as what people are writing games instead of making them. I have to take it well, otherwise I would devote to something else. But there are also people who have appreciated. Any game is a very complex work and I sometimes I find that in specialized gaming press lack professionalism to judge things for what they are and not what they wanted it to be about.”
“I agree that in the end it is an opinion, and opinion is totally respectable, but do not confuse a review and analysis. The analysis will mainly review the object and the subject will primarily reviewer. Can you say, ‘I do really like the rock but I hate the opera’, this is an opinion, not an analysis. If I had to do an analysis of ‘Don Giovanni’ would not even know where to start and this year lack of honesty in the gaming press. Lots of people analyse games and is not up for the game you analysed.”
“This is a problem because after this influences the decision to buy from people, and then also have an influence at the level of their opportunities for developers, because we are in a world in which the simplification of information is the order of day and if you can classify a developer according to the note on Metacritic for what you do. Do not misunderstand me, there are very good people writing about video games, have the opinion they have.”
“I speak very good people, for example, destroyed the first LOS. It is not about being right or wrong, it’s a matter of talking about what you have to talk. When you say in a review that the textures or the engine of a video game are not high, or that the gameplay is not up to you to know what you say. You cannot just say ‘I did not like, and as I do not like is bad’, that is an infinite arrogance.”
