Maturation and Acceptance

I’m a fairly outspoken person. When someone says something I don’t like or agree with, I usually tend to spout off my counterpoint without them asking. It’s a bad habit, but I always deemed myself to be a fair and reasonable person, so I avoid purely bashing on other people’s ideas.

But when it comes to games, I’ve gotten into a bad habit of hating things and assuming I’m right. Now, when my friend let me borrow the latest Castlevania game, “Lords of Shadow”, I wasn’t expecting much. To my surprise and his, I absolutely hated the game.

But why do I feel bad about it? Before starting my journey, my friend let me know that he loved the game. He personally thought it was great and, despite a few awkward sections, was worthy of owning. He even gave me stories of his time at GameStop where he recommended the game and people praised him afterwards.

I figured the same would happen for me. There have been plenty of games I was indifferent about at first that became classics in my eyes, so why not this? Well, to me, the game is a broken mess of bad camera angles, poor collision detection, horrid pacing and overly cryptic story elements.


The graphics are exceptional, though.

My friend loved it, though. So, where did I miss this action classic? He’s not wrong in his opinion, either, but I’m finding it hard to believe he didn’t notice some of the problems this game exhibits.

Did he not notice that your combat roll does nothing? You can literally roll under an attack and still be hit by it, which is asinine. How about that enemies take no hit stun? What’s the point of that devastating combo when enemies will just interrupt you?

I can’t say every aspect of the game was a failure for me. Some of the music I did truly enjoy. This track in particular is entirely absorbing to me:



But then this song is a complete rip off of “God of War”:



The game, to me, just feels like a poor man’s example of modern action gaming. You can’t even control the camera, for fuck’s sake. It’s infruriating. But when I try to see it through my friends I, I do see that a good game exists under the layers of bad.

See, before this title, I never would have accepted a different opinion. My friend and I disagree on a lot of games. For instance, he dislikes Mario and it’s a personal favorite of mine. I loathe “Assassin’s Creed”, but those games are amazing to him.

We even have different views on both of our favorite series of all time; Zelda (though strangely, we both think Wind Waker is the best). He argues that Ocarina isn’t as great as people claim and I tell him that’s blasphemous (it is a tiny bit).

Maybe I’ve finally matured. I always preached that I was accepting and open minded, but I never really put that into practice. “Lords of Shadow” taught me that different opinions can be valid, regardless of how asinine I may think they are.

I may never understand what people see in films like “Top Gun” or why someone would willfully listen to Ke$ha, but maybe they’re on to something. If you can freely enjoy your own things and not be an abrasive jerk about things you dislike, why can’t I?

So, thank you Konami and Kojima. Even though I hate your game, I do understand that people will love it. Hell, I even enjoyed moments of it, so I guess that’s a plus. While I may stumble with accepting opinions in the future, know that you guys really put things in perspective for me.


Maybe my friend is plotting this...nah...