Okay, I played SotN, AoS, DoS, PoR, and OoE, and knowing all of those acronyms like the back of my hand doesn't make me snooty in the least.
But I did just play the demo, and that was really...underwhelming. Are they really better in the full retail, because you're right, the controls are a little sloppy in the demo, and I was not thrilled with the framerate either. And the graphics weren't great either--- it seems like they had a good engine to start with, so it could have looked great, but they got a 14-year old to do the textures.
I totally don't mind the God-Of-War-ness, but these are issues....
I agree. When I see a game with "Castlevania" on the box then I expect it to play like a Castlevania game. Instead this is God of Castlevania (or Castlevania of War). The controls in the demo were very sloppy and the gameplay was more irritating than fun. Whoever decided to add quick time events to boss fights needs to take a game design course that wasn't written in 1995.
And to the people claiming that the demo isn't representative of the final game and you shouldn't judge the game based on the demo...who's fault is that. The entire purpose of a demo is to entice people into purchasing the full product. If a developer releases a crap demo to a game and people judge the game based on the demo, the developer is 100% at fault.
I didn't see any framerate issues and the 3D looked pretty...but I'm not slogging my way through a $40 game for 10 hours simply because it looks nice.
To each his own.