Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Graphics:
Opening with some cut-scenes as many games do, I was slightly disappointed with the graphics. While for the most part they were beautiful, great scenery and fine details, there is a sub-par looking rendering of water, hair, cloth, and facial definition that took it down a couple of pegs. After putting several hours in with the game though I was greatly pleased to find that the actual gameplay is gorgeous. The environments are rich and imaginative, comparisons to Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth have been mentioned periodically to which I'd agree. For the most part many of the areas fit the feel of Castlevania despite a couple of stinkers, but if you took the more traditional Castlevania castle and simply spread its locations around then the better half of the game feels appropriate.

Sound:
Lords of Shadow has been knocked here and there for not feeling much like Castlevania, a sentiment I don't personally share at large, but I'd so far have to agree with in regards to the score.

The music is, as far as I can tell, high quality orchestrated music.My personal 'problem' lies in what I feel is a failure to maintain the heart of what Castlevania music was. There were no cheesy electric guitar symphonies, no eerie choir, and really not a lot of blood boiling music.The music never once stood up and demanded attention. There are most certainly songs recycled from the past but they have been re-tooled to what I would call a more generic sound. This will probably go both ways for fans of the series, some may appreciate the progression of the music, and others may find themselves waxing poetic about the good ol' days along with me.

The voice acting is good; you get typical Patrick Stewart along with some serviceable performances from everybody else. Generally you're only going to be dealing with it in cut-scenes and I think the storytelling there is good enough. Again I think the not-quite-right character models mar the delivery more than the actors themselves. There is however sporadic occurrences of NPCs nagging you through the levels which can be nerve grating when all you're trying to do is explore.

General:
The game unfolds in chapters and stages. Individual levels present themselves in different ways, some are longer combat areas, and some are really short with only a boss fight, and so on. Each individual level has a completion percentage which can ultimately be maxed out by playing the level on max difficulty, finding all of the hidden objects (which is tracked, nice), and completing a trial for that level. Out of the gate you can access 3/4 visible difficulties (don't know if there's any 'secret' difficulty) and switch them on the fly so as you progress and backtrack you can flesh out some of that completion if that tickles your fancy.

It took me roughly 15 hours to beat the game on normal with relatively minimal backtracking.I'd say I skipped probably ? - 1/3 of various unlockables and skipped over the challenges entirely.I'm thinking I probably have 5-10 hours more of gameplay to get the missed items and probably much more than that in challenges.The game has its hairy moments on normal but a person looking for a challenge could probably start off on Knight difficulty without too much added frustration.

The camera can be highly problematic at times.Nine times out of ten it's going to be fine but in the one time when it isn't the frustration can be high.Some of the more minor things are a constant jitter to the camera and a poor correction to the analog controls as you switch areas but the single most irritating to me were enemies hanging out of your field of view.The enemies being out of view typically wasn't a problem but there were a couple of boss fights which forced me to play conservatively because of the camera which kind of took my head out of the fight.It's not game breaking, and turning on enemy life bars helps a lot, but it's certainly what I'd call a problem with the game.

Achieves/trophies aren't too crazy, basically finish the game 100% (or 110% as the games suggests). I personally have no desire to play on higher difficulties unless I uncover some incentive for doing so but it looks like even a normal play should be able to get the majority of them.

Combat:
The core of the combat is Gabriel's weapon, the combat cross which I'm just going to call a whip. With your whip you have direct attacks mapped to a button and area attacks to another which you can string together in various ways as you unlock combos to execute... er combos. It's very straight forward, a little button-mashy, but since the two attack types perform in very different situations you'll generally be methodically timing one or the other. Many of the combos manifest themselves in a situational sense such as direct attacking after a grab, charging an area attack, and so on. I feel this contributes greatly to avoiding an indiscriminate faceroll of the controller since most combos have a pretty particular use and using it is mainly a matter of timing and positioning.

In addition to Gabriel's whip you have secondary weapons and magic. All of the secondary weapons have a primary function but can also unlock additional abilities and combos. The magic is used sort of like combat states; you can hop in and out of light mode or dark mode provided you have enough energy to use attacks while in either. In their raw form light mode causes your attacks to heal you and dark mode causes your attacks to do more damage but their use doesn't end there. Each school has its own unlockable skills, which are quite powerful, but they can also be combined with certain secondary weapons. As an example you get fairies as a sub-weapon which serve as a distraction tool but when used in light magic mode they become seeking kamikaze fairies. The secondary weapons have limited uses and require occasional replenishment from kills and the environment. Your magical energy is replenished either from kills, fighting well and filling out your focus meter, or refilling at neutral energy wells. It's also worth noting that you can over-charge your magic up to an additional full bar but this bar will deplete itself over time regardless of whether you use it or not.

In addition to the magic and sub-weapons Gabriel gets a small handful of additional relics.Some of these also serve as weapons or lend more combat abilities but they have more nuanced uses and can be a little difficult to effectively use in combat at times.They generally grant you some very cool moves but I personally found it difficult to find much reason to use them over the whip but it was nice to have them available for situational opportunity.

Certain enemies also open up opportunities when weak to execute them via a simple button sequence while others can be ridden which is generally a progression tool. Riding a troll for example will let you smash walls, and you can certainly fight with it, but you're pretty caged in with the creatures you're allowed to ride making them have limited use as a mount. It's fun, it's there, but as I said it's mostly used as a tool to access new areas.

Platforming:
It's about what you'd expect I guess, lots of climbing and swinging. To me it feels mostly like a segue from one combat to another, which is fine because finding your way around is fun, but there doesn't really seem to be a lot of danger in doing it which adds to a sense of going through the motions. So far the majority of my failures in getting around have been to poorly defined barriers of where you can go or jumping in a pit because I didn't see a really obvious exit. Failing in the platforming isn't instant death, you just respawn at the last solid point you were on and take a bit of damage.Only if you repeatedly fail or find yourself low on life already will you actually die from a failed jump.

Periodically you will be fighting titans which are really big bosses done Shadow of the Colossus style. You enter these fights and you're tasked with scaling the creature and attacking specific weak points. One could almost consider the platforming before these guys to be practice of sorts. You'll be using all of your jumping/swinging/climbing skills in conjunction with quick time events to methodically disable the titan as you traverse its body. It's quite a bit of fun but again it feels more like a game of memory and less like there's any real risk of dying.

Story:
It wasn't New York Times Best Seller material but I was certainly engaged from start to finish and towards the end my desire to unfold the next chapter ramped up so I'd call it a success.The ending wasn't what I expected at all, and I'm still gathering my opinions on how I feel about it, but it will certainly have Castlevania fans talking I believe. Be sure watch through the credits (assuming there's an option to skip).

Pros:
Gorgeous gameplay
Good voice acting
Fun to play

Cons:
The camera can be weird at times

In closing I'm a big fan of Castlevania and I enjoyed the game a lot.It's a genre that doesn't find its way in to my house much but I had a blast playing this.If you're coming in to this game after having played the numerous similar games to come out this year it may be prudent to find a more discerning opinion on how this compares to other games in the genre but I assure you this was a very well done and fun game right out of the gate.I'd strongly recommend this game.

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Product Description:

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is a single player Action-Adventure game developed as a reimagining of the classic Castlevania mythology. An entirely modern action console game, Lords of Shadow combines fast-paced weapons and magic based combat against otherworldly enemies, with platforming and puzzle-solving gameplay, to create a fresh gameplay experience that will thrill both fans of the original game series and gamers more rooted in modern action games.

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