Castlevania: Lords of Shadow: A Review by Sean Valjean

[Sean Valjean]

Devolper(s): MercurySteam/Kojima Productions
Publisher: Konami
Platforms: Playstation 3, Xbox 360
Release: October 5, 2010​

“Die monster! You don’t belong in this world!”- Richter Belmont, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

That’s what my thought has been for every 3D Castlevania I’ve played. While other traditionally 2D games such as Mario and Zelda have found success in the third dimension, Castlevania has struggled. Several mediocre attempts have taught fans to be wary of any three-dimensional adventure to come from the legendary franchise. For this recent attempt, the developer smartly took a step back and studied their competition as well as their past games. They saw what worked and what didn't, and implemented it into their game while tossing in some original ideas of their own. Well, they need not worry any longer because Lords of Shadow doesn’t just get 3D right; it knocks it out of the park.

You take on the role a new Belmont in the series named Gabriel, a member of the Brotherhood of Light who’s on a mission to restore a world that has been cut off from heaven, allowing an invasion of all manner of unholy and dangerous creatures. Gabriel’s wife, Marie, was unfortunately killed in the turmoil. He his tasked with seeking out and destroying the three Lords of Shadow to retrieve pieces of ancient, holy artifact said to have the power to not only restore peace to world but also resurrect his lost love. The religious undertones and themes of light, darkness, and search for redemption might seem predictable at first but the story takes some unexpected twists along the way, freshening the premise up and only rarely does it border on being cheesy. The tale is well written and expertly paced (though the final boss does kinda come out of nowhere), and is backed by some solid voice work including the talent of Sir Patrick Stewart, who also narrates the tale. As great as this story is, it pales in comparison to the absolute shocker of a finale, which alone is worth the price of admission.

The amount of detail is stunning​

The first thing you’ll notice immediately is how gorgeous this game is. Everything is beautifully rendered and looks as clean and crisp as can be and the amount of detail in both the environments and characters models is breathtaking. (Even if the characters do look a little like action figures.) You’ll find yourself admiring the attractive gothic art style just as much as you are slaying the forces of darkness. Though he only had an advisory role in the game’s development, Hideo Kojima’s influence can be seen in the games highly cinematic and beautifully animated cutscenes.

As a reboot, the series ditches some old conventions and annoyances of the past to attract new fans while still retaining some key elements that longtime fans will appreciate. You won’t be whipping candles for hearts or walls for roast beef and turkey. Health is distributed by more standard health stations and hooray for checkpoint-based saves! The traditional sub weapon has been changed to fit four different assist items instead of one. You can carry daggers, holy water, and even a crystal capable of summoning a super demon Final Fantasy style. While these are helpful additions, their use isn’t encouraged very much. There were times where I had to keep reminding myself that I had them as I found I could handle pretty much any situation with just my trusty whip.

Speaking of which, your whip (better known as Vampire Killer) is back and is more versatile than ever. In addition to giving a divine spanking to any creature that dares cross your path, you can pull enemies closer to you like Mortal Kombat’s Scorpion, allowing you to perform cool executions once they’re in your grasp. Like any good multi-tasker, the whip is upgradable, gaining different attachments during your journey. These can turn your whip into a grapple hook, allowing you to scale and rappel walls, swing across gaps, and a barbed chain used tear down barriers and deal greater damage. New combos can be unlocked by spending experience points earned from slain enemies opening more combat options to play around with. New equipment like power gauntlets and speed boots come your way as well.

Gabriel Belmont:Whipping monsters like 3-year olds in K-Mart since 2010​

The biggest additions to your arsenal are the Light and Shadow powers. Using these powers augments your abilities allowing you to perform powerful versions of your regular attacks with each side having its own effects. Attacking while Light magic is active restores your health with each blow dealt and is had powers based on distraction and health regeneration. Use its incredible light to blind and disorient enemies, leaving them open for attack. Shadow magic taps into Gabriel’s rage to increase attack damage with every swing of your whip, turning you into a fiery hurricane of destruction. These modes can be switched on and off on the fly, allowing you to jump from one to the other mid-combat to create some crazy and unique combos. These powers also upgrade your sub-weapons. Shadow daggers explode on impact and using holy water with light magic active surrounds Gabriel with a temporary shield. These powers aren’t restricted to only combat. Various puzzles require their uses or certain combination of the two to progress. It’s a cool system and it’s good to see it used prominently outside of the battlefield.

Of course, a good combat system is nothing without some interesting enemies to complement them. Luckily, Castlevania has always been good at providing a varied amount of adversaries it that carries over in this game as well. In the traditional vampire and werewolf, you’ll go toe to toe with giant spiders, trolls and necromancers, to more out-there enemies like a mechanical scorpion created by a certain Dr. Frankenstein and zombie-controlled coffin-root-spider things (trust me, it makes sense when you see them). Tack on some pretty epic boss fights, some of which are humongous. Whether it’s a vampire general or a massive, re-animated dragon corpse combat is never dull thank some great variety and creative creature design. Thankfully they left out notoriously annoying enemies like Fleamen and those damned Medusa Heads; though a recurring Chupacabra does a decent job of meeting the irritation quota.

Puzzles break the flow of combat and are well designed and devilishly clever in execution. Each one is totally unique and is a fun change of pace as opposed to being a pain in the ass. What I really like is that at the start of each puzzle, you’re given the option of unlocking the solution immediately at the small consequence of gaining the money earned from solving it yourself. It’s a great option for stumped players who just want to move on, action-oriented players who just want to bulldoze on through and for second playthroughs, since you won’t have to worry about solving a puzzle again if you forgot its solution. One memorable level has a witch shrinking you down to miniature size to retrieve a rose inside of a music box, tasking you with finding the right musical sequence to unlock the right paths and shut off traps.

Sections like this are nice nods to the series roots​

Instead of being restricted to exploring a labyrinth-like castle the whole game, you’ll be treated to a variety of locales. From cursed swamps to snowy, desolate villages the locations are never boring and change things up very well. Each level can be revisited anytime and contain hidden areas and items that can’t be accessed the first time through, encouraging thorough players to return later with new abilities to uncover new paths. After completing a level, you can earn some extra cash by taking on the trials offered upon completion. For example, you could replay an area with the goal of not using any healing items or to kill a minimum number of enemies. This extra incentive makes backtracking less of a bore and are fun tests of skills.

Not everything about this game is original. Everywhere you look, you’ll see many elements borrowed from other games. Combat is fast and combo-heavy like God of War with Gabriel’s whip replacing Krato’s chains. You’ll be scaling several-story tall behemoths searching for weak points like Wander in Shadow of the Colossus. When you’re not doing that, you’re climbing ancient ruins and medieval cathedrals as if you were some kind of Persian Prince. While the game is guilty of some heavy borrowing, it does implement these mechanics as well as its contemporaries and it doesn’t make the gameplay any less fun. I will say that this games version of the quicktime event is much more challenging than God of War’s and I might actually prefer it.

One big issued that plagued the previous 3D Castlevanias was the camera and while it’s much improved here, it still isn’t perfect. Once again borrowing from God of War, Lords of Shadow uses a fixed camera that adjusts accordingly to what’s happening on screen. While this setup works flawlessly in Kratos’ adventures, it stumbles a bit here. The camera doesn’t always situate itself where it needs to be, sometimes leaving portions of the screen out of view. The biggest offender is during fights with multiple enemies as they can be off-screen leaving you little clue to their whereabouts. I can’t begin to tell you how many cheap deaths I suffered due to an unseen enemy suddenly rushing me from some hidden off screen location. Sometimes the camera doesn’t adjust fast enough, so you’ll be stuck with an obscured view waiting for the camera to correct itself. It’s an annoyance, but these issues don’t occur super often and are only a slight damper to an otherwise great experience.

Lords of Shadow is the Castlevania we didn’t think was possible: It proves that the franchise can find success outside of a 2D plane. With a satisfying battle system, clever puzzles and stunning graphics, a great story and an ending that made my head explode, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow proves that if you keep at it long enough, eventually you’ll get it right.

Final Score: 9/10

Random Thoughts

-Seriously, that Chupacabra is annoying. Why can't I murder the bastard?!

-In this day and age, it's refreshing to see vampires that are actually terrifying. And don't sparkle. And are harmed by sunlight. And...*Begins Rant*