Castlevania Lords of Shadow review

[kupomogli]

I don't think most of the reviews that speak about Lords of Shadow Mirror of Fate really do the game justice. Some of them slam the storyline since as a reboot franchise it completely changes the story, others completely focus on its faults, etc.

I've been a Castlevania fan since the NES and own every US release and when the original Lords of Shadow came out, I didn't like how they tried to portray the story, but I still played the game and as its own game, a new IP using the same character names in an entirely different storyline, I looked past the dates, the character references and thought of it as an entirely separate timeline, and with Lords of Shadow Mirror of Fate, Mercury Steam is doing service by showing that each game in their Lords of Shadow series is specifically in that timeline and doesn't do anything to the timeline that we grew up with. Lords of Shadow is my favorite PS360 game with great gameplay, story, visuals, etc.

The game is a direct sequel to the original Lords of Shadow.. Not a spinoff or anything of the sort. In the very first act you play a short tutorial with Gabriel, one year before Lords of Shadow takes place, while playing as Simon, Alucard, and Trevor all take place right after Lords of Shadow. The storyline was very good and they did well creating their own version of the series, even while including a twist in the game that fans might not like if they don't look past that it's not the same timeline.

Graphically the game is hit and miss. This is a game that I'd recommend playing in 3D if the effect doesn't bother you. In an interview, the game was developed in HD then ported for it to be playable on the 3DS, which is why there is a lot of detail in the game but that same detail looks ugly on the 3DS when playing in 2D because a lot of the background and foreground blend in together. I think Mirror of Fate has the best use of 3D than any other 3DS game I've played and looks absolutely amazing. You see much further back in the background, further back on the very path you're walking on, etc. Every single enemy and object in the game is detailed in 3D separately, so dead bodies with scrolls, chests, levers and such, will usually be on a plane behind you and you see yourself walk next to it. You'd pull metal boxes and you can see through the bars on the box behind them seeing the objects behind them. If there are statues on the walls the statues are in 3D protruding out, so the walls they're on are on a layer back. There's even one room in the game with a mirror, the Mirror of Fate, that there's a lot of depth to the room itself, but with the mirror showing a reflection it also shows the 3D effect all the way into the mirror.

Now for the gameplay, and first off there's the combat. The combat is actually very simplistic. Any review that explains it as too confusing, too hard to pull attacks off, etc, then they really don't know what they're talking about. You can access your skill menu at any time and it will tell you what skills you have. You can roll back and forth, block, jump, and when an enemy is flashing silver/white, then you can grab, all standard. With whip attacks you have your straight long range attack, square that you can hit multiple times, up to five when maxed out, your wide range attack, triangle, which is weaker but attacks in a spinning style to attack a large wide radius, maxing out at five hits, and then others you also learn. The others consist of either hitting x to pull enemies upward, holding the attack buttons down with what it tells you to to have a different attack, or continue holding down the attack further for a finisher to enact(or hold down, let go and press again to make the finish go off of your own accord.) The combat is very simple and if you look at the skills menu each level up you get, you'll see what new attack you acquired or whether an attack was upgraded.

In addition to your whip combos, your characters have sub weapons and magic. Magic is activated by hitting left or right, each character having two spells. Think of Lords of Shadow's light and dark magic for each character, although with Alucard it's slightly different than the other two characters, though similar. If you've ever played a Castlevania then you know what sub weapons are,but if not, they consist of an extra attack that can be thrown out and damage the enemy in some sort of way, which at the very beginning of the game, Simon starts with the axe. If you're not a fan of the axe in the classic CV titles, then you might be happy to know it's not similar in this title. While the axe still does make a trajectory, the trajectory is changed depending on the enemies location to your own, so probably always hit the enemy with the axe. You can press the o button once to use the sub weapon or you can hold it for a much more powerful version(damage wise, not size.)

The first act you actually play that isn't mainly a tutorial you start off as Simon. You might not like this portion too much because difficulty wise it's extremely easy. If you're fluent in the combat in any way the enemies during this act are a joke, but the boss battles during this portion of the game and the entire game for that matter are the highlight of the game. Once you play as Alucard and Trevor in the next two acts, the difficulty in combat definitely ramps up. Once finishing the game, then hardcore difficulty is unlocked which I would recommend playing. Again Simon's act was easy, because even though hardcore now allowed the enemies to kill you easily, it's not that difficult if the enemies can't hit you. One boss was actually difficult, but aside from two environmental deaths, I managed to make it through without dying on Simon's act when playing hardcore. At the end of the game though, through all acts, I died 16 environmental deaths and 17 enemy deaths, with the enemy deaths almost all of them were against bosses.

Now I'm more of a classic Castlevania fan, liking platforming far more than exploration, with Castlevania 2 and Circle of the Moon being my favorite exploration titles in the series, though not my favorite games. I think Mirror of Fate is a bit of both but it goes back to the classical style which I like best. There's the availability of backtracking as the world of Mirror of Fate is interconnected to where you can go back to multiple areas regardless of location easily, but the game has no reason to back track other than increasing max HP, MP, sub weapon ammunition, or the rare chance you need to go past an area you went to get to another area or collect items that you need to proceed. Clearing the map and getting all the upgrades, then if you ever decide to replay it, play the game in hardcore and don't worry about exploration and I think that's the best way to play the game.

Now if you've played the original Lords of Shadow, you'll know that it's exploration mechanic is much like Uncharted. They've integrated that type of style very well into this game by having a lot of platforms that you jump onto the character will grab onto and pull himself up. If you happen to be a very high height and then jump to the bottom, you might take a lot of damage and sometimes outright die if the fall is too great a height, so if you're ever backtracking, you don't want to rush your way down and fall. There's actually one area that you fill with water to get up to the top and you really never have to go back through again if you don't go back to collect everything. The Vertical Prison might be one of the best parts that show off the games platforming.

Now here are the problems with the platforming in this game, and while minor, it's still an annoyance. One issue is that early in the game when you don't have one of the artifacts for your whip you're required to climb up to a second level, then jump across an area. When you go back to that same area later in the game, if you climb down on the ledge and then look down, the ground isn't too far below. Unfortunately, dropping down to the ground will cause your character to scream as if it's too far a drop and die as soon as he hits the ground. While I think this is the only part this happens,it's an annoyance that you can't just take the little damage you should receive to get back down quickly, but rather have to go all the way around because they wanted that to be an instant death part if you didn't make the jump.

Another part similar is that some pits have spikes at the bottom. Now when you're playing normally, you can hold L and hit left or right to do a short air evade. I sometimes use this just to get an extra distance so I don't have to go all the way to the edge, or whatever, but still make whatever jump I intended. However, on this portion if you try and jump down and air dash over into the entryway you're going for, you won't be allowed to do anything and you'll fall to your death into the spikes. When you're making your way through parts like this, you are required to do what the game wants you to do. It's another annoyance as you could make it more quickly and it's not far enough of a drop to instantly die, but again, not what the game wants you to do.

The final issue I've had is the way too forgiving checkpoints. Now this issue is actually remedied a little bit if you replay the game on hardcore like I mentioned previously. If you collect all the modifiers, all the scrolls, etc, those are no longer areas that you can restart from, but even with those being taken away, the game usually restarts you at every single floor that you've completed, meaning you're less than a minute where you might have died from at any given time. During bosses it's similar, you might get an enemy down 1/4 health and have it change styles, so every time you die, you don't fight the entire boss again, you start from that point. Another reason that hardcore makes the game more enjoyable, although most bosses don't have more than two checkpoints.

Finally, while you play as three different characters, each character goes through either a separate area of the castle, or the same areas the other two characters go through but the layout is completely different, yet all still very well designed. So don't think that you'll just repeat what you did through three areas.

I really enjoyed this game and think it's easily one of the best games the 3DS has to offer. It has its flaws, but it does well in a lot of regards that those flaws can be overlooked. Since the game was developed for HD and scaled down for the 3DS, if they release a PS360 version, I'd buy the game again.