Castlevania: Lords of Shadow was developed by Mercury Steam and released in 2010.
A prophecy from the Brotherhood of Light fortells of the power to destroy Satan. To acquire this power, Gabriel is sent to the Lakes of Oblivion to find out the location of the ones called the Lords of Shadow. At the lakes, Gabriel meets Zobek, another knight of his order, who was sent to help him find and defeat the Lords of Shadow.
Lords of Shadow is a level based action adventure game that uses the Tomb Raider or Uncharted style traversal system, with puzzles strewn about here and there. As you traverse through the game, a lot of areas in the environment have handholds for Gabriel to climb, shimmy across, etc. The gameplay is there more to just show off the environment of the game and has Gabriel going through caves, climbing a mountainface, etc. While you might start at the ground level in one area, as you come out at the top of that same area, the camera pans out to show just how far you've traveled. This type of gameplay is enjoyable because not only does it show off how beautiful the game is, but you're still controlling the character and exploring different pathways through the level, finding secrets and hidden items, and it also gives the player a break from combat while still making progression through the game. As you progress through the game your whip will gain new functions or you'll get new equipment, allowing you to grapple to certain points and swing across, break through weak walls, do a running jump across large gaps, etc. Sometimes you might come across an area that you don't have the correct skill, but you can replay any level wherever you're at in the game so you can go back and get those secrets when you get the required upgrade.
QTEs on this game are hit and miss. One that's used often has the player pressing any button once the larger circle is inside the smaller circle, a very simple QTE that makes it easy to keep focus on whatever storyline is going on screen, another where you grab an enemy or an enemy grabs you were you repeatedly tap the button to kill them or evade damage that's a bit annoying.
Combat in Lords of Shadow is a stylish action game. While Gabriel also has subweapons, he mainly attacks with his whip. Using more powerful straight verticle hits mainly for dealing with single opponents or wide area attacks to deal with surrounding enemies. At first you'll start off with a limited amount of attacks, such as a simple three hit attack or slashing an enemy upwards into the air to do an aerial combo, but with each enemy you kill you'll gain experience to put towards new skills in your combat reportoire. As the story progresses, you don't get new weapons, but you get different equipment and dark and light magic that allows you to learn more attacks. Additionally, when using light magic, all of Gabriel's attacks will restore his life, while all of his attacks when using dark magic will take off more damage.
In a few parts of the game you'll come across bosses that are similar to those in Shadow of the Colossus. Sort of Shadow of the Colossus lite bosses. The titans in the game are giant bosses that you have to at first wait for them to do specific attacks in order to first get on them, and then once on them, climb to their weak points and attack them until they break, evading when the titan tries to knock you off or holding on when the titan tries to shake you off. There's no endurance meter or anything so they're not very difficult as the player can take as long as they want, except when doing the challenges, but they're enjoyable for how simple they are.
The problem within the game acually comes from how much the game actually tries to do. As you get new ugrades for your whip or new pieces of equipment, you unlock new ways to progress through the game, but there are also three different beast enemies that you need to use to get through certain parts. There are a lot of different puzzles whether through traversal or at the end of each stage. There are multiple Rubik's Cube like puzzles and a unique spin on chess added into the game. These ones you can skip though. There are too many puzzles that want you to use your light and dark magic to light up a specific number of emblems. Using the wrong magic will reset all of them, so it's trial and error. One puzzle where you teleport through a gate after using a lever to revolve the gate to a different location. Another puzzle where you hit switches to turn on and off different switches allowing you to pass through points, walking back and forth between each switch turning them off and on to proceed to the next area. Between all these upgrades, beast enemies you can use, puzzles to solve, etc, you're constantly seeing tutorials throughout the first three chapters of the game and while there's less further in the game, where in my opinion the game starts getting better, these new ways to progress are scattered throughout the game all the way to the end.
The exploration, combat, and story make Castlevania Lords of Shadow a great game, if there was far less of everything else it'd be much better.
Gameplay - 7
Design - 9
Presentation - 7
Balance - 7
Overall - 7.5
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Scoring system.
1-3 - bad
4 - 5 below average
5.5 - average
6 - 10 - good to excellent
The kuporeview inflation score. What the score would be if the average game was 7/10 like IGN, Gamespot, etc. Since I don't inflate scores and my scores are underrated compared to what people come to expect I came up with an equation to inflate my scores to make them similar to others. http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=177193&page=1#1
Lords of Shadow 2 review http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=179673&page=1#
Lords of Shadow Mirror of Fate review http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=179675&page=1#
