Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
PlayStation 3
Nostalgia Factor:
I purchased this game years and years ago, telling myself I would get around to playing it "someday". I would say this had been sitting on my shelf for a good six or seven years before that mythical someday finally came. When I fired this game up, I was astonished to see that it was actually ten years old, having been released in 2010.
I knew nothing about this game, other than that I'd heard its gameplay was similar to God of War or Dante's Inferno. I like those games, so I was relatively optimistic I would like this one too.
So, would I? Let's find out.
Story:
It is going to be a struggle for me to explain this game's storyline to you. Let me just be upfront: I paid this game's story almost no attention whatsoever. Video games have a certain window of opportunity to get me invested in their stories, and this game lost my interest very, very early on. You are thrust into the action too quickly, and little to no details are given to you about the main character or the lore of the world. The whole game is just you moving from one action set piece to the next, battling demonic creatures and boss enemies. There are custscenes where the game's story is explained a bit more, but I found them to be a bit too fast moving - and with no background info on the character or the world of the game I just couldn't muster the energy to become interested in what was happening. Everything sounded like a bunch of gibberish to me.
My basic, BASIC interpretation of the game is that you play as one of the first, if not the very first Belmonts in existence. He is a member of some kind of ancient order dedicated to battling and destroying evil monsters (or something). His wife is killed and he makes it his mission to defeat all the bad guys so he can assemble some mask pieces that will bring her back to life. I don't freaking know. What I do remember is that - SPOILER ALERT! - the dude helping you out for most of the game is actually bad, and you have to defeat him at the end of the game.
Stay tuned after the credits as the game moves into the modern era with a big, shocking twist. I know this game has a sequel. Does it take place in the present day? Maybe someday if I ever play it I will find out.
Gameplay:
I already mentioned that this game has been compared to God of War, and from the moment I turned it on I could easily see why. Your whole moveset is very comparable to the PS2 and PS3 God of War titles. You move the same, you jump the same, you climb the same, you walk over wooden planks the same, you fight the same, your combos are the same, the QTEs are the same, the level of violence and gore is the same, even some of the puzzle elements are the same. So if you like God of War, I should see no reason why you wouldn't like this one.
There are a few major differences worth highlighting. You earn light and dark magic as you play, and how you utilize this magic greatly affects your experience. Equip light magic in battle, and every blow you land fills your health gauge. Use dark magic in battle to have your attacks pack an extra large wallop. Strategically switching back and forth between these two magics is key to mastering this game's combat. You can also pick up items to use in combat along the way: throwing knives, fairies that distract your opponents, holy water grenades, and a dark crystal that summons a truly horrifying creature onto the field of battle to damage your enemies.
While some puzzle elements (like pushing blocks around, rearranging mirrors to reflect beams of light around the room, etc) are repeated - this game does have some relatively challenging puzzles that took me a while to figure out. It's not often a game stumps me, but I had to look online for help many, many times as I played.
While this game leans heavily on God of War for inspiration, a few of its boss battles lean on a separate old-school PS2 game as well: Shadow of the Colossus. As you make your way through the game's story you'll encounter some mammoth sized bosses that you have to climb to take down. You have to grab and hold on as the enemy tries to shake you off, and then take advantage when you can and approach the enemy's weak spot, a blue glowing symbol that you have to stab over and over again with your sword. Sound familiar? It's not even trying to pretend it isn't ripping Shadow of the Colossus off!
You gain experience points as you play, and you can use these points to learn new combos, moves, and attacks. An interesting thing about this game is that as you play you are going to encounter doors and obstacles that you cannot pass. You have to come back later on in the game after you've learned the proper move that you need in order to access the area you were trying to get into. I'll admit, I never bothered to come back and look for things I missed as that would have required me coming back and playing almost every single level over again to get everything: and I don't have time for that shit. If you are a super dedicated player, however, I can see that this might add a ton of replay value to the game for you.
Graphics:
This game looks FANTASTIC. I can't believe it is a 10 year old PS3 game. It looks better than some games I've played in recent memory (*cough cough Nier: Automata *cough cough). The vibrant color scheme, the detailed stages, the grotesque monsters that you fight, the giant cinematic boss battles: everything looks great. The human character models look really good too (although I personally think Gabriel looks like a douchey frat boy sometimes). The world of this game is very atmospheric. Even though I don't know much about this game's world, it is brought to life masterfully. The amount of detail poured into it is truly remarkable. My wife doesn't normally comment on the video games I play, but even she had to point out how much she loved the look of this game and how cool she thought its graphics to be.
Sound:
This game sounds really good too! Great musical score, great sound effects, just an overall highly cinematic quality to the game's sound. The voice acting is for the most part pretty decent. Any time you can get Patrick Stewart to lend his voice to a game is a major win for the developer. I do have a complaint though: I think they may have wasted Patrick's talents in this game. Too often it sounds like he is phoning it in and/or reading from a script. With the other characters this isn't as bad or as noticeable, but with an actor of Patrick's quality it becomes glaringly obvious. I've never been more disinterested in a Patrick Stewart role in my life. And I don't think he has either!
Overall:
This game surprised me in a good way. I expected a corny and generic God of War clone, but I got a lengthy, engaging, and quite fun title instead. I may even go as far as to say that I liked this more than any of the first three mainstream titles in the God of War series, although the first God of War holds sentimental value for me. It would be one thing if Lords of Shadow ripped those games off and didn't do it in a way that was fun or entertaining - but it does the complete opposite and actually improves upon the formula. Throw in some challenging puzzles and challenging combat sequences, and the game made me a big fan! So many games are way too easy these days. I liked the challenge that Lords of Shadow brought to the table. I was always wanting to push on and see what they had in store for me next.
The game is long, too. Since this is so similar to God of War I expected a ten hour story, if that. I am not sure how long this game ended up being, but with 13 chapters filled with stages that can be quite lengthy and challenging, I always got the impression that this was much longer than any God of War game I had played. If I had gone back and collected everything I missed, it would have added hours and hours of additional gameplay for my enjoyment as well. But I didn't do that. Maybe someday in the future if I ever come back to this?
So yeah, good game! I have to say I am pleasantly surprised. I've grown a little sick of the tried and true God of War formula in recent years, but this game takes what is so fun about those games and improves upon it in its own special way. It's long, it's challenging, it's beautiful to look at. If only it had a more interesting story, one that tied into "Castlevania as I know it" in literally ANY way, shape, or form. It's almost like it isn't even a Castlevania game at all, it was something new or original and last minute they changed the character's name to Belmont and slapped Castlevnia on the title screen to sell more copies. I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly what happened, actually. But I'm not going to research it because I have bigger and better things to do.
Bottom line: this is a fun game and if you are at all interested in the hack and slash genre, I would check this out. If you are an old school Castlevania fan and you are expecting this to be like the old games, but moved into the 3D realm, you may come away disappointed. If so, just play the game. It may win you over after all.
Final Score:
B+
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