Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

Dark Times Need a Dark Hero!

NA release: 5th October 2010
EU release: 8th October 2010
JP release: 16th December 2010
Developer: MercuryStream
Publisher: Konami
Eurogamer Review: 8/10
Platforms: 360, PS3, PC
Version Played: PC

With the home console Castlevania games not going down all too well, and sales dwindling for the handheld games, Konami decided a fresh start was in order, creating a brand new reboot that told a completely new plotline. Igarashi, who had been the head of Castlevania for a while, was sidelined (and eventually left Konami). Developers MercurySteam – a fairly new developer who would later develop Metroid Dread – pitched an idea for a 3D hack n slash game to Konami, and the legendary Hideo Kojima convinced Konami to let them make it as a Castlevania game.

And this ends up feeling like a completely different franchise, focusing far less on gothic horror and more on generic fantasy. You’ll still fight lots of gruesome monsters, but when you start the game, you’ll not really recognise anything Castlevania in this. You play as Gabriel Belmont, who works for a group called the Brotherhood of Light. He’s looking into why God has been cut off, with no soul allowed to enter heaven, and seeks to defeat three special monsters to restore the God Mask and fix this connection. There’s an immense amount of plot in this one, with lots of long cutscenes and a ton of dialogue.

And, to be fair, it’s actually quite good. Gabriel is voiced by Robert Carlyle and fits the role well, while he occasionally teams up with Zobek, voiced by the wonderful Patrick Stewart (so you have Stargate and Star Trek), who also provided a surprisingly long narration at the start of every level (all 46 of them). Along with the supporting cast, they all do a great job at bringing the characters to life and I enjoyed the story of the main game. That said, some bosses and enemies have really annoying voices, especially when they mock you repeatedly as you try to work something out.

The gameplay is a God of War style fighter, with Gabriel using a whip embedded into a cross. Combat is fluid and a lot of fun, and there’s a ton of combos to unlock. You’ll also get new abilities throughout the game, such as a dash and a double jump, although the main ones are Light and Shadow magic. Activating light magic allows you to heal yourself with attacks, while shadow magic does more damage. You recharge from orbs that enemies drop and you can choose which one is recharged. You’ll have to use these tactically as you need them, and it’s a really great setup.

One thing that is annoying with combat is the reliance on quick time events. Luckily, there are only two types: one is two circles where you have to press any button when the larger one goes smaller than the static circle, and the other is mashing a specific face button. The mashing is very easy, but the timed ones can really sneak up on you in cutscenes.

You’ll also find levels that focus on either platforming or puzzles. The platforming is quite similar to Uncharted and, for the most part, works white well – using multiple abilities later on for large jumps can be a bit wonky, but the punishment for a fall is very mild. The puzzles can be full-on logic puzzles, or just pressing switches in a certain order. There’s even a chess-like game that you get to play at some point. Many can be a bit long winded, but there’s always a scroll nearby that lets you see the answer at the cost of the experience points you would have gotten from the puzzle.

The middle part of the game is really the main Castlevania bit – bringing the Gothic Horror back vibes a bit, this has you fighting vampires in a town before working through their castle to meet the head vampire in the throne room, where you’ll meet a familiar face – just not the one you’d expect. The other Lords of Shadow are also based on Castlevania characters, as the final one is Death and the first is a werewolf called Cornell (although the character is completely different from the Legacy of Darkness Cornell).

One big issue I had with Lords of Shadow is that it’s just too long. Many sections are just really drawn out and you’re ready for the game to end long before it does, with the combat becoming stale. Even worse is that the game has a load of pointless padding, sections where you have to hunt for keys or multiple different occasions where an imp-like creature steals all your abilities and you have to hunt them down. It’s bad enough when a game is trying to reach a certain length, but just insane when the game would still be too long with them removed. It just kills the pacing of every single chapter.

Once you’ve beaten the game and its bittersweet ending, there’s also the DLC to contend with, which tells the story of Gabriel Belmont’s descent into darkness. You first get a really confusing cutscene set in the modern day (a trailer for the sequel) before seeing part of this journey. The DLC is notably lower budget, with a rather unremarkable final cutscene and is filled with annoying moments. At least it’s short.

While it doesn’t feel like a Castlevania game, and it drags on a bit too much, Lords of Shadow is still fun to play with engaging combat and an interesting, well acted, story. I do think it would have been better sticking with Lords of Shadow (just changing Gabriel’s surname), as that would have been better received. At least there’s plenty of beautiful, cinematic shots to marvel at throughout.

Fun

So even though the wait continues for a 3D Castlevania that truly matches the elegance, complexity and spatial intelligence of the 2D games, this is a polished and enjoyable blast of musty Gothic action in its own right. In the future, we can only hope that a developer finds a way to deliver more of the core series components – of buildings that you piece together through exploration, of back-tracking that never seems like a chore.
Christian Donlan, Eurogamer

Remake or remaster?

The current version is fine.

Official Ways to get the game

Lords of Shadow is available on PC and Xbox.