When it was announced that the largely
unknown developers at Mercury Steam were being handed the reins of the
Castlevania series for next generation consoles, the initial reaction
among gamers was mixed. These were the same people responsible for the
much derided Castlevania Judgment for Wii. Adding to the worries, Lords of
Shadow had already been shown publicly and the new license attached
seemingly out of nowhere was another bad sign. Things got somewhat more
promising when Kojima Productions announced it would lend a helping hand.
After all these mixed signals, and a seemingly endless development
gestation, the Castelvania HD reboot has finally arrived. Unfortunately,
the end result is a game that doesn't quite deliver on some of its
promising concepts. Its biggest problem, in a nutshell is that it borrows
ideas from other recent action franchises but neglects it own heritage.
This might have been unintentional but, Lords of Shadow seems spend more
time minimizing the Castlevania legacy and instead ends up trying too hard
to break new ground. This makes it feel hald-baked, and it ends up as a
title that feels like its neither here nor there. It's not that the game
is necessarily bad or horrible, its just that it doesn't live up the
spirit or style of previous titles in the franchise. While there are some
minor points where some of the old magic re-appears, it seems that instead
of chasing Dracula, the developers instead set their sights on taking
ideas from another franchise. This leads to a title that has the feel of
desperation to it, and it feels derivative and uninspired throughout.
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow takes place
in quasi-3D space and there is an attempt to give the player more freedom.
The backdrops are mostly pre-rendered and this gives you limited freedom
as well. Some lip service is paid to Castlevania tradition - the main
character is named Gabriel Belmont and he once again and wields a powerful
whip attack. The game takes a few liberties with series lore and there are
many changes that are unexpected, some of which is misguided. There is a
dark tone to the game and it has a haunting, horror-movie soundtrack to
accompany the action. However, those expecting a trip through a haunted
castle are in for a surprise. Much of the game takes place in lush,
outdoor setting and there are some truly impressive open areas such as
jungles and forbidding corridors that look very impressive. There are some
familiar enemies and new ones such as giant spiders, undead monsters, evil
gremlins and other bad guys. These standard foes are somewhat easy to
defeat. Much harder are the screen filling bosses, including massive-scale
titans that require much time and effort to beat. If this sounds familiar,
its because it is. The developers are obviously taking a page from the God
of War handbook. Unfortunately, Lords of Shadows doesn't do a good job in
implementing this approach to gameplay, which makes it a messy,
inconsistent experience.
Gabriel Belmont has some interesting
abilities this time around with the coolest the ability to lock onto and
repel against certain objects to reach other areas. He can also jump onto
large rocks and grip onto ridges in other surfaces using the trigger
buttons. In other sequences he can climb over and jump through large gaps
to traverse huge sections of ruins in the netherworld as he explores its
massive levels. He'll face numerous dark forces and other opponents in
battle and Lords of Shadows' controls are fairly simple in the combat
sequences. You can use sweep attacks to destroy them from afar or grab
them up close and destroy them. There are a number of special attacks that
you can deploy such as dash moves that allow you to get out of the way of
enemy attacks. As you defeat enemies, you'll earn experience points that
you can use to increase your abilities. Your main weapon is the Cross
which you can upgrade throughout the game as well. You'll have access to
other weapons including holy water and silver daggers that you can use for
projectile attacks during some parts of the game to increase your power.
During some of the boss battles and other events, the interface changes
into a quick time sequence of button pushing, where you need to press a
certain button while a series of circles appears on screen. You have to
time your moves precisely in these sequences to auto-perform attacks.
Failure to do this results a tedious repeat of the entire sequence. The
combat sequences are uneven. Players will find other items during the game
such as weapons power-ups and other items. In addition, there are numerous
hidden scrolls throughout your adventure which you can usually locate on
the bodies of fallen soldiers who have failed in their missions. Finding
scrolls unlocks secrets and other items or can give you extra background
information for the story. If enough of these come into your possession,
you'll also be able to unlock other hidden content and abilities. Once
you've found these secrets, you can look them up in Lords of Shadow's main
menu system, which indexes your added abilities, weapons and bestiary
content in a book format. It's a fairly simple system that allows you to
navigate it without too much effort.
Most levels in Lords of Shadow are
fairly simple and straightforward in appearance and style. For large part,
the game unfolds in a fairly linear fashion, though there are some
sections that branch out into two paths. This makes things somewhat more
interesting, but for the most part, Lords of Shadow stays very true to
conventions, where standard levels follow with sub-boss battles, other
sections, then a major end-level boss. To keep things interesting, there
are a few puzzle sections thrown in and extensive cut-scenes that allow
the game's narrative to unfold. All of these different elements make for a
somewhat odd approach and it doesn't really make as much impact as you'd
expect it too. One of the more aggravating aspects of Lords of Shadow is
its habit of throwing different things at you in an attempt to keep things
intersting. One minute, the game plays like a traditional platformer, the
next you're unravelling a complex puzzle or fighting off a massive,
multi-tiered boss. These boss battles can be amazingly frustrating -
consisting of multiple phases with quick time attacks, where you need to
make split second moves or else find yourself literally thrown back to the
beginning of the stage without making much progress.
Making things more frustrating, there's
usually a relatively simple method that can be used to defeat them, but
these are typically oblique and require multiple attempts before they have
fallen. With these extended battles taking up so much of the gameplay,
there's little that you can do except endure them. Having to perform these
monotonous motions and button sequences perfectly while the smallest error
is punished without mercy makes these encounters feel needlessly
difficult. This approach brutally drains a lot of the fun out of Lords of
Shadow. Its unbalanced gameplay only becomes more pronounced as you play
deeper ino the games. The level of difficulty in Lords of Shadow thus
ranges wildly between these sequences, ranging from too-easy cakewalks, to
sections that seem to put up a brick wall in front of players who can't
discover the secret weakness of a boss enemy. The game tries to mitigate
this with helpful hints that pop up after your character loses, but they
are so vague as to be almost useless. This helps to create a game, that
despite its sometimes beautiful production values, offers an inconsistent
and frequently stymied gameplay experience. This makes for a title that
doesn't quite meet up to the high-expectations that many gamers might have
had for it. It's a shame since there are some good ideas and you can
definitely see that there were some potentially good ideas.
It's this inconsistency that makes
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow so disappointing - the game squanders its
good ideas under poor execution, frustrating controls and sometimes
derivative content. Lords of Shadow occasionally shows inspired elements,
such as the cinematic sequences and a few interesting puzzles and its some
of its story sequences are interesting. The production values are slick,
complete with celebrity voices, makes this one of the most polished and
aesthetically impressive in the series to date. It's story is a bit
predictable and somewhat dull, but it gets the job done. Unfortunately,
these special effects can only mask so much. Its presentation is
undermined by the design's flawed gameplay mechanics and balance issues.
Its level of difficulty veers wildly from challenging to impossible to
frustrating in the course of a single stage. These elements also break up
Lords' narrative to a degree that it makes the story feel a disconnected.
While the developers deserves some credit for bringing something new to
the storied franchise, the end result is that the game doesn't evoke the
classic Castlevania feel players have come to expect. Looking beyond this,
the basic mechanics are a little bit off, and the developers seem to have
placed to much reliance on quick time events. At some points, it feels
like an interactive movie where you only press buttons in sequence, while
others require hard-core gaming skills. This leads to a choppy feel
throughout and makes for an inconsistent flow and structure of the game.
It could have been an excellent approach to rebooting the franchise, but
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow falls short and ends up as one of the lesser
titles in the long running series.
-
Michael Palisano
