At last, I come to Castlevania getting the reboot!
I wish it hadn't.
Not to say that Lords of Shadow is bad, per se, but it's really not something that scratches that itch for me as far as a Castlevania feel goes. It feels like a bizarre plot that feels very God of War but with a bit more of a Spirit Halloween story thrown onto it. Almost as though it was some sort of bizarre hybrid of what a Japanese game studio thought a Western studio would make and a Western game studio thought a Japanese studio would make and they just sort of Frankensteined them together.
. . .and then painted God of War all over it before painting Castlevania over it.
You play as Gabriel Belmont, the original Belmont. He is a member of a holy order of knights in the year of our Lord 1047 AD. The world was a much different place 973 years ago, with insidious beings known as the Lords of Shadow being responsible for all the woes of the Earth because of a Mask that gives someone the powers of God. . .
. . .yeah, remember when this was just a series about a dude in leather pants who marched up to Dracula for some Festivus airing of grievances? I do.
Plus, with the medieval connections and the fact that there's magic here, this also counts as part of Sword and Sorcery 2020! Ha!
Anyway, legend tells of a hero who will take the Mask and reunite Heaven with Earth, seeing as the Lords apparently managed to shatter the connection between the two and now spirits cannot cross over into the afterlife. So Gabriel is tasked with killing the Lords of Shadow and getting the pieces of the mask, all the while mourning and trying to bring back his deceased wife Marie.
I'd make a joke about Shadow of the Colossus but, in what I'm sure is going to get me stoned by people out there, I've never actually played it.
Go ahead and forward your complaints to me at dontsendmethatIdontcare@goaway.net
So, as I said before, it's very God of War what with it taking a mythology and unraveling it like a kitten with a ball of string to suit the purposes of it's plot as well as the combat system. Gabriel has light attacks and heavy attacks with the Vampire Killer. . .oh, I'm sorry, the Combat Cross. . .and also has access to both light and dark magic, which only really moderately factor into things and get upgraded via hidden secrets in the levels.
You might think that last bit with the two types of magic is leading to an alternate ending by moral choice, with dark magic being bad and light being good or whatever have you, but it isn't. This becomes clear around the point where the plot might as well be flashing "HELLO, YOU ARE DRACULA" in big letters on your screen because I'm going to let you in on a little secret about the game that I'm sure has slipped your keen powers of observation.
Are you ready?
. . .
ALUCARD IS DRACULA SPELLED BACKWARDS!
. . .oh, yeah, and Gabriel eventually becomes Dracula. . .although that only gets explained in the DLCs for the game, which I haven't played. However, the post credits scene is kind enough to tell us that, yes, Dracula has survived into the modern day and is preparing to fight Satan. Again.
. . .yeah, Satan shows up again. Not enough to have Death show up, Lucifer Morningstar himself shows up for funsies at the very end and claims to have been behind it all, even though we've had Captain Picard dogging us for most of the plot.
I will give credit where it's due, this isn't a bad game by any means. The combat has that satisfying hack 'n' slash, the Combat Cross is actually fun to use and does have some of that classic Castlevania feel when you're using it to hop from platform to platform. The enemies get kind of samey, the air of compromise wafts around most of them. Apparently the development team wanted to bring some new and interesting things to the mythos of Castlevania without alienating the fans of the originals. It apparently worked, as the critical consensus on Lords of Shadow was that it was pretty good. . .at least at the time that it came out.
I really don't want to come off as jaded (stop laughing), but this review is me speaking from the perspective of someone who played it in 2010 before and now playing it again ten years later. Does it feel dated because this is what every other hack 'n' slash button mash good time has done? It's a formula that works, after all, it's why we have the hack 'n' slash genre. It just feels. . .played out, honestly. Almost as though there's really no new ground for Castlevania to cover.
It's kind of sad, honestly. This is kind of where my relationship with the series ends. This is the last Castlevania game that I've played as of this writing. I haven't played Lords of Shadow 2 and there are literally dozens that came out for the GBA and DS and so on that I haven't played either. That doesn't mean I might not review those games in the years to come. . .but this is where the retrospective on Castlevania comes to an end.
From a symphony of the night to a horrible night to have a curse and beyond, we've seen it all. I've waged a war against Dracula and his kind for more than eight years, and I have always won!
And with that, my dear friends, we come to the end of Horror Month 2020. It's been a heck of a ride, hasn't it? Tomorrow is Halloween and, as always, I give you a reminder: The dark side is always there, waiting for us to enter - waiting to enter us. Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight.
Castlevania: The Lords of Shadow was developed by MercurySteam and Kojima Productions and published by Konami originally for Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and Microsoft Windows.
For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.
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