I received Castlevania: Lords of Shadow as a Christmas gift from my brother and sister. This made me happy, because I had asked for it, and was wanting to play this game for quite a while.
I had been told that it rebooted Castlevania, took it and gave it a Devil May Cry-like quality. I can see where that comment came from, however, I felt that gameplay-wise it would be a mish-mash of that with God of War.
However, the God of War comparison stops mostly at the weapon. Like previous Castlevania titles, the weapon is a whip-like chain. This is where inevitable comparisons with God of War stem from. I would like to end the comparisons with God of War right there though, because there is a huge, obvious difference between the two.
In Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, your character is not an evil bastard out to destroy the world. In fact, you are out to save the world by killing the Lords of Shadow - the Lord of the Lycans, the Lord of the Vampires (who is NOT Dracula in this game!) and the Lord of the Undead/Necromancy.
Admittedly, he stays on his noble path because he has the promise of power, which he plans to use to resurrect his recently deceased wife, but his intentions are otherwise noble. Gabriel Belmont is, after all, a member of an Order devoted to destroying the supernatural creatures of the night.
The game is quite fun, fast and furious in its combat, and rewards skill over button mashing. After a level or two, you unlock the abilities of light magic, and shadow magic - activating light magic allows you to regenerate health from hitting enemies. Shadow magic deals extra damage. You occasionally find fountains of "neutral" magic to convert into these. Enemies also drop neutral magic - as long as you're not using magic when you kill them.
But more importantly, you have the ability to "gain focus". A bar fills up at the bottom of the screen, as you hit enemies. Taking a hit empties the bar immediately. The bar also fills up quite slowly if you spam the same moves over and over again - speeding up if you vary your attacks. Activating magic pauses the bar's growth - unless you get hit while using magic, in which case it still empties.
Your reward for filling this bar is to become focused. When you are focused, every single time you hit an enemy, an orb of neutral magic is dropped. At this point, you need to balance dodging/blocking to not lose your focus, attacking to generate more neutral magic, and actually drawing it the neutral into one of your magic medallions - since it does not simply sit there forever, fading if left long enough.
This all sounds quite complex, but it is introduced bit by bit. Admittedly, I never became focused for long periods at a time, though this was more due to my natural "kill them all quickly, quick make them die!" playstyle than it was a failure to understand the system.
The storyline is quite a good one. Patrick Stewart voices the character of Zobek - one of the main characters of the game, who also narrates during every loading screen. While parts of the story seem generic and played before, and some sections are downright predictable, the epilogue caught me off guard, and sets up another game quite beautifully. A game that I look very much forward to.
Overall, thumbs up to this game. Definitely worth a play. Its also one of the prettiest action games I've played recently (and it shows in its size... the xbox version is 2 discs!)
It also has one of the funniest scenes I've seen in a game. I won't spoil it for you, but it makes the title of this post much less irrelevant.
No comments:
Post a Comment