It's a great game separate from the franchise, and definitely does a favor for the third person action genre, but with the CV characters and license attached, it becomes even more enjoyable for me.
Lords of Shadow is a superlative start for Castlevania on current-gen consoles and we only hope that developer MercurySteam has more in the pipeline. It might borrow from other hack-and slash-adventure titles of the same ilk, but Castlevania is entirely its own game. With an unforgettable Middle Ages fantasy setting and an epic narrative, Lords of Shadow is the complete package and Gabriel Belmont is the coolest vampire slayer since Buffy. He's not as hot though.
With the string of 3D-style casualties in this series' history, Lords is the first time we've been looking forward to where this shining new direction takes us. Go, Team Belmont.
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is a solid start for the franchise's reboot and while it's far from perfect, it's easy to see where MercurySteam could take a sequel in order to achieve true greatness.
Lords of Shadow is not without a handful of unfortunate imperfections, but that does not invalidate the fact that there is no more painstakingly-crafted action adventure currently available for this generation of consoles. MercurySteam has raised the bar especially in both art design and overall presentation, and should be extremely proud of their creation.
Lords of Shadow is the most beautifully realised and designed game I have ever played, hands down. The artistic nature is enough to draw you in, but the story and the emotions you feel throughout the game just pile on to the positives. Mechanics can feel clunky, but this is hardly a drawback. It also transitions neatly between platforming and climbing, a la Uncharted, and grueling combat, which can at times be more than just a little tricky. The boss fights are tremendous, some reminiscent of shadow of the colossus, where you must climb all over the monster to find it's weak spots, and then strike. The game, like most others these days, does have it's QTE's, but these aren't strictly a problem. As a matter of fact, some even feel as though they are adding to the experience, making cutscenes feel more involving to the player.
I could go on and on about positives, so how about the downsides? Well I mentioned one earlier; the clunkiness of the combat and the climbing can be rather disorientating, but nothing strictly problematic. Besides that, I genuinely cannot think of anything to complain about this game. It's very almost perfection, which is insanely rare in games these days. The one thing I must say about this game; playing on the highest difficulty in boss fights is hard. I mean, it's HARD. I attempted the final boss fight on this difficulty, and was dropped in with minimum health, making for a frantic battle to recover my health before I was obliterated. This is by no means a bad thing; a game SHOULD challenge the player, only unlike Dark Souls, such a challenge should be left an option for the player, rather than being mandatory. Because if you wish, the game can be a breeze, with amazing puzzles, beautiful backdrops, fantastic art style, unique story uniting many different myths and legends from around the globe and across the span of time (probably my favourite feature of all), and an emotional ending leaving us wanting ****, far more. Good thing the second is just around the corner, huh?
So, if you have not already, buy this game...I mean, do it now. You do not want to miss out.
This is a good game, very cool graphics, music and plot. This game is not a good Castlevania game. This is a problem if you are a fan of Castlevania, you will be kind of annoy by many things if you play this game expecting a Castlevania game on the style of Igarashi or even before with the first 4 games. If you don't care and you just want a fun hack/slash game totally recommended.
The game is cool and fun, but there are some problems in the story. The battle system and gameplay are very good, but after sometime it's very repetitious. I think that is the problem in all action adventure games, after some time playing you get a sensation of "deja vu". The Bosses in Castlevania are great, and require some strategy. The narrative is in third person, what drain much of interest in pay attention in facts. But there is a plot twist very end of the game that make worth to try!Yes, i did was surprise with that. Castlevania is JUST a GOOD game. Nothing beyond this.
There's not much redeeming about Lords of Shadow. It's a betrayal of the series that smacks of pandering and a complete lack of an understanding of the franchise. When the last 10 minutes of the game, all in cut scenes, are by far the best of the entire endeavor, you know something's really wrong.
No. I tried to like this game, I really did. And it's gorgeous. I forced myself to finish it because I kept hearing and reading how great the ending was. The sad truth is that everything the game does has been done before, and better. Like many reviewers said, this is God of War meets Shadow of the Colossus. Except in God of War and Devil May Cry, you obtain a wide variety of extra weapons, as in Castlevania LoS, you are stuck with the same sad whip and only obtain useless upgrades that dont affect combat in any way shape or form. You also obtain a very limited amount of tossing daggers, some holy water, a crystal that breaks after 1 use and some utterly useless fairies. That's it. The level design is linear and tedious, you are forced to revisit levels again once you have upgrades just to obtain the ability to carry extra worthless sub weapons and I hope you are familiar with gamefaqs because you will be referring to it frequently, not because you are stuck on a boss or puzzle, but because the horrible level design makes it a choir to find that one obscure little ledge you need to climb down to proceed. The last few levels especially made me want to hurl my controller out the window. Horrible cheap pit placement, cut scenes after checkpoints, ensuring I had to watch a titan move its arm over and over again, terribly inconsistent placement of healing statues. I would often start levels with a sliver of life only to die and come back with a sliver of life. If its a new level, why am I not starting it at full health? In any case, I those last few complaints may have come as a result of my finishing the game on the Hard difficulty setting, but over all, I thought the random end was not enough to compensate for suffering through this tedious game. The cut scene after the credits sure was cool and opens the path to some hopefully better sequels. Maybe ones in which we fight Dracula, or maybe explore a castle for more than a few levels? Here's hoping.
SummaryCastlevania: Lords of Shadow takes place at the end of days. The Earth's alliance with the Heavens has been threatened by a dark and malevolent force - the mysterious Lords of Shadow - darkness reins the world. Across this shattered land, the souls of the dead wander unable to find peace, whilst creatures of evil roam free wreaking chao...