The Castlevania Lords of Shadow Trilogy Part 1: A Promising New Start

Well, it’s October again. The month where we all come together to celebrate the spooky and the macabre. Unless you’re one of those weirdos with their Christmas decorations already up, in which case, what in the hell is wrong with you? Could you not let us enjoy the spooky month, for God’s sake grow up.

To celebrate the occasion last year, I took at the Castlevania Advanced Collection. A compilation of the 3 Gameboy Advance entries that had just been released. I enjoyed looking at that and thought it would be fun to do something similar this year.

So, since I looked at 3 Castlevania games last time, why don’t we look at 3 more this time. But which ones to look at. There’s the original NES trilogy, the Gameboy games, hell we could continue where we left off and look at the DS games. But no, I decided instead to look at one of the more divisive chapters of the Castlevania mythos, the Lords of Shadow Trilogy.

Released between 2010 and 2014, the Lords of Shadow games were Konami’s attempt to reboot the franchise for the HD generation. Despite the DS games being well received by critics and fans, the series was beginning to stagnate in terms of sales. So, long-time producer for the series, Koji Igarashi, was booted from his post and a new call went out for developers with a fresh take on the IP.

It does seem harsh to boot Iga from the series given that he was responsible for reinventing it into the Search Action styling fans had grown to love, but I can also see why they did this. One of the reasons Iga was brought on board to the series was to boost the series popularity in Japan, something which becomes obvious when looking at his tenure with the series.

Adding RPG elements, Anime art styles, turning Dracula into a white haired shonen protagonist, setting one of the games in Japan, dude did everything other than adding a waifu, and then he added a waifu. And absolutely none of it worked.

I think Konami had realised that the Japanese market was a lost cause at this point. This is probably why they went for a western game studio to handle the reboot. And if you don’t believe me on this, the last Castlevania game Iga worked on prior to the reboot was Castlevania Judgement. The attempt to try to turn the series into an anime fighter that everybody hated. You tell me why the reboot happened.

But who would helm this new reboot. Well of all the pitches submitted, Konami went with one by a then little-known Spanish developer called Mercury Steam. The idea was to make a 3D reboot of the first Castlevania with Simon Belmont as the protagonist.

The higher ups at Konami weren’t entirely convinced of the project, except for Hideo Kojima of Metal Gear fame. He saw potential in the project and agreed to help produce the project. Though I want to make it clear that Kojima didn’t have much to do with the development outside of some advice on the main character and aiding with the Japanese localisation.

The most Kojima did was shield the team from Konami, agreeing to take full responsibility for the game if it flopped. This allowed Mercury Steam to work on the project without Konami’s meddling. Eventually the game went from a remake to a prequel, creating a whole new backstory and mythos for the series.

Reboots like this are always a gamble. Just look at the recent Saints Row reboot to see how horribly wrong they can go, but Lords of Shadow was an instance where it paid off. Critically it reviewed well, and sales wise it did great. In fact, this is to this day the best-selling game in the series.

That said, the reception among fans was mixed. Some enjoyed it and thought it was a nice new take on the series, while others derided it for being too derivative of other games while removing a lot of the series identity.

Personally, I thought the game was great. This was the first Castlevania game I ever got into. I loved the world design, story, gameplay and visual aesthetic. I can see where others are coming from, but I think a lot of the complaints people have with it are a little overblown.

That isn’t to say there isn’t anything to criticize, there is. I love this game, but it has it’s share of issues that I will cover in due course. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s back up a bit and start at the beginning.

The story follows Gabriel Belmont, the first of his prestigious bloodline and member of a holy order called the Brotherhood of Light. Gabriel has been sent by the order to destroy the titular Lords of Shadow, 3 powerful monster lords that have terrorized the land for centuries.

Gabriel however is going on this journey for another reason, revenge. Gabriel’s wife Marie Belmont was murdered shortly before the events of the game, and he believes the Lords of Shadow were responsible. As Gabriel journey begins, he gains allies in Pan, one of the old gods, and Zobek, another member of the Brotherhood, who tells Gabriel of a prophecy that a hero of light will one day appear to challenge the Lords of Shadow, and that they possess a power that may bring Marie back from the dead.

So, it’s a simple enough set-up, you’ve got the hero Gabriel, a clear set of villains in the Lords of Shadow, and a goal in stopping them. However, as the game progresses you learn there’s a lot more going on here.

When you meet the first Lord of Shadow Cornell, you learn that the Lords of Shadow are actually the original founding members of the Brotherhood of Light. They founded the order to battle evil but at some point, became so obsessed with fighting it that they performed a ritual to become spiritual beings to fight at Gods side. But, in doing so, left their bodies behind which became a dark reflection of them, creating the Lords of Shadow.

Gabriel is basically just cleaning up the mess his own order created. And that would be bad enough, but this quest puts Gabriel through the ringer. He has to do some pretty messed up things in order to progress from dabbling in the use of dark magics to slaughtering hordes of monsters in increasingly brutal ways, to even killing a young girl to get her dark knight companion to fight him to take his gauntlet.

And Gabriel doesn’t want to do any of this, but throughout the game he’s sort of pushed, and in some cases forced to do these things just to continue. Every encounter, every event he undergoes, Gabriel loses more and more of his humanity until all let’s left is his rage and thirst for vengeance.

Lords of Shadow in certain respects, feels like a deconstruction on the chosen one story. You know the ones where there’s a prophecy of a pure hearted hero set to save the world from evil. Well, this game has that, but it also shows that being the chosen one may not always be a good thing.

One of the core themes of the story is the nature of fate and whether the path chosen for us is fair. It asks how much a man must give up for the greater good. Gabriel isn’t exactly your knight in shining armour. Dude is a sombre, brooding motherfucker who’s doing this purely for revenge. He is a good man and is willing to help people where he can, but that doesn’t last.

By the end he is only doing this in the vein hope of seeing his wife again. He’s not doing it for his order, he’s just their useful pawn to cover up their shame. It’s even hinted that they knew all of this would happen but did nothing to stop it because that’s just fate.

It’s also interesting because, in most chosen one stories, the main character chosen by God is usually a holy warrior. A paladin or what have you. But in Lords of Shadow, it’s the opposite. Gabriel has to essentially become a force of great evil to stop an even greater evil from seizing power.

It’s an interesting take on that kind of story. And it also serves as a good origin story. An origin story for who you ask? I’ll cover that near the end. No spoilers for now.

Most of the story is told through narration by Zobek between levels. While I do like the story quite a bit, I will admit that it does rely a little too heavily on telling rather than showing. It relies on the narrations to fill in the gaps rather than showing the progression through the cutscenes and gameplay.

It does have that to be fair, I especially love the subtle storytelling of having Gabriel more and more in shadow as the game progresses to show his fall to darkness, but it still feels like the narration is doing most of the heavy lifting here.

That said, it is nice narration. It’s written well, and the voice acting by Patrick Stewart is top notch. So, while I think it relies too much on the narration, they at least made it entertaining.

And since I already brought it up, the voice acting in this game is fantastic. I already mentioned Patrick Stewart as Zobek and he’s great as he usually is, but he isn’t the only big-name actor in this. Robert Carlyle is the voice of Gabriel and he’s fantastic as well. It’s weird though because I when it comes to Carlyle, I’m used to him being way more over the top with his performances. I wouldn’t normally associate him with dark brooding characters, but Lords of Shadow proves he can do that very well.

Those are the two actors that stood out the most, but honestly the entire cast does a great job here. they give the material a sense of gravitas and weight that really helps sell the themes of the game without going too far that it sounds like a shitty role-playing session.

The same could be said for the writing. It manages to take itself seriously while also having room for levity. It has moments that could have very easily been corny or silly, but they write it in such a way that they manage to avoid that. Which is not an easy thing to do.

I think the story is very well done but looking back I can see why some Castlevania fans may have been initially put off by it. But it isn’t the writing, I think it’s the world design.

Castlevania, at least initially, was always meant to be a tribute to classic Universal Monster movies. It was a series steeped in gothic horror, and while later games leaned more heavily into fantasy, it always stayed true to its roots. Even when the game was an anime fighter it still had heavy gothic horror vibes. Also bondage but that’s beside the point.

Lords of Shadow on the other hand doesn’t really do this. For the most part anyway, the entire middle section with the vampire lord was steeped in gothic horror and was easily the closest the game felt to a classic Castlevania.

But the rest of the game felt like it took more inspiration from dark fantasy. The opening chapters where you’re in the Lycan lords’ territory with the ruins of ancient civilization felt more like something out of Dungeons and Dragons than a gothic horror story.

Now I love this kind of stuff. I love stories of exploring ruins and ancient civilisations, but that isn’t Castlevania. Even as a casual fan something didn’t feel right when I was playing the opening chapters. It was cool but it wasn’t Castlevania, which is how I feel about most of the world. What’s here is very well done, but it doesn’t feel like Castlevania.

Despite that, I do love the world building here. You’ll find scrolls from fallen Brotherhood knights that flesh out the world and story a bit more. Some of these are just gameplay tips, but others are there just to add more texture to the world and show just how bad everything is. Though considering you get these scrolls from corpses, I don’t think you’d need to read them to get that point.

I even like the enemy and character descriptions in the bestiary. It gives a little more background while giving some details you wouldn’t get from just playing the game. Nothing necessary, this isn’t a Final Fantasy XIII situation where you need to read them to understand what’s going on thankfully, but it’s there to provide more detail for those looking for it and I like that.

This is all helped by a gorgeous world design. Graphically the game does show its age. The texture work here can look a little fuzzy at times, and the animations aren’t very expressive, but the art design still holds up. Especially when it comes to the level design.

There are some beautiful vistas here that really sell the epic scope of the adventure. I might as well rip this band aid off now, Lords of Shadow is a God of War clone. I’ll get more in depth when I get to the gameplay, but one thing I want to talk about now is the similarities in world design.

God of War really made you feel like a small part of a massive world, it had these big visual set pieces that made the world feel grand and epic despite the limitations of the games design. I think most players who played God of War 2 remember the scene where you ran along the giant chains to the steeds of time or battling on top of the giant sword while giant gods fought in the background.

Lords of Shadow does something similar. Even after not playing this game in years I still remember coming up to the vampire’s castle and being awestruck at its scope. It’s very immersive at times.

But like God of War the game doesn’t overdo it with these visual set pieces. It knows when to go big and when to dial it back, so things never get repetitive or stale. The environments are nicely varied throughout from swamps to lush forests and frozen mountain tops. The game never gets boring to look at.

The music certainly helps add to the epic feel of the world. It goes more for heavy atmosphere than the ear catching bops the series is known for. Again, I wouldn’t call it Castlevania, but it is good music that suits the game quite well.

As you can probably gather by now, the production value for this game was stellar for its time. Even today it’s impressive, even if some parts of it are beginning to show their age. Even fans who weren’t exactly keen on the game had to admit that at the very least it looked and sounded great.

That said, the sound mixing during cutscenes was weird. Some sound-effects were so quiet I initially thought there was something with my copy of the game, until I remembered I was playing a digital copy on my Series S. So it isn’t my copy, that’s just how the game is.

During gameplay the sound mixing is fine, and to be fair the sound mixing is only a noticeable issue during very early cutscenes. Thing do get better later on, but it still isn’t as polished as I would like it. It makes certain scenes more awkward than they should be. It’s the one minor blight on an otherwise superb production.

But it was never the production that fans had an issue with, it was the gameplay. As I said earlier, Lords of Shadow is a God of War clone, which was a direction for the series fans took umbrage with. A lot of them felt like the game was unoriginal and was just copying ideas and gameplay styles from other games that were popular at the time. Not just God of War, but also some clear influences from Shadow of the Colossus as well.

Which is a criticism I never really understood. Because when you look back on the series, you realise that it’s always been this way. It’s always changed itself up by taking ideas from other games.

For God’s sake, Symphony of the Night took elements from Metroid and Final Fantasy, and everyone loved that game. Even some of the 3D entries took inspiration from popular games of the time. Look at Lament of innocence and tell me Devil May Cry didn’t have an influence on it.

So I don’t understand why this game was lambasted by some for being derivative of other games. Maybe you could argue that the older games differentiated themselves from their inspirations by adding new ideas of its own. Which is a fair point, except you could say the same thing for Lords of Shadow.

It may have been a God of War Clone, but that doesn’t mean it was a direct carbon copy. It has its own ideas and feels very different to play. Simply calling it derivative doesn’t seem like a fair criticism to me, especially since there are legitimate things to criticize with this game.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here. I should probably go over the gameplay first before I complain about what it does wrong.

Given the game is a God of War clone the gameplay follows a similar formula to those games, the classic ones anyway. Lords of Shadow is a linear action game with a mixture of light platforming, exploration and puzzle solving.

The bulk of the game is spent on the combat. Gabriel’s main weapon is the combat cross which can be used like a whip. It’s similar to how God of War handles combat while also being very different. Unlike God of War where you had a standard attack and a heavy attack, here you have a direct attack that attacks enemies in front of you and an area attack that attacks enemies around you.

You can unlock different combo moves that string both attacks together, but both serve different purposes. The direct attack is the strongest but also has a narrower hit box with a long vertical range, so it’s mostly used for dealing with single enemies. The area attack is weaker and isn’t as long ranged, but it attacks all around you making it effective for crowd control.

The attacks feel heavy. Even the faster area attack has a bit of a wind up to it. The game isn’t as frantic or fast paced as other action games. It’s very deliberate, focused more on timing and properly guarding and countering attacks.

You can still learn a bunch of new combo moves like launchers and air combos, but they aren’t as easy to pull off as other action games since the enemies will dodge your attacks. Even the weaker ones will move out of the way and counterattack, so learning to properly time attacks is important.

I know other action games have this to some degree. In Bayonetta for example a lot of the game had a mechanic that would slow down time with a successful dodge, but that game also let you go ham with your moves, not to mention the plethora of movement options it gave you. It even rewarded you for performing long combe chains via the games ranking system.

By contrast, Lords of Shadow is more grounded. Blocking and countering are given a bigger emphasis, especially given that a single enemy attack can do a lot of damage. It’s not focused on combo’s nearly as much as other action games. This is evidenced by the lack of a combo meter. The game isn’t focused on combos so much as it is on learning enemy patterns and how best to deal with them.

I’m of two minds on the lack of a combo counter. On the one hand it does remove a lot of the skill-based gameplay that make these types of games fun to master, but on the other hand it wouldn’t work for the games more deliberate pace.

As you progress, you’ll unlock new skills and abilities to use like a gauntlet for a powerful punch or leg boots for dash attacks. You’ll also get 4 different sub-weapons you can use for ranged attacks. You’ll start with silver daggers which are useful in picking off smaller enemies, but you’ll also unlock fairies for distracting enemies, holy water flasks for explosive area attacks and a dark crystal which summons a demon to act as a screen nuke.

I’m glad the daggers and holy water returned from the classic games, but it would have been nice to see more classic sub-weapons return like the boomerang or the stopwatch. But the sub-weapons they do have are good ones. Any game with kamikaze fairies as a weapon deserves a little bit of credit.

Each enemy is weak or resistant to the different sub-weapons. Lycans are weak to the silver daggers for example, so exploiting enemy weaknesses can help end fights faster. If you want to learn these all you need to do is check the bestiary. Once you kill an enemy all the information about them will be added to it.

I do wish wouldn’t tell you the weaknesses until after you hit enemies with the specific sub-weapon, to encourage more experimentation. But I also get why they didn’t do that since each sub-weapon has a limited ammo capacity to prevent you from spamming them.

Which is good because the weaknesses can be a little too easy to exploit. The holy water flasks especially due to their wide coverage, and the fact that most enemies in the end game are weak to them.

The sub weapons are also not particularly well balanced. The holy water flasks are pretty much the only one’s worth using when you get them. The daggers aren’t bad, they’re good at dealing cheap damage from afar, but they’re so weak that they barely do anything. And the fairies are good for crowd control, except the flasks are objectively better at that so what’s the point.

It's not like any of them are bad, it’s just that one of them is clearly better than the others. And because the game isn’t focused on combo’s, there’s little reason to experiment with them. God of War’s magic isn’t balanced either, but its combo heavy structure meant it was possible to experiment with different magic and get results. Rather than rely entirely on that one overpowered spell over and over.

This is one area where the more deliberate pace causes it to suffer. The limited ammo capacity does help ameliorate some of this, but it doesn’t address the core issue. The sub weapons needed to be more balanced.

The most interesting aspect of the combat though is the magic system. Rather than having big magic attacks, Gabriel has 2 different modes he can swap into based on light and shadow magic. Light magic will heal Gabriel as he damages enemies, while shadow magic increases his attack power. There are also certain attacks that can only be done by each magic type, and sub-weapons have an alternate attack when combined with certain magic.

A lot of the games combat relies on clever use of magic. Knowing when to use light magic to heal and when to get aggressive with shadow magic. Each magic type has its own meter that will drain when in use. The only way to fill it up is by absorbing neutral magic orbs dropped from enemies or from certain fountains. Just click the right or left stick in and you’ll absorb them into either meter.

It should be noted though that enemies will only drop neutral magic orbs when killed without using magic. You can’t just stay in a magic form and get orbs to keep yourself going, you have to swap in and out of magic to properly manage your resources.

And you’ll need magic for some of these fights. Enemies will do a lot of damage and take a lot of damage in tow. So, you need light magic to heal, and shadow magic to deal with the hardier threats. You’ll need to carefully manage your magic if you want to beat some of these guys.

But absorbing orbs from enemies won’t be enough. You might get a little juice out of them but not much. To keep magic stocked you’ll need to properly use the focus meter. This will build up as you damage enemies or successfully counter. Once it’s full every attack will drop magic orbs, allowing you to keep magic going in the middle of the fight, though getting hit will reset it.

A lot of the skill in combat is based on the focus meter. Some of the harder fights, especially on higher difficulties, will require magic to beat. You’ll need to keep your magic stocked which makes it vital that you keep the focus meter full.

When you combine everything together. Building focus, managing and using magic, the sub-weapons and combo moves, not to mention the strong variety of enemies and you have a deep and rewarding combat system that’s easy to learn and hard to master. Once you get used to countering and timing attacks the combat becomes a lot of fun.

It isn’t as crazy as others, but the weight of each attack helped make the combat satisfying. It’s a slower paced game that rewards careful play rather than twitch reactions. This isn’t going to be for everyone, and it certainly isn’t perfect, but it does help the game stand out from other action games.

The game has a healthy variety of boss fights that are suitably epic and fun to fight. A lot of them do have very similar attacks which can make them feel a bit samey, but there are those that change up the gameplay that are a real highlight.

The one sour spot with the bosses are the Titans. These were a common criticism when the game came out and I can see why, but I also think the criticisms of them were overblown a little.

For starters, there’s only 3 of these in the whole game. 2 near the beginning and one at the very end. They make up a very small part of the game, so I don’t know why people complain about them that much. Keep that in the back of your mind though, because complaining about minor shit and blowing it up into something major is going to be relevant later in this series.

I do agree that they are shallow imitations of Shadow of the Colossus, but that’s not the main issue with them. Honestly their biggest problem is something else entirely. To put it simply, the platforming sucks.

I won’t lie and say God of War’s platforming was anything great, but it had enough skill-based elements to it that made it fun. Lords of Shadow’s platforming, by comparison, is anaemic and boring.

There’s no challenge to the platforming at all. No tricky jumps to make, no climbing sequences where you deal with obstacles or enemies. It’s too on rails. It’s less like the platforming in the old God of War games and more like the platforming in the new God of War games.

The only skill-based platforming is in the music box level, which is also the worst level in the game. See even when the game has skill-based platforming it never feels fun because of how clunky the jumping feels.

The only platforming I enjoyed was swinging with the whip, and even then it was just ok. It certainly doesn’t hold a candle to God of Wars platforming that’s for sure. Even the first Castlevania’s platforming was better, at least that was designed with stiff controls in mind.

The funny thing is, the games DLC has platforming sequences that involve some skill-based gameplay and they’re actually pretty good. It’s a shame the base game didn’t have these kinds of platforming challenges because it’s obvious they can do them well.

It’s a shame that the platforming sucks because I liked exploring the levels. They’re linear, but some have branching pathways and secret areas that hide collectibles. You can find gems that will give an increase to your health or magic meters. It’s well worth going out of your way for these because they really come in handy in the late game.

You can also find casks that will increase the ammo capacity in certain levels, but these will require you to backtrack with a new ability to reach them. Unlike God of War where levels were interconnected, here you can pick between levels on a world map, allowing you to replay them and get anything you’ve missed.

Thankfully you don’t need to complete the levels. You can just pick up what you missed and leave which is appreciated. Most of the levels are short to begin with though and none of them drag on for too long.

The last thing to cover for gameplay are the puzzles. These are a nice break from the action and there’s a decent variety of them too. There’s a puzzle where you play a chess styled board game, mirror puzzles, timed mazes. They aren’t anything great, but they provide a decent break from the action.

Don’t worry if you don’t like puzzles though, the game will let you skip these if you wish. So if you suck at them and want to move on you can do that, but you lose the experience points award you would get from completing them. I like this system; it lets people who just want to get to the action move on while rewarding players who take the time to complete them.

That’s about it in terms of what the gameplay offers, but there are some chief criticisms I still want to address. First off, the fixed camera angles. I don’t see this as an issue so much as a preference. Fixed camera angles, when used right, can lead to some really great and memorable moments. One of the reasons why a lot of the moments in God of War work so well is because of the fixed camera angles.

And in an action game like this, having a fixed camera means you don’t have to stop the action to constantly adjust the camera. Fixed camera angles are not bad, they’re just one method of playing a game.

So no, I don’t think the fixed camera angles are a problem. I know some players hate them and prefer a controlled camera, which is totally fine. But there is an art to fixed camera angles that can enhance a game when properly implemented.

However, there are some issues with the Lords of Shadow handles them. Some angles they go for are a little weird and make fights way harder than they should be. There are also some climbing points that can be obscured and hard to see. Most of these lead to secret areas so it makes sense why they are hidden, but one of them hides a clue to a puzzle that I missed completely. Had to solve the puzzle through trial and error which wasn’t fun.

There’s also an awkward adjustment of control when the angle shifts. It only takes a second to do and you eventually get used to it, but it can be a little annoying.

I also have to go back to the platforming real quick. One of the more annoying parts of it is shimmying across ledges at certain angles where it’s not clear which direction to push. Again, it takes maybe a second to figure out, but it happened way too often for my liking.

The fixed camera angles aren’t done badly, but they could have been done better. If you don’t like fixed camera angles, like truly despise them, then this won’t change your mind, but that doesn’t make them bad either. Trust me there are much worse examples of fixed camera angles out there.

The last criticism I want to address are the quick time events. Yeah, if you want an example of the time this game came out in it would be the quick time events. I know these are still around, but they are nowhere near as prevalent as they were back then.

The chief complaint for the quick time events here was that there were far too many of them. And they were absolutely right. You do a quick time event for everything, opening gates, executing enemies and bosses, escaping from enemies. There’s so many of these it’s borderline comical.

These are definitely a product of their time. These things were everywhere in the early 2010’s and a lot of people hated them. I will say though that the quick time events in Lords of Shadow are some of the easier ones I’ve seen. All you need to do is get the timing down, the button you press doesn’t matter.

Even when one takes you by surprise, which can happen during boss executions, you should be able to get them as long as the controller is in your hands. The timing isn’t too strict. Even the ones that appear frequently like enemy executions or opening gates have a timing and rhythm that isn’t too hard to get down. While there are still too many of them, at the very least they aren’t that bad to deal with.

My biggest issue with the quick time events is that their indicated by a plain white circle. It isn’t visually interesting and clashes with the aesthetic of the game. Ruins the immersion a little bit.

One major criticism I have is the game dropping concepts. The game introduces the ability to hijack enemies and ride them around early on which is fun, but they drop it pretty quick. It would have been cool to see this concept expanded upon. With all the different monsters you could pull from this could have been an interesting mechanic, but it just stops being a thing at the halfway mark.

A lot of the game’s ideas are like this. They’re not used to their full potential. I like the magic system, but outside of a few attacks you’re fighting style doesn’t change. I like the variety of puzzles, but they’re all one and done with none of them being particularly challenging. And while the enemy variety is nice, having each tied to the individual Lords domains means you never see any interesting enemy combinations.

The game has a lot of potential, but it never reaches it in full. What we have here is a good game with a solid foundation to build off of, but one that also feels beholden to the dreaded “first game syndrome”.

Lords of Shadow is a good game that’s close to being a great one. The story and production value are easily it’s best qualities with fantastic writing, acting, and world building that make it worth checking out.

And the gameplay is solid enough to keep your interest. The combat is deep with fun boss fights and a ton of combo moves to unlock. The platforming is bad, but at least exploring is rewarding. I wish it did more with its concepts, but what it has is still solidly done with a great foundation that can be built on with later instalments.

It also has a good amount of replay value with different difficulties and optional challenges for each level providing a good challenge for those looking to 100% the game. It wasn’t too easy on normal, but nothing really gave me bother either. It’s a decent enough challenge, but those looking for the difficulty of classic Castlevania should stick to the higher difficulties.

I do think Lords of Shadow still holds up. It’s not as good as I remember it being, but I still enjoyed it. At the very least going back to it made me find new appreciation for what it does well like the story. Speaking of which, let’s talk about the ending. Spoilers from here on out.

At the end of the game it’s revealed that Zobek was the third Lord of Shadow. He had been manipulating Gabriel all this time so he could gain the powers of the other lords, having grown tired of them not working together. He even reveals that he had controlled Gabriel into killing Marie before killing Gabriel with his power.

But Zobek’s victory is short lived because it’s revealed that Satan’s had been the one manipulating him the whole time. And after yeeting Zobek’s ass from the proceedings, he’s ready to use his new power to take over the world.

Fortunately, Gabriel is briefly brought back by Marie to deal with the devil, and he promptly sends him back to hell. Marie and the other spirits are finally able to move on, but Gabriel is given new life as God has further plans for him. He embraces Marie one last time before she ascends into heaven as he looks on mournfully.

After the credits roll, we see a still alive Zobek meeting with a much older looking Gabriel in an abandoned church asking his help in dealing with Satan’s imminent return. Although Gabriel goes by a new name now, Eu Sent Dracul, The Dragon, Dracula.

Yep, the entire game was an origin story for Dracula. Which in hindsight should have been obvious given how many hints were dropped throughout the game. If you’re wondering why he’s a vampire, you’ll have to play the DLC to find out. In short though, he became one to enter a dark dimension to fight a demon lord. That’s about it.

Gabriel isn’t interested in helping Zobek and the 2 fight. It spills out into the street revealing a modern-day city street. Zobek then makes Dracula an offer, help him and he will free him from his immortality. Dracula then screams at the sky for some fucking reason before poofing away. Zobek then walks away into the night, promising Gabriel that it will all be over soon.

Man, that’s one hell of an ending hook. It leaves you with so many questions. Why does Dracula look so old? How did we get to modern day? What will happen when Satan returns? The answer to all these questions, will not be answered next time.

No, next we have the spin-off game Castlevania Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate. A game which attempted to merge the Lords of Shadow formula with a Search Action structure. Did it succeed? That’s one question that definitely be answered next time, so tune in tomorrow and find out.