Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (Review)

Summary: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is a smooth action-adventure game with hauntingly gorgeous visuals, solid combat mechanics, unique characters, and many interesting level-specific puzzles. The game's engaging story is told with great narrative, fluid game play and an amazingly orchestrated soundtrack.

In this big budget reboot of Castlevania you adorn the garb of Gabriel: a knight of the Brotherhood of Light. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow story unfolds at a time when Heaven abandoned all earthly inhabitants, and evil creatures spill from the pits of Hell to bring ruin upon all mankind.

The game's dark visuals are highly refined and extremely well detailed. All of the levels are uniquely designed, and populated by interesting and twisted characters who either help or hinder your progress. Some levels feel a bit short, but never disappoint with engaging battles and varying degrees of challenges. The bigger levels offer huge multilevel structures that need to be traversed by using Gabriel's chain-like whip and powers.

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You'll fight, scale, and jump across ancient ruined temples, mountain fortresses, sky-high castles, gloomy dungeons and mystic swamps. Most of the game's memorable scenes happen when Gabriel uses his whip to ascend or descent throughout the many ravaged structures. As the game progresses Gabriel will earn new abilities that can be used to unlock life and weapon upgrades found throughout the levels – some backtracking necessary.

In addition to using his whip, Gabriel can finish off enemies using a variety of brutal techniques and combos. And in a true Castlevania trait, he can also use sub-weapons such as knives and holly water. The boss battles in this game are really wild and cinematic. The huge titan guardians require Gabriel to scale their moving bodies using time-activated commands and some classic platforming skills. These towering foes always offer ingenuous ways for Gabriel to inflict his vengeful angst.

One of the mechanics I really liked in this game was the ability to ride many of the larger foes such as giant spiders, golems and vargs. Weaving spider webs to cross chasms and knock down large tree roots never got tiresome. These forced steeds also make short work of the many obnoxious critters that have a tendency to attack in swarms. The game comes with a very creepy enemy and character compendium which illustrates each creature's lore in great detail.

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You'll will encounter many different level-specific puzzles throughout your adventure. Most of these puzzles are unique and fit well with the game's themes. I found many of the riddles a welcomed respite from the game's ongoing action and adventuring. My all time favorite moment in the game happened when Gabriel got shrunk by a witch to fit into a musical box. While inside, you were forced to navigate numerous time sensitive traps while enjoying the remake of a classic Castlevania tune, Bloody Tears.

The game's score was written by Oscar Araujo, and conducted using a 120-piece orchestra. The music sets the mood perfectly for all the levels, and no composition gets tiresome or irksome. If you'll listen closely, you can pick out many classic Castlevania tunes hidden throughout the orchestration. The soundtrack and the game's dialogue are all top tier, lending another mystical and gloomy layer to an already impressive game. The game's extensive story is narrated by Sir Patrick Stewart. Mr. Stewart also voices one of the game's key characters, a knight of the brotherhood named Zobek.

Yes, the game uses a lot of mechanics which can be found in similar big budget tittles, but all these (borrowed) features fit the game well. Lords of Shadow is a solid offering that all Castlevania fans (old and new) should experience.

Developer: MercuryStream & Kojima Productions

Publisher: Konami

Released: October 5, 2010

Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360