Catlevania is one of those great old game series that has at times struggled to come to grips with a new era of gaming. Lords of shadow 2 represents the 6th (7th is you count that Wii fighting game) fully 3D incarnation of the series, and it is usually agreed that most of those are not amongst the series greats. Unlike many others however, I thought 2010s original Lords of Shadow was a bold and positive step for the series. The re-imagined story was epic and enthralling, and although it differed greatly from past Castlevania titles it managed to consistently hit the right sorrowful tones and feel, to me at least, very much like a Castlevania game. Add to that a very solid (if not wholly original) combat system and breathtaking art direction (that again managed to remind us of past Castlevania games without being tied down by them) and Lords of Shadow took its place as one of my gaming highlights of that year.
So on to Lords of Shadow 2. (Original LOS spoiler alert) Here we play as Dracula himself after the original hero Gabriel Belmont becomes him at the end of the first game. A thousand years have past and Dracula now awakes after a long sleep to find himself in the middle of a modern city that occupies the space where his grand castle once stood. His powers are largely gone seemingly as a result of his over long sleep and much of the game centers around recovering them. Here is where the game can easily be split into two. The primary story develops in the modern day setting while you frequently fade back into the past to your old castle (it is implied though not outright said that these sections occur within Dracula's mind, which is a nice idea) where you confront the castles inhabitants to reclaim past weapons and powers. The old castles visual design, enemy design, characters and some aspects of game-play consistently and massively outshine their modern day counterparts so much that I was often left feeling that I was playing two different games. One set in a beautiful and inspired 3D interpretation of Castlevanias classic home, and the other a bland and predictable mess of gothic science facilities and demon overrun streets. The castle and many of the games characters show of MercurySteams great talent in art design although weighed down somewhat by graphical hiccups that sometimes make the game feel older than it is. The modern day city however is simply uninspired, feeling like the discarded levels of some Resident Evil or Devil May Cry game.
Both of those are the same game...
The story is extremely bland, aside from a couple of fun twists and short lived interesting characters introduced much too late in the game I found myself completely uninterested in events as they progressed. There is also the completely inexplicable decision to include stealth sections in a game where you play as the all powerful prince of darkness. The games story literally centers around the fact that you and only you are powerful enough to stop the coming enemy (Satan) yet much too frequently the game decides that you're not strong enough to face some armored goons with rocket launchers (literally disabling your weapons for no reason). This is barely acceptable near the start of the game when Dracula is presented as being powerless but is copletely ridiculous that quite late in the game, after facing of against huge demonic bosses, that you are again stopped in your tracks by guys with guns. In fact much bigger guys with guns in large mechanized suits have by this point become common enemies. It simply makes no sense. these sections grind the games usually great action packed pace down to a halt forcing you to scurry around as a rat and distract enemies with bats. I can literally freeze demons in their tracks and turn myself into a living fireball, but for some reason I choose to lower myself to a rat.
yup... same game.
However its not all bad news. The story though bland is told through some good animation and bits of voice acting by Patrick Stewart and Robert Carlyle (among others). There are frequent nods to Castlevania fans and some good characters that make the story pick up towards the end. The combat system is also worthy of some praise. Although a little awkward at first due to its emphasis on timed blocking and counterattacking it does a great job on keeping you focused and dissuading button bashing. Your abilities grow at a nice constant pace throughout the full length of the game making you feel increasingly more powerful until you're decimating large enemies with spectacular and fun to use powers. The clever balance of your three weapons is such that you find yourself frequently switching between them and using a number of different powers for different situations which in turn infuses a great sense of variety into the combat. The game also encourages you to use different moves you haven't tried by awarding experience directly into each weapon which can only be attained through mastering individual moves. I had great fun unlocking every move and mastering each weapon completely. Boss battles are fairly frequent and another noticeable highlight. These varied characters are usually visually impressive and fun to fight (if not especially difficult) with a couple of them in particular feeling like strokes of creative genius. There is a lot of love put into certain aspects of the game, such as beautiful artwork to accompany every individual character description and bit of lore on the menu, not to mention the great hand drawn animations used to demonstrate moves before you acquire them. Its largely because some of the game has such great touches of detail and design the it feels so disappointing when you must muddle through the games lows.
There was one great thing about old Castlevania titles (Castlevania: Symphony of the Night in particular, probably my favorite of the series) that sadly the original Lords of Shadow didn't try to emulate: the classic huge map full of backtracking and exploration. Going over that map and trying to find every little hidden nook and cranny, every awesome bit of gear or additional power was one of the chief pleasures of Symphony of the night and it was greatly missed in the first Lords of Shadow. The developer has made a good effort to inject some of that exploration and backtracking into Lords of Shadow 2 and mostly it works to good effect although with the noticeable lack of a proper map to review. Without this I was forced to resort to a sort of cheat built into the game to reveal the locations of secrets as it was very difficult to get a sense of where I hadn't been before. Although that aspect could have been handled better, I definitely enjoyed the ability to backtrack and look through old areas of both the castle and city (being also able to go between the two at will using certain points in the map) and you can tell a fair amount of work was put into designing areas and sections of platforming that would only be accessed through backtracking. This kept me happily motivated to look for all the secrets in the game even with fairly little reward (slight increases to health and magic meters mainly as well as bits of lore and experience).
To summarize: Castlevania: Lords of shadow 2 is a game that should have been much better. great combat, bosses and some great classic locations are too often bogged down by a lazy story and inexcusable stealth sections that should have simply been removed. I would still recommend it to series fans and fans of the original, but go in knowing that this is not the sequel that game deserved.
Cheers.
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