3/5 ★ – RawMetal's review of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.

System: PlayStation 3 Started: October 1, 2024 Ended: December 30, 2024 For my Castlevania Month in 2024, I decided to play the Lords of Shadow games, starting with the first one. This entry is a unique 3D Castlevania game that Konami decided to westernize by letting another dev company, MercurySteam, develop it. MercurySteam also made the official Metroid 2 Remake and Metroid Dread for Nintendo years later. Lords of Shadow is essentially a reboot, but it is later accepted as an alternate, separate timeline from the mainline Castlevania games. What makes it unique is that Castlevania returns to 3D after other notable 3D games like Castlevania 64, Lament of Innocence, and Curse of Darkness. Lords of Shadow is often compared to God of War but done right in most aspects, making it stand out. Lords of Shadow has excellent game and level designs. Each chapter follows a linear design approach, often divided into segments for Gabriel Belmont to traverse on his journey and usually ends in a boss fight. The game's design seamlessly blends folklore and fantasy elements typical of a Castlevania game. The architecture, including dungeons, castles, and abandoned ruins, looks fantastic. One notable level I thought was creative was The Music Box puzzle level. The artwork is outstanding, especially the sketch art in the world book menu that details the monsters, characters and the animations of the move list that demonstrates what that skill can do. The art department truly did a flawless job. This game features genuine puzzles, and some of them are quite impressive. While some are easy, others are real brainteasers. There's even one segment where you can play War Chess, and later on you'll unlock it, and it can be played with two players. You can skip these puzzle segments if you want, but you'll lose XP. Still, it feels like a crime to skip these engaging puzzles in the game. The boss battles in this game are very good. It's not like any other game like God of War that you hack and slash your way to victory. The AI in this game is pretty tough, especially for its easy difficulty, in that the AI can easily read your repetitive moves and counterattack you if you keep spamming or not even dodging/countering any moves. You have to be on your toes and be aware of your surroundings when you are ambushed by multiple enemies. The soundtrack for this game is epic, portraying a legendary tale set in the early 11th century. What surprised me most is that this game even brought in Picard himself, Patrick Stewart, to play the voice of Zobek, one of your companions throughout the game, as well as providing the narration of the story when booting up a level. It's great to hear from him. But it's a very missed potential for this game to bring in Christopher Lee as the voice. But I’ll take Stewart. I have a list of issues with this game; one in particular is the gameplay controls. The combat is fine, but the climbing segments are the real issue. Out of all the deaths I’ve had in this game, it's mostly the janky climbing segments that killed me the most. You have to position Gabriel in the right place while he’s clinging on the ledges, and once the game responds, you have to press the button right in order to jump across another. Often, Gabriel doesn't respond, jumps but misses the ledge, and falls. The game doesn't end, but your lifebar depletes, and repeated failures lead to a game over. After you beat the base game, you have to purchase the DLC to learn more about the epilogue. This is honestly a scummy sales practice, and the early 2010s were a dark period for adding DLC in games, especially Day One DLC. The DLC chapters in this game felt very important to the story and made matters worse. The second DLC is literally the end boss of the first DLC chapter. It's one big paywall to literally see the ending to this game. The game’s difficulty is a real challenge. The DLC Final Boss has to be one of the toughest bosses in Castlevania history, especially if you're aiming for that 110% completion. The trick in that boss fight is to avoid his moves five times to get a small window to attack him. And you have to do those QTE segments that if you fail it one time, you have to do that segment all over again, and there are no health or magic refill stations at all in the second DLC. So it's mainly about patience, timing, and luck on this battle. It's not just the tough boss fights but also the trials. Once you finish a level, you unlock a trial where you have to complete a mission during your level run. Most are easy, but some are insanely hard. One trial, in particular, is finishing a Titan Boss under a time limit. These trials leave you barely enough room to complete them, so if you fail to dash or time your jumps perfectly, you've already lost the trial and have to start the level over. This was another reason why it took so long to fully complete this game. I actually think that the first Lords of Shadow is a solid Castlevania game. It excels in the art and level design, the music, and even the combat gameplay designs, but it really holds back on the janky climbing mechanics and the scummy DLC practice. It is nearly a 4-star game if not for these two issues. Although the game is non-canon (I actually prefer this non-canonical story to Netflix’s Castlevania), it serves as an origin story. However, if you seek an actual Castlevania origin story, I recommend Lament of Innocence. I recommend this game and ensure you play the Ultimate Edition to access the DLC.