Castlevania Lords of Shadow Review

Castlevania Lords of Shadow Review | March 7, 2014
Xbox, Windows, PlayStation

Castlevania Lords of Shadow is a 3rd person action adventure game that is in the same style as God of War and Bayonetta. Castlevania was in desperate need of a reboot. When it comes to home consoles there has not been a really good since Castlevania Symphony of the Night and that game was originally released in 1997 for the PS1. Lords of Shadow does not only remake the series but it gives gamers a retelling of the background story about Dracula, or the Dragon. You get to find out the origins of how the Belmont family is connected to the Prince of Darkness and why their feud goes back generations. The year is 1047 and the people believe that they are living in the end of days. There are monsters everywhere from werewolves, lycans, vampires even the undead are raising up and attacking the living. Gabriel Belmont is a member of the Brotherhood of Light and his deceased wife Marie tells him that he can save the world and bring her back to life if he can defeat the Lords of Shadow.

Castlevania is one of those series that you hope will come back but many of the games have been average or below since the PS1 days. Lords of Shadow brings our favorite vampire hunting family back with a stellar 3rd person action game. The story keeps your attention the whole time. It gets even better because Patrick Stewart of Star Trek and American Dad fame plays a giant role as Zobeck, Gabriel’s fellow Brotherhood of Light member. He also does all of the storytelling voice over keeping you the gamer up to date with information that keeps the story going. Lords of Shadow mangers to make its own way and is not just a God of War clone. Sure there are some similarities but it feels like Castlevania mythology. The creatures are a new interpretation of Castlevania monsters. We were glad that they did not just try to copy Devil May Cry or Bayonetta. We want zombies, skeletons and vampires. Puzzles are fun but we had some camera and platforming issues and the combat is fast paced and smooth mostly but for some reason at times the simple game mechanics felt a little off when fighting normal and large enemies or while doing simple things.

The game mechanical issues are a problem when you have to climb and defeat huge bosses that are the size of buildings. The whole time you are fighting them you are also fighting the camera and controls. You don’t have a lot of these enemies but we did not look forward to fighting them. The game wants you to block your opponents attack a lot but if you are moving you will dive and dodge the attack instead, missing your chance to block and counterattack. The more powerful combo attacks start to get way to complex and for some reason you can’t attack many of the opponents from the air. Each time you try they just hit you out of the sky and you lose life. We don’t know why air combos are in the game we could not use most of them. We also wished that the camera would self-adjust faster and there are times where you are not even on screen and you can’t see what you are attacking or what is attacking you.

A great first attempt to return Castlevania to it's glory days of must buy games. The story and voice acting is some of the best and getting more information about the Belmont’s connection to Dracula is what we want and many gamers many not know the whole story. It has been a long time since a Castlevania game was really good. It took us 20 hours to get through the game the first time. The replay value is only average. Castlevania Lords of Shadow has a huge pay off at the end of the game leading into the upcoming Lords of Shadow 2. Keep your price under $40 and get ready for the next game.

8.5 out of 10
Great Game