Review by: Michael Barnes

With a knockout art style strongly influenced by the dark fantasy of filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro and some of the best 3D brawling gameplay on the market, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow looks great and packs a mean punch that puts Kratos, Dante, and even this year’s bare-knuckles queen Bayonetta on notice. The game is an epic adventure of revenge and reconciliation packed to the gothic arches with monster-whipping action as well as thoughtful puzzles, screen-bursting boss battles, and astonishingly detailed and well-crafted levels with many hidden areas waiting to be discovered.

The game is also something of a cultural reclamation of the traditional horror setting that has characterized the franchise, rescuing it from the Easternized, anime excesses and wheels-spinning redundancy of its most recent “Metroidvania” entries. Lords of Shadow’s tale of a Medieval forebear of the Belmont clan is a proper Western-style action game but more importantly it’s a modern one, all widescreen-cinematic and full of finely tuned gameplay yet it remains respectful of its 8- and 16- bit heritage. But don’t call it a prequel, because this game is as much of a hard reboot as the films Batman Begins or Casino Royale were.

Like those coups of IP revitalization, Lords of Shadow maintains elemental properties of its source material while introducing new directions that make what is now a 25 year old property feel relevant and vital. Nonetheless, diehard fans coming into the game looking for a fusillade of candelabra-crashing Symphony of the Night fan service set to an endless loop of “Bloody Tears” are likely to be disappointed. There’s no wink-wink rehash of the classic “Die, monster!” Engrish speech. But the references that are there are subtle and extremely cool, such as the origin of one of the series’ staple weapons and a shattering post-credits epilogue redresses one of the more glaring omissions while also suggesting that Mercurysteam has essentially written themselves a blank check to take Castlevania to places it has never been before.

But getting to that extended epilogue, which I’m pretty sure is the strongest evidence on record of Hideo Kojima’s advisory role in the development of the game, is going to take most gamers at least 15 solid hours of gameplay and that doesn’t include playing the game at the harder difficulties, finding all of the hidden magic and life gems, and completing level-specific challenges to tally up to that elusive 110% completion level. The game eschews the “Metroidvania” style in favor of a more traditional level-based design but over the course of the game you’ll encounter areas that are inaccessible until certain powers or artifacts are obtained. It’s designed with replay in mind, and I don’t know how many times I found myself making mental notes to come back to certain areas.

It’s worth replaying the levels to take in the sometimes astonishing detail and atmosphere of areas like the impossibly gothic castle of a vampire queen. There is a lost, decaying city that wouldn’t be out of place in an Uncharted game if it weren’t overrun by werewolves. There’s the dust-swept Necromancers’ Towers that look straight out of a surrealist painting. The settings are varied, and all serve as a wonderful backdrop to the rock-solid core gameplay. Castlevania isn’t necessarily breaking new ground in terms of gaming concepts and it’s pretty easy to see where its antecedents lie, but it’s one of those cases where what it does it does exceedingly well even when things feel familiar.

The combat system is fluid, with Gabriel employing the Combat Cross whip as well as four secondary weapons, several relics, and both Light and Shadow magics that modify his attacks. In particular, the magic system offers a compelling choice between health-regenerating Light magic buffs and damage-boosting Shadow magic effects. It’s a fairly complex system with numerous purchasable upgrades, evasions, counterattacks, and grabs. The nearly 50 monsters in the game all have specific weakness and resistances, which adds a degree of strategic choice. As a result of the complexity, the combat mechanics are deeper and more generous than those found in similar games. But those games also don’t have a hero that grabs vampires by their throats and stakes them through their wicked hearts.