by Konami, please. Are Pachinko machines really your modern legacy? Are slot machines where your merit lies? How can you abandon your fans, after releasing masterpieces such as…
Castlevania: Lords of Shadows is not a perfect game, but contains so many perfect things. The voice-acting is triple A grade, featuring the talents of Robert Carlyle as Gabriel and Patrick Stuart as Zobek. The gameplay is solid; not always the best, but sort of a simpler version of Devil May Cry or Bayonetta. The lore and plot are pretty darn solid as well, featuring throw-backs to numerous familiar aspects of the previous titles. Technically this is a reboot of the franchise, but considering that it mostly takes place long before the events of all the other Castlevania games, it still feels like a strong continuation of the Dracula-hunting universe. Lastly, and without a doubt the most potent medal to pin to this game’s chest is it’s environments. Lords of Shadows quite possibly has the best environments I’ve ever seen in a video game in my life.
These are in-game shots. Let me say that again: IN GAME. Even if what’s happening within the game isn’t top-level exciting, there is always something absolutely beautiful to look at along the way. It’s more than just the graphical quality itself as well (although that still contributes greatly to it). It’s the camera angles that spin to show it all in just the perfect shot. It’s the lighting that brings a massive world pristine beauty. It’s the sheer fantastical scale of Olympian proportion. When I think of Lords of Shadow, I think always first of the environments.
–Spoiler Warning–
Gabriel Belmont, a Belmont dating back even further than the original Simon Belmont, is traveling alone on a self-appointed quest to fulfill an ancient prophecy. He lives in a world where God himself has abandoned the world, allowing demons, monsters and undead creatures to rule and reign havoc. Amongst the Christian circles of the Order, a story has been told that if the three Lords of Shadows were ever overthrown, then mankind could reconnect with God and peace would be restored to Earth. With his wife recently murdered and nothing much left in his life to be worth living for, Gabriel is driven to overthrow the Lords or die trying.
Along the way, he meets up with a young girl and her protector Golem. While sleeping, a murderous spirit possesses Gabriel and he kills her in his sleep. Fearing it may happen again, Gabriel spends the rest of the game sleepless.
Gaining powerups left by a secret Order member, Gabriel makes his way across the continent to kill the Lord of Lycanthropes and the Lord of Vampires. The Lords each have a human form and a beast form. It is revealed to Gabriel by the Lords as he encounters them that his Order has lied to him. The Lords of Shadow aren’t the reason that the world has fallen into darkness–the Lords themselves are simply the shells left behind when God took three of his followers up to heaven. Because heaven can contain no sin, their sinful part of them remained on earth.
Along the way, Gabriel is aided by fellow Order member Zobek, the somewhat devious witch Baba Yaga, and the strange old god Pan. A problem occurs though when Gabriel attempts to find and kill the final Lord: Death. Death lives in Death’s Domain and the gate to the domain can only be opened to a mortal by the sacrifice of a god. Knowing this, Pan transforms into his god-form and fights Gabriel, testing him a last time and forcing Gabriel to kill him, fulfilling the requirement of a god sacrifice.
Finally in Death’s Domain, Gabriel encounters all sorts of strange trials and challenges ultimately encountering death’s three closest servants, the Necromancers (the last of whom possess a Dracholich).
Ready to defeat the final Lord of Shadow, Gabriel confronts Death, only to find that it was Zobek the whole time. Truly, there was no prophecy. Zobek had slowly introduced the legend to the humans over the years in order to spur someone to slay the other Lords of Shadows. Desiring the Mask of Shadows that could be created once all three pieces of that each Lord held were put together, Death knew that he would not arouse suspicion of a power struggle from the other Lords if another agent (the Order) handled the procedure. At this point, Gabriel, fraught with grief, doesn’t care or doesn’t believe him. He just wants to kill Zobek to get the mask, as the mask will allow him to bring the dead back to life (his wife).
It is now that Death reveals a darker scheme within Gabriel’s life. While Gabriel slept, death had placed his mask (different from the mask of the Lords of Shadows) on Gabriel’s face, which allowed him to control Gabriel. Gabriel had actually beheaded his wife with his own hands; the mask similarly explaining Gabriel’s hand in regards to the fate of the girl and her golem. Before Gabriel and Death can fight though, another string-puller reveals himself, speaking to Death specifically. The voice explains that it placed the seed of the scheme to obtain the Shadow Mask into Death’s mind and then instantly kills him with Hellfire. Stepping out from the void to reveal himself to Gabriel is Satan–the fallen angel himself. The two do battle, and with the help of heaven and Gabriel’s wife, he prevails against Satan, ending the master schemer’s plans once and for all. Finally possessing the Shadow Mask, Gabriel attempts to use it to bring back his wife, but he discovers that the mask was a farce this whole time. It allows the wearer to see and touch the dead, but it does not actually resurrect them.
At the end of it all, we get a full-fledged cinematic where Gabriel exists in the modern-day with a massive twist; he has become Dracula. Zobek, Death, has become Dracula’s right-hand man traditional to Castlevania lore. Unable to die and unable to truly live, Dracula mourns his existence. Even though this series is a reboot, it’s fun for a long-time Castlevania fan like myself to speculate how this could have fit in with the legacy canon.
The story continues with the game’s included DLC, where Gabriel recounts the cause of his transformation into Dracula. This is definitely the weakest part of the game, with a plot that seems far-fetched or possessing the occasional hole. Essentially, Gabriel is summoned by the Daughter of the Lord of Vampires in order to prevent an ancient evil known as the Forgotten One from returning to earth. Thousands of years ago, the Bernhard family summoned the Forgotten One to serve under their control. They were not strong enough to control it though, so the three founders of the Order (the same three whose husks Gabriel fought to gain the Mask of Shadows) sealed the demon away on the Bernhard’s behalf. Now that the Lords of Shadow have died (yes, I know that Death is “alive” now but he technically still died) the Forgotten One is coming back to earth to kill all of mankind. Mortals cannot enter the realm of the Forgotten One, so the vampire Daughter makes Gabriel drink all of her blood so that he gains her power. She dies in the process and Gabriel is afflicted by the curse that would eventually transform him into Dracula. Traveling to the realm of the Forgotten One, Gabriel instigates a series of fights with the Forgotten One, eventually conquering him in a final (and extremely difficult) battle.
At this point, you’ve seen the best Lords of Shadow has to offer; fantastic visuals and a decent plot. The combat is functional, and is fun to watch but not always invigorating to play. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just not really the game’s selling point. True to a Belmont, you use your whip to kill things, gain new combos through EXP, and use 4 special weapons along the way: Fairies, Daggers, Dark Crystals and Holy Water. You also gain the power of Light Magic and Dark Magic, but they’re just a way to soup up your existing abilities. Secrets are hidden around each level in the form of dead Order members, whom Gabriel can pay homage to in order to acquire powerups or scrolls that give hints and expand the lore. The only part of the combat that I felt was “bad” was the strange obsession with turning Gabriel into a beast-rider. In several early levels, you had to conquer and ride several large creatures–spiders, trolls and wargs–in order to open doors or traverse chasms. It peters out about 1/3 through the game though, only being needed occasionally from then on but overall it just felt like an awkward mechanic. Otherwise, everything else is pretty solid and all the boss fights are simple but played out to an epic scale.
Aside from the DLC, Lords of Shadows is an amazing game. It’s far from perfect, and at times the gameplay falls a bit flat, but as I said you play it mostly for its visuals and it nets Tier 1 in my book. It pays just the right amount of homage towards the themes and parallels to the older Castlevania titles, while breathing in new life to the franchise. It’s sad that we’ll never get to see anything in this universe apart from its sequel–of which I’ve heard was lackluster anyway. Come back Konami!
