The signature Castlevania backtracking–where, early in the game, you encounter elements that you can’t interact with until you get an asset that comes later–showed up, too. One doorway required Dark Magic to open and I ran across a Brotherhood ark that I was told I couldn’t open, so it’s a safe bet that I’d be getting necessary tools or experience to come back and reap the rewards of either thing.
Lords of Shadow revisits the idea of quicktime events, too, but with a novel twist. Instead of timed button presses as in God of War and a zillion other games since, there’s a timer that accompanies each prompt. So, you’ll be forced to wait until two concentric circles converge if you’ve got an enemy in a grapple and want to execute a special attack.
Once I got out of the forest, I met with Pan, the old god who guarded a portal into another dimension where Gabriel could speak with his wife. Lords of Shadow invokes religion quite a lot, with characters saying that the world’s been cut off from Heaven and God’s protection. The use of Pan indicates a friction between the old Gods and the Christian God, as well. It’s weird territory for a game but at least it’s different. And Belmonts have always used crucifixes as weapons, so all the religion stuff kind of makes sense.
The next part of the game I played took place in a frozen landscape on the other side of the portal. There, I faced off with a towering Ice Titan on a frozen lake. It’s here that Lords of Shadow stopped feeling like God of War and started channeling Shadow of the Colossus. I dodged ranged attacks from the Ice Titan and got him to punch the surface of the lake, where his fist got lodged. From there, I grappled onto his right arm, dodged a swat and grappled onto the left arm and then his chest. At each point, I had to smash glowing runes on the Ice Titan’s body to take away his health. You’ll have to scramble and hold on to the giant, too, just like in SotC. While this homage borrows from the structure of the PS2 classic, the overall tone of Lords of Shadow is much different.
The story unfolds via voiceover narration from Patrick Stewart–who plays an older monk named Zobek–and his familiar voice adding a certain gravitas to the game. But there’s something else besides gravitas going on in Lords of Shadow. A lot of the text bears the purple tinge of Renaissance Faire dialogue. Now, portentious dialogue has been a hallmark of the series since way back but you have to wonder if the producers are consciously homing in on that part of the Castlevania legacy. Also, this game’s being developed under the aegis of Kojima Productions and, as the masters of all things Metal Gear, Hideo Kojima and crew have done more than their share of speechifying in video games. I’m not sure how I feel about it, but it may become clear whether it’ll be sincere or self-aware.