Certain franchises get the benefit of a permanent glow around them, by virtue of having notched continued success over a long period of time. Nintendo’s Mario games are the arguably platinum standard and the character’s ability to be dropped into a bunch of different gameplay idioms goes a long way to making him so beloved.
The Castlevania series gets a lot of love from fans, as it–along with the early Metroid games–minted the idea of backtracking as a gameplay mechanic. It’s the side-scrolling iteration of the vampire-slaying franchise that inspires the most devotion. The franchise evolution for Castlevania hasn’t been as flexible, as it’s been for, say, Mario or Metroid. Samus and Mario have been able to go from 2D to 3D and back again with ease. With dozens of Castlevania games released over the years, only a few have been in 3D and those got middling responses at best. This year, publisher Konami’s taking the plunge again with Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.
Lords of Shadow is set in the medieval Dark Ages and you’ll be controlling new character warrior monk Gabriel Belmont. The soldier in the Brotherhood of Light is mourning his recently killed wife, who died at the hands of nether creatures that are rampaging across the Earth and trying to wipe out humanity. Gabriel undertakes a quest to find the mystical powers that will reunite him with his wife. His journey leads him to the entrance of a foreboding forest and the game opens with a face-off against a pack of werewolves.
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You could say that the new Castlevania bears strong some similarities to God of War but it might be more accurate to look at that comparison the other way around. The Belmont family characters who’ve mostly been the heroes of the series were using whips for combat and traversal, long before Kratos was a twinkle in David Jaffe’s eye. Still, the combat will be familiar to anyone who’s played a God of War title. Like almost every character in a Castlevania game, Gabriel wields a whip. He has a direct attack which targets in a specific direction and an area attack that spins the whip in a radius around him. He’ll also wield throwing daggers, too. And, of course, no Castlevania would be worthy of the name without magic. In my two hours with the game, I only acquired the Light Magic, which allowed me to heal as I damaged enemies. Aside from the werewolves I encountered, I also fought goblins that threw crude grenades at me. The mini-boss for the first level was a swamp troll that charged at me and threw headstones, forcing me to dodge and attack until I damaged him enough to trigger a quicktime event.
Some of the sequences in the dark forest involved horseback combat as I was being chased by werewolves that were riding other, larger wolves called wargs. Gabriel, by the way, was on a talking horse with glowing brands. Was all this a mite bit cheesy? Yes, but cool, also.
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.
One thing I definitely didn’t like about Lords of Shadow was the lack of camera control. Now, God of War doesn’t have a player-controlled camera but it at least uses the right analog stick for dodging. Nothing like that was in Lords of Shadow when I played, but it’s possible the right stick might get used for something later on.
The two hours I spent with the game were clearly just the tip of a very big iceberg, but I can say that there’s enough style–some of it borrowed–and action to make me curious about the rest of the game. With lots of tense silences and weighty issues driving the character interactions, the stamp of Kojima Productions is readily visible, too. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow comes out on October 5th so we’ll all get the chance to see whether it’s a heavenly or a hellish journey into 3D for the latest Belmont adventure.