Reviews// Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

The action in-between the hacking and slashing is your standard adventuring fare. Nothing really to run home and shout about, but it does offer some rather pleasant platforming.

As you earn experience points from demons, you get to unlock new moves and abilities, and these can be used during exploration too. With the Combat Cross you can saw down totems, swing across gaps and rappel down cliffs.

Level design in general is quite interesting, and if you have a few hours to kill there's no reason why you wouldn't want to replay a few stages with some newfound abilities to discover new power-ups. Some environments have multiple routes that branch off from the main path, but a frustrating side-effect of this is that you do end up going backwards by exploring the exit of an alternative path. The game is not exactly helpful when it comes to navigation.

The Camera hates you
The navigation deficiency can pretty much be blamed on the camera. It just doesn't want to be your friend at all. For one thing, you can't control it yourself. Which would be fine, if it didn't choose some regularly annoying angles to sit at. As you climb around cliffs and rappel down walls, the camera dynamically pans around to point out where you need to go.

Unfortunately, this happens about three seconds after you've missed the opportunity to spot it, so you either have to progress very slowly to give the camera time to move, or you end up accidentally rappelling down too far and falling to your death. Lovely.

Chupacabra fragile is schtick
Even when static, you have to really look hard sometimes to spot glowing objects that signify your ability to climb them. Add the slight framerate drop in places, and the fact that the camera wobbles uncontrollably even when you're standing still, and you have a right pain in the arse there.

That's not the only thing that gets in the way of enjoying the adventuring elements. You'll frequently be tasked with having to explore the surrounding area several times over to look for keys that open doors.

Parts of a crystal, gemstones, fairies... you name it, you have to find it. With the camera problems and lack of navigation, you'll end up running around aimlessly as you try and think of the last location of a particular key.

What really takes the cake is a non-violent enemy called Chupacabra – demon midgets that steal all of your powers. They appear on a regular basis later on in the game, and you can't progress without being forced to play a hide and seek game with the annoying little bastard. These puzzles and missions push the experience from tedious to downright frustrating.

Fair bit of fun
That said, there is still a fair bit of fun to be had with Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. The environments are lush, and the graphics rather stunning, even if you do have to play through ten levels that almost look exactly the same in terms of textures.

The pacing of the game is perfect, and the sheer scale of the game means that, if you can ignore the annoyances, you'll be playing for quite a long time. Replayability is good, and when you get to about the halfway point of the game, you'll really start to see past Castlevania influences shine through.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is not a bad game per se, but it is very underwhelming. A solid game is marred by the fact that its greater gameplay potential has simply been wasted. Uncooperative camera, tedious missions and frustrating design choices are the real demons in this game. As a result, it plays like a poor man's God of War. Castlevania fans will find remnants of the series they love, but they'll have to look harder for their reward. A shame.

SPOnG Score: 69%