Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

"You like Castlevania, don't you?"

For those of you who haven't played Metal Gear Solid on the original Playstation (lucky bastards, all of you), Psycho Mantis says this if you have a Castlevania: Symphony of the Night save on your memory card. Which I always did.

Castlevania is one of the best series the NES ever gave gamers. Oh I know, people defend Mario and Zelda, but let's tell the truth, those games have basically been the same since inception. Castlevania has actually tried different things, with varying degrees of success. From adding RPG elements to what amounts to a classic action adventure game (in games like Simon's Quest and SotN) to trying to break out of the side-scrolling game play (Castlevania 64, Legacy of Darkness and Curse of Darkness to name a few that only kind of worked). SotN is considered the peak of the series and is apparently very rare on the PSX, and was my introduction to the series, and damn was it awesome. If you haven't played it, go on Xbox Live and download it. NOW.

I have to hand it to Konami, they have tried to put all the games into some kind of timeline, and isn't below saying games weren't part of the chronology. If I remember correctly, the two games on the N64 were removed, probably more because they suck than because they couldn't fit them in. Almost every aspect of those games were absolutely dreadful. So when a new Castlevania game was announced for the PS3 and Xbox 360, I think every fan was cringing in fear because we knew it wasn't going to be side-scrolling, they were going to venture into 3d territory again. Ouch.

Then we saw the teaser trailer. And it's narrated by none other than Patrick Stewart. Odd. But when Captain Picard talks to you about vampires and werewolves, you listen. So maybe this won't suck. Then they announce that Hideo Kojima, the genius behind the Metal Gear series, was going to have a part in the game. Now, I met this announcement with a loud, uproarious meh! Because I never really liked Metal Gear. MGS was ok, but after that, I couldn't care less. I don't care what anybody says Metal Gear Solid 2 sucked ass; any game that I have to play through a segment where the main character is naked and holding his junk so we don't see it is worthless. Anyway, the announcement that Hideo Kojima was going to work on the new Castlevania game was hot shit in the video game world.

Alright, enough beating around the bush, is the damn game any good? Well, yes, yes it was.

First off, when I bought it, I noticed the case is really heavy. I buy a lot of console RPG's like Oblivion and Fallout 3, so I figured the book was just freakin' huge. Nope. I pull the book out and it's like four pages in English, then Spanish and French. Then I look closer and it's two freaking disks! I don't know if that's just for the 360, because I think blu-ray has a higher capacity on the disk, so maybe it's just one for the PS3. Seriously, I haven't seen a multi-disk game on a console since I quit playing my Playstation. Damn.

So I figured the graphics would just be mind blowing if this game takes two disks. The graphics are great, suitably gory and detailed. Actually, yeah, mind blowing is a good description. My only issue is a lack of control over the camera; it's static and the view changes on its own. It does it fairly well and I was rarely aggravated by the camera, I just would like to be able to look around and check out the scenery; I had the same issue with Dante's Inferno. The sound effects were great, the voice acting was top-notch and the music was awesome. Especially in the music box area where we got to hear Vampire Killer from the first game. It was a welcome throwback to the original series.

There are four difficulty settings, the hardest unlocked by beating the game once. To get 110% of the game completed, you have to play on the hardest setting, Paladin. This setting is challenging, not balls-out hard like Halo 2 but it's a nice step up in difficulty. There are tons of things to find, upgrades to life and magic and subweapons like normal. And there are trials to do on each level after you have beaten it once. Some of them are really difficult, like beating a Titan in one minute and thirty seconds, to the downright easy, like beating the first level without all the villagers being killed.

This game is long too. Probably one of the longest games I've played recently that wasn't an RPG. I bought it last Tuesday and played pretty much constantly all through Wednesday and Thursday and still did't complete it until Friday. Now that was only going through the story, I didn't go out of my way to find stuff, I didn't go back and do trials or unlock stuff, I just played beginning to end and it took me three days. Not too shabby. There was something else I wanted to mention but I cannot think of it to save my life right now. Maybe it'll come to me later and I'll edit this again. Anyway, that's about all I have to say: if you're a fan of action adventure games or the Castlevania series in general, you have to play Lords of Shadow. You won't be disappointed.