During the narrative Zobek declares Gabriel to be “angry” and “filled with hate”. I have yet to see this from Gabriel. The guy seems a little depressed at the most. Kratos always seemed angry and I wouldn’t want to get in his way. Gabriel just comes off as a little pouty. I don’t believe for a moment that the guy is hiding a desire for blood-thirsty vengeance. I know that his wife was murdered, but I thought he was on this quest because he had nothing left to lose. Learning that his wife could be brought back to life had given him hope. At least, that is what the earlier narrative had lead me to believe. Gabriel went after the Lords of Shadow to destroy evil and bring his wife back.
So here we are, Gabriel must now confront Cornell the first of the Lords of Shadow. This fight was… interesting to say the least. There’s a lot wrong with it on a fundamental level and we’ll cover all of that in a moment, but first we’re given expository backstory.
Many years ago the three founders of the Brotherhood of Light went to eliminate evil from the world. They were fairly successful and tip the world in favor of light. They then went on a quest to become closer to God. They were successful in finding three sacred locations and each founder used it to ascend to a higher plane of existence, their power being only second to God. Gabriel knew all of this and was very unimpressed. Here’s where Cornell tries to taunt Gabriel with secret knowledge.
Only the ‘good part’ of the Founders ascended. Their evil parts remained and those became the Lords of Shadow (Dun dun dun!). So the Lords of Shadow are linked to the Founders, to kill one is to kill the other. Gabriel cries about this for a while, but he quickly gets over it and the boss fight ensues.
Fighting Cornell’s human form is lame. I never died, I found him easy to predict, and I only took hits when I got careless. Dodging was the best form of defense against this guy. He’s time consuming, but never hard. When Cornell went down I said to myself “That can’t be all, that was too easy.” I was right.
Cornell is lord of the Lycans. This means he has a werewolf form and I’ve got to beat it down. Again, he’s not hard. He telegraphs most of his attacks allowing Gabriel to have ample room to move. He has the same problem that most bosses have though, they hit really hard. A few well placed hits from Cornell will kill Gabriel. I should know, I was on the receiving end of them.
I did die during this fight and thankfully Cornell’s werewolf form was a checkpoint. That actually makes sense compared to the numerous checkpoints in the Black Knight Golem fight. The issue… really the issue is the camera. You fight Cornell in a nicely circular arena and Cornell can go anywhere in the arena. The camera will try to follow Cornell. Note I said try. The camera in this game is designed to stay in one place and spasm occasionally, not follow a fairly fast boss around an arena. This shows the moment Gabriel respawns. The camera is still trying to position itself behind Gabriel when Cornell begins attacking. This means I was taking hits blind. I learned that I needed to be moving before I could even fully see Gabriel and that made knowing where to go difficult. The way the camera continues to flip around was so awful that it I had to walk away from the game on a few occassions. They really needed to give camera control to the player in this game.
Once Cornell’s werewolf form takes enough hits you move onto round three. Balls of energy shoot out of Cornell and hit these stone statues that are surrounding the arena. I have only a slight idea what that means but before I’m able to try it I get smacked around by Cornell again. Ok, I was waiting for one event to finish (the balls of energy) before the fight continued. Silly me. Instead Cornell decides to beat Gabriel down while he’s distracted by the shiny balls of light. At least let me have the camera back before this guy runs in to turn Gabriel’s face to hamburger.
Thankfully it’s a checkpoint. The goal is to smash the statues. Each statue takes one more hit then the last to destroy. So the first statue takes one hit, second statue takes two hits etc. until all are destroyed. Again I ended up fighting the stupid camera more than the actual boss. Cornell is still out to kill Gabriel, but the camera can’t decide if it should focus on the statues or on Cornell. So the camera had to deal with its own internal conflict while Gabriel dealt with Cornell and the statues. There had to be a better way to handle this. If the camera is not going to be given to the player then it needed to be stationary and only slightly adjust when necessary.
With Cornell down Gabriel gets part of the God Mask. Looks kinda similar to the mast Gabriel was wearing when he stabbed his wife. A giant eagle with Tron-lines shows up and offers Gabriel a ride to the land of the vampires. Now wait just a minute! Zobek was supposed to be dealing with the vampires. By the time Gabriel gets there the old man should have everything wrapped up. But he probably won’t and it will be up to Gabriel to clean up the old man’s mess.
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