Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow - The Opening Act

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is a third-person, fixed-camera, action game. It was developed by Mercurysteam and published by Konami for the PS3 on October 2010. The game follows the story of Gabriel Belmont and Knight of Some Brotherhood on his quest to defeat evil and restore balance to the world. This is my first time playing through the game and I will be playing on “normal” mode.

I don’t like to use abbreviations if I can avoid it, but Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is a very long title and not one that I want to type every time I reference the game, so I’m going to cheat and just call it Castlevania. If you don’t know what I’m talking about when I reference that title I cannot help you. I’m just a simple man talking about video games on the internet.

I’m going to reserve the right to quit playing this game early due to being nauseous. Yes I suffer from minor motion sickness, because of this I can’t play many FPS, at least not for long. It’s rare that a third-person action game makes me feel this way, but this game tries and it tries hard. The camera shakes, just a little, but it’s enough to start affecting me after an hour or so of gameplay. I imagine that his camera shake is supposed to be for “atmosphere” but I really wish that the camera would stop moving. It would make my life so much easier.

First things first, voice over by Patrick Stewart! Hell yes! I’ve always had this little pipe dream about doing voice-overs. I think most people who watch anime have this thought at some point or another. I’ve never let it go in my older age. But hearing Patrick Stewart’s gorgeous voice read these lines with such depth; it renews my passion and tells me to try again. He seems to be the narrator so I should get to hear a lot of the man. That just might be the best part of the game.

At the start of the game we are introduced to one Gabriel Belmont, an insanely tall man with a neat little cross/whip thing for a weapon. Whips have always been the classic Castlevania weapon and I’m happy to see that tradition continue. To many characters use swords, it’s nice to see some variety. But going back to Gabriel’s height, this guy is either 8’ tall or he’s wandered into a village of pygmies. I don’t think a single villager in the starter town comes up to his chest. The man is ridiculously tall. At least the rest of his proportions are normal. His arms aren’t the size of his head, but I figure making a guy cartoonish-ly buff is the equivalent to making a female unrealistically sexy. It’s the same school of thought.

So the tutorial level has Gabriel battling werewolves, called Lycans. It’s a nice and easy fight, great way to warm up. It’s basic “square for normal attack, triangle for heavy attack” with this game. Some of the controls are setup a little more uniquely. Like circle throws daggers and R2 is the grab button. Gabriel has a large number of combos that can be unlocked. He earns XP as he kills enemies and the XP is used to unlock more moves.

There’s a battle against a giant werewolf, called Wargs. Again, this is all tutorial at this point so the fight is easy and it’s designed to be won. There are some Quick Time actions that occur during gameplay. Like grabbing an enemy causes a large circle to appear. The circle slowly shrinks and when it reaches a certain size you can press a button to have Gabriel perform a unique action. I really suck at doing this. The timing just feels off and I never fully know when one of these events will occur. I also tend to spam my buttons instead of planning out my attacks. It’s easy to screw up if I’m not paying attention. So pay attention me!

Once the warg is killed the battle is over and Gabriel moves into the forest to try to find a being called The Guardian of the Lake. We get a cutscene explaining a little about his past. It appears that his wife is dead, that’s probably related to his quest. He either wants to get revenge, bring her back, or both. Most likely the last one.

That’s when the Tron horse appears. The horse is white with “cyber-lines” drawn through it. It offers to help Gabriel on his quest. I’m apparently really bad at riding a horse. I got knocked off the dumb thing twice, but I also feel that Gabriel is a complete idiot for blindly trusting a horse that appears out of nowhere and talks to you. Whenever I got knocked off I had to fight Lycans and Wargs, but I made it through alive. I like when the horse vanishes in mid-air after knocking some Wargs off a cliff, I wanted the XP for those Wargs. ‘

I’m sure I’ll get that circle, Quick Time event eventually. Maybe then I’ll be able to stay on the beast.