Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Plowing Through Chapter V

I feel like I’m taking forever with Castlevania. I seem to only play one section at a time and that’s because I normally feel queasy after finishing an area. It’s really starting to grate on me. I want to be moving faster. I keep trying to move faster. That’s why I finally pushed myself to complete Chapter V. I had three more sections left so I decided to plow through it. I’m glad I did.

This chapter reveals something really major about Zobek. He’s a jerk. He is quite literally a massive jerk. After he and Gabriel were split up in the library Zobek revealed, during a narrative voiceover, that he knows a secret way to the top of the tower. He left Gabriel alone to scale the outside of the tower. What a stupid jerk! Poor Gabriel is grappling all around this tower and Zobek just takes some stairs.

When we finally reach the top I’m thinking that it’s time for a boss fight. This Abbot has been a lot of trouble and he’s worked hard to guard this sacred relic that Gabriel and Zobek are after, surely he won’t give it up without a fight. Well the Abbot does just that. Sure he whines when Gabriel takes it, but he doesn’t put forth any real effort to keep it.

Turns out the relic was just a flask of Holy Water. I’m not sure how this would prevent vampires from attacking by just sitting there though. It doesn’t stop them from attacking Gabriel. Holy Water is just another thrown item like daggers or fairies. They work pretty well against the undead in combat, but vampires will still attack Gabriel.

With that in tow it’s back to the village. Which is under attack by vampires and they want to face Gabriel alone. So here’s where the  boss fight occurs. Sure enough, after beating some basic vampires you get to fight Brauner. He’s a massive vampire who’s name I only learned from a narrative voiceover. Couldn’t Brauner have been, “I am Brauner! I get the privalige of ending your life.” Or some generic bad guy line? That would have been batter then what he did, which was suddenly lean forward and roar. Because that’s never been done before. Brauner can obviously talk since he constantly taunts Gabriel during the fight

The fight is pretty simple. I just kept dodging and whipping.  Brauner does this thing where he will throw his weapon at Gabriel and if you can catch it and throw it back it stuns Brauner. I never figured out how to do this. I tried, but I always failed. Brauner went down with very little trouble though. It is cool to watch Gabriel do his opponents in with their own weapons though.

And that is actually one of the points where Castlevania has made me happy. I figured when Gabriel killed the Werewolf Lord Cornell with his own hammer that Gabriel would acquire the hammer. Nope, Gabriel breaks the thing and leaves it to rot. Same here. Gabriel uses Brauner’s weapon to kill him, but Gabriel doesn’t keep the weapon afterwards. No secondary weapons for Gabriel, it’s all about the Combat Cross. This is a concept that I highly approve of. Games like God of War and Devil May Cry give the main character a lot of secondary weapons that I never use or I force myself to use them out of boredom. They are normally not as strong as the main weapon and I’m not as familiar with them. I like the idea of just having one main weapon and calling it good. Heavenly Sword also had a good feature for this. Nariko only had the titular sword, but she could use it in three distinct ways that changed its’ damage output and attack style. This was smart design. So I’m glad Gabriel doesn’t use any other main weapon. I hope this stays true to the end of the game.

Alright, Brauner’s down, it’s time to tackle the last area of the Chapter, The Castle Sewers. The hardest part of the sewers is the skeletons. They can be a pain to fight. I keep wondering where an upgrade is hiding that will up Gabriel’s damage output. Holy Water is a really useful tactic against them and I recommend using it when you get the chance. Especially if they are lying on the ground bouncing around as a pile of bones, Holy Water will finish them off then.

There’s another puzzle that involves a spike trap and daggers. Again, it’s not hard. It’s actually kind of clever. A good puzzle makes you think about what objects you have in your inventory and makes you use them in unique ways. I had never used my daggers to open a door and here that became a requirement. You have to press a button, dash across a one-hit-kill spike trap, turn back around, activate shadow magic, and then throw a dagger, trap complete. Level complete. Chapter complete.

So I made it through three areas in one playthrough. Here’s hoping I can do more next time.

Heavenly Sword - Stupidest. Henchmen. Ever.

Have you ever watched the original Ninja Turtles cartoon? The main villain was a guy named Shredder. He had two henchmen, Bebop and Rocksteady. They were both morons. The difference here is that Bebop and Rocksteady were supposed to be morons. King Bohan's henchmen are supposed to be competent warriors. Only one of them is supposed to be a "moron". Instead all three of them are morons.

At the end of Capter 1 you finally use the Heavenly Sword. Here Nariko gets to use what is referred to as stances. She has her normal stance (using attacks buttons normally), ranged stance (pressing L1 while attacking), and heavy (strong?) stance (pressing R1 while attacking). This actually makes combat far more interesting yet cheap at the exact same time. Normal stance can only block Normal attacks and the Heavy stance can only block heavy attacks. Rnaged attacks only block during specific occasions so far. The issues I have is that enemies seem to randomly change attack styles to hit you. The same attack can be used in Normal or Heavy stance which makes it hard to guess which attack type to block against. It really sucks if three guys are attacking you in Normal and then someone suddenly throws in a Heavy.

In-between Chapters Narkio speaks to the player again. She complains that I have made her a killer. I would like to point out that she killed 700+ people on her own before she actually used the sword so she should just stop whining!

Chapter 2 has you battle 2 different bosses. This is where my first paragraph comes into play. First you will encounter the Flying Fox. I prefer to call him the Stupid Peacock instead. He primps, he preens, he moves like a chicken, he has an annoyingly nasally voice and he isn't scary in the slightest. I was actually doing just fine against him until I encountered the Quick Time Event. Thanks for the warning by way. These QTEs are kinda nice in that if you screw up you can recover. I seem to fail the first time round because I'm not expecting the QTE to occur. So I had to repeat it.

It's not a hard fight and I can't take the guy seriously. He declares Nariko isn't strong enough to entertain him yet so he leaves. I felt like I just wasted 10ish minutes.

Shortly afterwards a cutscene occurs where Bohan is addressing Flying Fox and his other two henchmen Whiptail and Roach. Whiptail is some bizarre snake lady. She really reminds me of Jennifer Coolidge. The final henchman you actually saw a snippet of earlier and that's Roach. Roach is the big, dumb guy. I hate the big, dumb guy. It's a character that I have never, ever liked. Roach also happens to be King Bohan's illegitimate son. Roach worships Daddy, but Daddy can't stand Roach.

The cutscene with these three is just moronic. I don't really know how else to describe it. They argue, they bicker, they insult each other. King Bohan stares at them like a moron with no thoughts in his brain. He also seems to like Flying Fox even though he yells at Fox for failing to get the sword. It's just dumb. Would I be scared to in the same room as these four? Yes. But only because I think they might eat me, not because I actually fear them. These aren't villains you love to hate. They're just villains who you hate. I want to kill them so they're out of the storyline.

Thankfully I get that chance. At the end of Chapter 2 you get to fight Whiptail. This is an okay fight, but the fixed camera angle can really screw you over. You fight Whiptail in a long canal and the camera focuses on her. Now if Whiptail gets to close one of the back walls while in close vicinity to Nariko, the camera will jump back and forth between angles making it very hard to see what's going on. QA really should have been on top of this and design should have found a way to fix it. Give it to the tech team if you have to.

At the start of the battle Nariko rescues Shen, her father. Nariko is also told that Shen tried to kill her when she was just born. Shen confirms this. Nariko turns her back on her father and her clan at this point. Basically the only she has for living is killing Bohan. The dialogue between Nariko and Whiptail is great. Whiptail keeps trying to provoke Nariko and Nariko keeps throwing it right back. Now I'm starting to like Nariko.

There's a Kai shooting section here that I want to talk about. To me, this should have been the tutorial level for using Kai. Kai has to protect Shen while he walks, injured, down a long bridge. I actually found this section to be a little fun. The enemies come one at a time early on giving you a chance to really learn the bow. You also have plenty of room to shoot the enemies. The difficulty slowly escalates at an appropriate level. Eventually more enemies start appearing at the same time and you have to adjust how you fight. It's really well done.

Back to Nariko's battle (Kai's section actually interrupts Nariko's battle with Whiptail). When the fight ends Whiptail goes down with the sword through her. Problem is Nariko is also knocked out. It's actually King Bohan who finishes off Whiptail by snapping her neck. While I doubt Whiptail would have recovered from her injuries, Bohan snaps her neck and finishes the job. Bohan then claims the sword and Nariko is taken prisoner. End Chapter.

I actually don't remember what Nariko said this time and I don't really care. Chapter 3 is up next.