Castlevania: Lords of Shadow II review: Dracula ripped out my heart
I love vampires.
As a teenager I mooned over Anne Rice books, devoured vampire movies, grew my hair and dyed it black. I even wore makeup. Though I now find Anne Rice tawdry, regret the hair color and really regret the makeup, I have never been able to shake my fascination with vampires.
So you can imagine my glee when I realised that Castlevania: Lords of Shadow II (Lords of Shadow II) let me play not just any bloodsucking fiend, but the bloodsucking fiend: Dracula himself. I couldn’t wait to feel the power of the vampire, to drink the blood of my foes and become one with the night. Unfortunately after playing Lords of Shadow II, I’m still waiting.
Dracula is cool. Dracula is always cool.
Konami’s Castlevania series is usually a 2D action adventure game set in a maze-like giant castle. Power-ups open new doors which allow travel to new areas, or allow connections to old ones. The games have a heavy focus on exploration and usually end with Dracula’s death.
Lords of Shadow II changes this up. Instead of fighting against Dracula, you are Dracula. What’s more, a significant chunk of the game takes place in a modern city built above the ruins of Dracula’s castle. It’s an interesting change for a series whose comfort zone has always been medieval.
Awesome, blood-thirsty plot
Lords of Shadow II has the best vampire plot I have seen in years. Dracula is a big. brooding presence at the heart of the game and his struggles with immortality and sin will pique any vampire lover’s interest. I like the fact that the plot is basically about a suicide attempt; Dracula doesn’t want to live anymore and his nemesis will kill him if he saves the world first. It’s not a plot that fits easily into a game, in which Dracula is killable, but I chose not to think about that too much.
The story introduces a lot of interesting creatures such as three sisters who move in the creepy, jerky fashion made popular by The Ring and a ridiculously cute little monster who offers his services to Dracula’s cause. Seriously, how cute is this guy:
Awwww. I know he’s an evil merchant but…awwww.
But all that pales in comparison to its voice acting. Lords of Shadows II is carried by lead voice actors Robert Carlyle (Dracula) and Patrick Stewart (Zobek). Their commitment to their roles makes every cutscene a delight, which is all the more impressive when some of the lines are cheesy enough to be cringeworthy. It’s impossible to cringe at Patrick Stewart. Fact.
Oh, Patrick…..
Basically, the cutscenes are great. Unfortunately this greatness doesn’t carry over to the rest of the game, which goes downhill from here.
A lesson for all future games
There’s a trend in action games where during the opening, we play as the max-level protagonist. For some reason, they lose these powers and we spend the rest of the game hunting them down. It’s an OK system; not original but it sets the scene and give us a taste of what’s to come.
This method can be a double-edged sword, especially if the fully armed player is unimpressed. During the opening of Lords of Shadow II I found myself thinking: “this is what I have to look forward to?”
There must be a factory producing these guys somewhere.
Lord of Shadows II should take the award for having the worst opening section ever. It begins with a dull button mashing battle which goes on forever as the game laboriously tells you how to fight. Seriously, how many people need to be told that hitting the attack button multiple times equals multiple attacks?
More unnecessary guidance!
The game then moves on to a mini-boss fight which is easy beyond belief, and also annoying. Following that, a giant Titan attacks. Someone at Konami must have played Shadow of the Colossus during production because the next section is pretty much a Colossus battle. A dumbed down, frustrating Colossus battle.
What’s worse is Lords of Shadow II’s love of timed-button-pressing nonsense. “Press any button when the circles connect” is just a crappy version of quicktime events. This is impressive considering how crappy quicktime events already are, and in my opinion, it takes a brave developer to take something this bad and make it worse.
Just to add insult to injury, the Titan escapade also reveals how bad the climbing mechanics are. Lords of Shadow II does the classic, lazy, single-path climbing. Holding the right trigger displays the path for you, killing any possibility of exploration. Dracula is a giant pencil in a game of dot-to-dot.
Does this look fun? Because it isn’t.
When you compare this climbing toShadow of the Colossus, which came out in 2005, it’s shocking how little has developed in the last 9 years.
It gets better
However, Lords of Shadow II is nowhere near as bad as its first level suggests. After Dracula loses his powers, you finally have time to learn the combos and do more than just spam the attack buttons. The climbing never gets better, though. That sucks. Forever.
Slash, slash, whip, whip, smash, smash, done
Lords of Shadow II “borrowed” so much from Devil May Cry (I’m pretty sure Dracula is wearing Dante’s coat) that I don’t understand why Konami didn’t just steal the combat system. You remember how in DMC, Dante switched between weapon types using the the left and right triggers? This meant that he could chain together massive combos using his full arsenal. It was a great way to add real depth to the combo system. Unfortunately, Dracula can only switch back and forth using the shoulder buttons.
That wasn’t too big a deal since you’ll find yourself using the standard whip most of the time, but then why give me three weapons to begin with? I just forget about the other two weapons until I need them in boss fights. There is just no need for them 90 percent of the time. Occasionally I needed to smash a shield and occasionally (very occasionally) my health dipped low enough to warrant the sword, but most of the time, they just gathered dust in Dracula’s pockets.
I know it’s not fair to compare Lords of Shadow II with Devil May Cry directly but Konami invited the comparison by mirroring the world of DMC. The style, the combat, and even the “modern” city feels so reminiscent of Dante’s recent outing that I can’t help but compare.
This thing scares the hell out of me. Especially when it does sexy talk.
That said, Lords of Shadows does have fantastic boss battles with some awesome looking beasts. None of them are difficult but they do have a classic boss feel to them. Lords of Shadows sticks with a classic, dodge, block, then attack approach. It works pretty well and does some pretty quick thinking when the action heats up. Unfortunately the boss fights in no way make up for the rest of the game, but there’s usually a cool cutscene at the end and that was motive enough for me.
Stop giving me things!
I like collecting power-ups and I enjoy improving my characters, but Lords of Shadow II overdoes it with a constant influx of mostly useless items.. What’s worse is the game just gives it to you without any effort from the player. The worst example of this was when I spotted a fountain doing the “shining-so-you-know-I’m-not-just-scenery” thing. I activated it by slitting my wrist and bleeding into it (this is how everything works in Lords of Shadow II, Dracula is very environmentally friendly) and was then given a mysterious amulet.
Can’t be important, right? Random loot you pick up along the way never is. I used it, and then turned into a dragon! Now don’t get me wrong, I was happy to get the dragon-changing power; I mean, who wouldn’t be? But can we all please agree that that’s something to earn, not to be give? Probably by killing a dragon, or at least visiting one and asking nicely. Also…the whole thing makes no sense. Where was the amulet? Was it at the bottom of the fountain and Dracula’s blood made it float? I know for a fact that no secret doors opened: it was just cut, bleed, amulet appears.
But that’s not even the worst thing that was given to me. That award goes to the wolf amulet. This wolf amulet can only be used when standing in the “wolf amulet use area”, and summons a wolf. What does this wolf do, can he help you fight, will he save your life, become a companion who you love and treasure? No.
This is only thing I actually want. Gimme!
The wolf walks next to you and guides you through a door to the past (Dracula’s castle) or the present (generic computer game city #4). This door is always there. If you don’t call the wolf it just has an invisible wall blocking the way. In other words, the wolf amulet is just an unnecessary layer of complexity and the only thing the wolf does is walk next to you.
Why wouldn’t you put the wolf amulet area next to the door instead of several jumps or a frustratingly long climb away? Dracula, you designed this nonsense for your castle, sort your shit out!
Tacked on extras are always crap
If a feature of a game doesn’t connect with the rest of the game or makes certain sections stick out like a splinter, then this is bad game design. This is not interesting. Not even a little. It adds nothing to the gameplay and nothing to the game as a whole.
OK, so Konami wanted to give Dracula shape shifting powers. I get it; it fits with the mythology and playing as a rat could be a cool distraction from the action. So how are you going to do it? Oh, he can only turn into a rat in “special” shadows and then follow a prescribed path and do some boring rat obstacle courses. Oh, and you’re going to make the rat about as agile as a heavily-sedated tortoise. Well, well done to you, Konami, for making that potentially fun feature awful.
This rat is so useless that walking across this wide path was actually a challenge.
What else have you got? Possession? OK, I’m listening. So you can possess anyone? Oh, you can just possess set people at set times to pull switches and open doors. That’s it? Also how does a corporeal being like Dracula possess someone? He changes into blood and jumps inside them? Can he change into blood at any other time, like when he needs to get through a barred door? No. Only when he’s possessing people and only when they are the people we allow him to possess.
Konami included these features for one reason: to trick gamers into believing that Lords of Shadow II is deeper than it is. But it isn’t. It’s crappy gameplay fuelled by marketing and it’s just lame.
So wait. Why am I still playing?
Everything I have said so far should have made it clear that Lords of Shadow II is, at best a mediocre game. Yet I enjoyed it. I couldn’t help doing so, and the question is, why?
The answer is simple: the cutscenes and the story. It’s the only thing that saves the game from being a complete write-off. If you are like me and you love dramatic, gothic horror stories then this game might be worth picking up (in the future, at a hefty discount). But, for the majority of gamers, Lords of Shadow II is not good enough to warrant the time, effort or money.
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