Castlevania Lords of Shadow 2 - Initial Impressions
Originally published February, 2017My initial impressions of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 have been difficult to write. The main reason for this is simply that this game itself spawns numerous subjects, of which I would love to discuss at length. It makes me think of the old games and the legacy of this 20+ year-old franchise. It makes me think about the last game and how mediocre it was. It makes me think about the how the publisher and copyright holder, Konami, has changed over the years and how this game probably spurred their departure from the games industry. It makes me think about how this will probably be the last Castlevania game they'll ever release that isn't a pachinko machine. However, it mostly makes me think: What the hell is up with this game?
Seriously. Lords of Shadow 2 has a real bad identity crisis going on. I'm not even half-way in, but I have no clue where the hell this game is going. I don't mean just in story either. The gameplay is all over the place with a bunch of different mechanics that don't feel like they belong here. It all feels so out-of-place, this managed to make my list of worst games I played in 2016, and won (lost).
Dracula looks as bored as I am playing his game.
Part of me wants to see the game through to completion, since I did so last time. Another part of me cannot get over the frustrating and bizarre design choices of the game. For once, I'm glad that it isn't my job to review games, because I can stop whenever I want. So I'm going to stop before I absolutely hate Lords of Shadow 2. But before it's out of my mind forever, I'm going to give you all the reasons why I don't want to play it anymore.
Rinse Repeat
The first Castlevania: Lords of Shadow was a bit of lukewarm mess. Its plot ended up going in some dumb directions and the game went on too long. The platforming was pretty bad with some poor camera angles and pitfalls. The combat, while ambitious, got pretty repetitive by the end. However, it wasn't a hot mess because the gameplay was still passable and the artwork was amazingly good. There were plenty of areas that could have been improved, but there were some commendable features about it as well. Besides, it was the first attempt by a studio to do something new with the franchise, so it got a bit of a pass in certain ways.
Ummm…
Considering the fact that video games are one of the few exceptions when it comes to a media format where the sequels are usually better than the first outing, I actually thought Lords of Shadow 2 would outshine the original. With the extra time the developers had to flush out the story, learn from their mistakes, and take the series in new directions, there was a chance they could improve the gameplay and design choices enough to make a worthy sequel... SPOILER ALERT: Not the case.
They certainly took the series in new directions, so I'll give them that. It's clear, however, they didn't learn much from the previous game. While I certainly didn't expect a masterpiece, I was expecting some improvements to the overall gameplay. Instead, the developers seemed to think they got it right the first time, because Lords of Shadow 2 is, more or less, the same as its predecessor, if not worse, when it comes to the combat and the platforming.
The jumping around from foothold to foothold and platform to platform is still a huge pain in the ass. As though it's some sort of tradition with 3-dimensional Castlevania games, the camera might as well be one of your enemies, especially in the platforming sections. The backgrounds are still detailed enough to be pretty, but none of the developers ever played enough Mirrors Edge, Assassin's Creed, or Uncharted game to learn how to place climbable structures throughout the level in a way that is easy to identify where the path lies. The developers had the good will to put a little icon on various objects to let you know that you could go there, but it doesn't always appear when it should. It will frequently just show up and then disappear for no reason. The intermittent icon is just one of several bugs in this game that can lead to some rather frustrating moments. Since the platforming was already a pain and now I had to rely on an inconsistent icon to tell me where I could go, I had a tendency to get lost or miss jumps and fall to my death more often than I'd like.
That swarm of bats you can barely see is your icon to let you know you can jump there
As for the combat, it's just as painfully unrewarding as last time, if not more so. Well, that's actually a little unfair. The original game's combat, was satisfying in certain regards with its more acrobatic God of War flair and swift movement. However, I could have completely done without the color-coded nonsense that became alpha and omega to the experience by the end. Unfortunately, color-coordination is in full-force in the sequel. It's an arbitrary layer of complication that does the game no real favors. There's at least a little variety to it because it's not just a whip weapon anymore, but the movement and fidelity of the weapons for this mechanic are hardly fun to use. It's not even remotely as satisfying as playing DMC: Devil May Cry with the ax and scythe, which used similar color-coded mechanics that are far more effective.
Where you side on the arbitrary nature of adding these mechanics, of using one fast blue weapon and one slow orange weapon to damage enemies of the opposite color, is relatively pointless. Regardless of whether you like the mechanic or not, the combat is still far short of an improvement. Even with the foresight to change the game's difficulty to Easy, I found no oomph or satisfaction to the combat. It just felt like a tedious roadblock to a lengthy road.
What is a Plot?!
The original Castlevania: Lords of Shadow left off on a bit of a cliff-hanger. Gabriel Belmont had defeated the Lords of Shadow, but was unable to resurrect his dead wife. Then, Lucifer showed up suddenly and decided he wanted to be the villain for the last 10 minutes. Upon defeating him, Gabriel felt lost and betrayed by his faith. Roll credits... Then a CG cut-scene played where Gabriel was an old and withered vampire fighting Patrick Stewart's character, Zobek, in the modern era. Turns out that, at some point after the game ended, Gabriel Belmont became the legendary vampire and Castlevania's main antagonist: Dracula.
How did this happen? You would have had to play the super over-priced DLC to find out, but even then it wouldn't have helped much. Watch it on YouTube if you're that curious. If you don't want to watch the DLC, or if you're new the Lords of Shadow franchise, you may be asking: "Is it explained in Castlevania Lords of Shadow 2?" Well...
Exposition everywhere
The tutorial section of the game starts off extremely similar to God of War 2, right down to the massive moving statue enemy. After completing the tutorial and listening to the infamous quotes of the franchise, such as "What is a man?!" or "Die monster, you don't belong in this world," over and over, the game does a massive exposition dump on your head. It is, seriously, one of the longest pieces of absurd exposition I've heard in a game like this; it is right up there with the Metal Gear and Final Fantasy games. It's about 10 minutes of backstory on what happened after Gabriel became Dracula and how he had a son before this happened, but then some shit went down and he turned his son into Alucard, etc. I'm guessing that much of this backstory was in the plot of the 3DS game that was supposed to tie in with the series. This was likely just to inform the people who didn't buy that other little game. Nonetheless, this is a lot of information to shove down our throats before we even get past the initial tutorial.
When the exposition dump is over, the game moves to the modern/near-future era. Resurrected from the dead, Dracula must help his old foe, Patrick Stewart, defeat the forces of Lucifer as they plot to take over the world using some demon virus thing. Apparently, people can be turned into demons with just a small whiff of some gas made by Lucifer's minions, giving Dracula plenty of fodder for his bloodlust. Or some nonsense. At the time I stopped playing this thing, I was no closer to actually discovering what the plot to this game was than what I already knew 5 hours earlier: Lucifer mad, Dracula sad.
Since you're a vampire, you feed in combat... Isn't that fun?!
A Miserable Pile of Game Design
What the hell is this game trying to be? Lords of Shadow 2 is an amalgamation of so many different ideas with nothing left on the cutting-room floor. Please allow me to list the various questionable mechanics and design choices made for Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2.
Open World-ish?
It's not quite an open world, but it sure wants to be. When game developers make an open world game, they typically look to the sandbox style of Grand Theft Auto. Recently there's been more games doing something that could be called "open-area," where the world of the game may not be smaller than that of GTA, but it's more linear and scripted. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 is a large game that tries to be even larger by making the world "free" to explore and tries to employ this quality, but ultimately fails at making that decision worthwhile.
So ready to explore this parking garage!
In the original game, every area was broken up by missions in the story. You would choose a mission, which would then determine where you would be able to explore and play. If you wanted, you could play the mission over again to try to find all the secrets. This wasn't anything innovative or new, but it worked for what the game was. In Lords of Shadow 2, missions are removed from the equation entirely and you are given a world to explore, however it is an empty world, gated by different mechanics that are unlocked through the story. There's nothing inherently wrong with this format. It's reminiscent of the Soul Reaver games that I praise so highly and Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, which allowed players to explore a large landscape, assuming they were not blocked by an arbitrary reason.
The problem that this causes, however, is that it increases the chances of the player getting lost. When games are linear missions, the chances of a player getting lost are slim. In these environments, it becomes more problematic because backtracking can now become part of the process of advancing the level and the story. This is also not inherently bad, it just requires more finesse that Lords of Shadow 2 severely lacks.
The real castle needs to be at least... 3 times as big as this!
The developers know how to make their world look pretty, but their level design is atrocious. I know this because of how easy it was to lose track of where I'm supposed to go in their world, especially when it came to platforming. There's a ton of platforming in this game that requires you to jump from ledges to platforms to progress, but it is often hard to tell where a safe zone to land actually is. The fact that the reticle for ledges and platforms is difficult to see is compounded by the fact that the levels are no longer linear. If they were simple linear paths, I could use process of elimination to help keep me on track. But if I can't see the small swarm of bats indicating where to go, or if they don't show up, I'm more likely to wander around the open area, endlessly looking for an exit.
Different time zones?
Did I mention this game is weird? I got the distinct sense that there were two different camps in the development studio when it came to determining where Lords of Shadow 2 would take place. Half said, "The Gothic, Medieval world of Dracula's castle from Castlevania, of course," while the other half said, "What about a fancy futuristic city?" To bring the two sides together as team, they decided to make both in the same game.
The main plot of Lords of Shadow 2 takes place in this futuristic city that was built upon Dracula's castle after his fall and his thousand-year coma. How this works or can be explained, I have no idea. The game doesn't really care to explain. All I know is that the city planner involved with this project must have been insane. The bigger question, however, is: Where does the Medieval stuff come in when the story takes place in the modern era? Dracula is going through an identity crisis as he attempts to regain his strength. Thus, he must travel inward to his own mind and unlock his true power.
If only I could unlock this door faster
What does his inner mind look like? You guessed it! Dracula's Castle! You must battle the various monsters of Dracula's castle that were his servants but are now his enemies because his inner psyche is so screwed up that he can't control his mental minions, I guess. I'm not really sure what's going on here. The game says it's all in his head, yet to get to these old-world levels, Dracula doesn't just sit down and meditate. Instead, he goes through a dark tunnel with his son, who appears in the form of a wolf (Yup, I don't know either!). When he comes out the other side of this tunnel, he's in his old castle with lava, fire, and Gothic architecture. To get back, he has to walk the same wolf tunnel system again.
I do not understand the point of this time shift nonsense. It adds a layer of confusion and complexity to a game that is already too complicated. Considering the fact that the game is not mission based, to go to Old-Castle, you must retread Future-Castle until you find the wolf portal, which also may take you to a different area than it did the first time. Instead of Tarantino-ing it in an attempt to make the game cooler in some way by adding this layer of bullshit, how about just separating the game into two distinct halves?! Or just make it take place in one area of the game, for that matter? Why the extra complication and layer?! Now you have to learn two needlessly large open-area maps, and one of which is subject to change. It is rare for me to get lost for long in video games, but this was not the case in Lords of Shadow 2.
Ikaruga?
Ikaruga, for those who don't know, is a popular shoot-em-up (aka SHMUP) game where you play as a fighter plane on a level that is constantly scrolling up. As in most SHMUPs, your goal is to kill as many enemies as you can on-screen without taking a single hit and dying. What makes Ikaruga special and iconic is that it has a color-switching mechanic where players are able to change the color of their ship's energy. Doing so allows the ship to absorb attacks of the same energy type and inflict more damage upon those with the opposite energy. This mechanic made its way into the first Lords of Shadow, where Gabriel had to switch the colors of his whip's attacks to avoid and cause damage, and it became extremely crucial by the end of the game. Unfortunately, this mechanic has made a less-than-graceful return.
Just stick to the blood whip, it's easier
Now, as Dracula, you have 3 different weapons instead of just the color-coded whip of old. You have your core whip attacks. You also have an ice sword and flame gauntlets. These other weapons have similar properties to the old game as well by making it that the ice sword heals you when you attack (for some reason) and the gauntlets cause more damage and crush enemy shields. Why would you ever use your core whip attacks if these other attacks do so much more? They have energy meters that deplete as you use them. To refill these meters, you must complete combo strings against enemies, then suck up the energy orbs to power your other weapons.
As you might guess, this becomes tedious quickly. It already was tedious in the first game, but it feels even more tedious here. It also wasn't quite as critical to the gameplay until the end in the first game. In Lords of Shadow 2, these secondary weapons are crucial to solving puzzles and beating enemies. As I mentioned earlier, if you want to see how they could have done this mechanic of multiple weapons with different attributes, look no further than DMC: Devil May Cry.
Stealth?
Do you know what is ALWAYS a good idea and could never, EVER, be frustrating or problematic to the player? Adding stealth mechanics to action games that are not built for stealth!—That was sarcasm, if you couldn't tell.
If I am playing as the infamous antagonist of Castlevania, the almighty and powerful Dracula, Lord of Vampires, why am I sneaking around? He's a vampire! Not just any vampire, either. He's supposed to be the most powerful vampire of them all! And you're making me sneak around like a rat? Hell, you even have to transform into a rat to sneak some times.
I don't see the need to explain it any further. If you're familiar with video games that use stealth, you likely know that it's a problem when it isn't done well. Besides, this subject leads to an entirely different essay of 2000+ words.
Artistic Beauty
This is the only thing I can say that's truly positive about Lords of Shadow 2. It is pretty. Just like the first game, there is a fair amount of amazing artwork and creative design at work here. It's a shame it's wasted on such a lame game. I hope the people responsible for the artistic vision behind this game get better work elsewhere.
I don't get it...
TL;DR (Conclusion)
After putting my thoughts down on paper, I realize I like Lords of Shadow 2 even less than I thought. The first game was a disappointment in many ways, but there were still some positives to take from it. This barely has anything of value outside of its fantastic artwork. The game just has so many ideas and different mechanics at play that it clashes with itself from beginning to end, or at least to where I stopped playing. It has stealth segments. It has tedious color-coded combat. It has inter-dimensional time-zones. It has misleading level design. It has psychological horror. It has an empty open-world. It has shameless fan-service references to better games. It has father-son relationships told through the metaphor of a vampire being led by a wolf through a time-portal. It has no idea what it is doing! Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 is a bad game simply because it doesn't make any sense. At the very least, I hope its artists get hired to do more games in the future.
A metaphor for the whole experience
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