Review: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2

In a preview I wrote for Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 in August 2013, I said that a good game need not be revolutionary. Instead, I thought one could simply “offer nothing more than a rock solid experience, built on a foundation of fun and time-tested video game conventions.” I still believe that’s the case… just not for Lords of Shadow 2. 

Rather than building upon those time tested, tried and true and enjoyable standards in video games, Lords of Shadow 2 instead relies upon tired, overused, worn-out and tedious gaming conventions that ultimately sink any and all potential it may have had. Lords of Shadow 2 isn’t broken, nor is it unplayable — it’s just unable to hold my interest. It sucks (yeah I went there) that a game where the playable character is mother flipping Dracula can somehow manage to be so boring.

Everything starts well enough, with an action-packed opening sequence (that announces itself as the game’s tutorial). Once that’s done though Lords of Shadow 2 drops down a few gears and the pace screeches almost to a halt. First I was forced to watch a cutscene detailing the 1000 years Dracula has slept since the events of the tutorial. It’s rendered as if it were written in some great tome with static hand drawn images giving way to one another all while being narrated with deadly seriousness. It felt like it took a literal thousand years to be over and by the time I  was able to play again I had long since zoned out. I wanted to be Dracula, not hear about his wayward son and various other familial issues. It was a real downer.

After the long and drawn out introductory cutscene I was subjected to a handful more in which Zobek — Gabriel Belmont’s nemesis in Lords of Shadow — reveals that in Dracula’s 1000 year absence Lucifer’s followers had gained strength and would soon make a play for Earth. The only way to stop it was for Dracula and Zobek to form an alliance and vote Satan off the island. Or something like that.

The story fell flat almost immediately and the defanged Dracula was simply too much of a wuss to make me want to root for him. The only thing that kept me paying even the slightest attention during the game’s multitude of cutscenes (and I  mean verging on Metal Gear Solid multitude) was the excellent voice acting particularly by Robert Carlyle and the always amazing Patrick Stewart.

Sound design overall is a highlight in Lords of Shadow 2. The score is suitably moody, cinematic and grand. It’s a shame the same can’t be said of either the story or gameplay. Hoping to come into Lords of Shadow 2 and finding a Van Helsing, The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, lighthearted vibe I was disappointed to be confronted with quite the opposite. Lords of Shadow 2 is more Twilight than Interview with the Vampire with the narrative so melodramatic, so overwrought and so full of angst at times I  was sure it was a bad fanfic made real.

Dracula is so neutered by his inner turmoil that he comes across as a whiny teen in the midst of a bad breakup, rather than as he so often proclaims in game “the Prince of Darkness.” There’s a whole story regarding his lost love and son that sees you criss-crossing between modern day Castlevania City and 1000 years in the past. Aside from the story taking itself and its content far too seriously there’s no duality between the past and present day, so overall I was left lost. In trying to be complex and land emotional punches the story is left deflated, muddled and ineffectual.

Those three adjectives accurately describe Lords of Shadow 2’s gameplay as well. Admittedly, combat is well designed and despite borrowing heavily from God of War and DmC: Devil May Cry it manages to carve out its own niche. Dracula’s three weapons all serve a specific purpose and switching between the life sucking Void Sword, the armor breaking Chaos Claws and the default whip can make for some truly excellent combos and white knuckle combat.

Boss fights are generally a highlight, but the tendency to have the final blow delivered in a cutscene makes victories mean less. It cheapens the achievement of the player and takes them out of the moment.

For every exciting boss fight or challenging combat mission there are two or three abysmal stealth sections. Here, Dracula is apparently far too weak from his thousand year nap to take on big, burly armoured demons with guns.

For the duration of the game.

Forget the fact that just moments before I defeated a gorgon the size of a building, there’s just no way I could take on one guy and his gun. So instead of fighting, Dracula instead turns himself into a rat and scurries around trying to find the correct path through the level. There is only one path and if Dracula is seen it’s goodnight and reload checkpoint. There are a few tricks Dracula can use to get through these sections including distracting enemies with a bat swarm or possessing them, but it’s like putting a band-aid on a severed limb.

The stealth sections are by far the weakest element in the game followed closely by the open-world, modern day setting. Castlevania City is deader than Dracula himself. It’s empty, unpopulated and no different from any number of  similar post-apocalyptic cities from other recent games. It’s also drab. Grey streets lead to sewers into industrial plants and back again. Dracula’s castle is far more interesting, it’s a shame it’s visited far less often.

I understand the appeal of a fish out of water scenario and Dracula letting loose on the modern day is certainly a premise packed with potential, but Lords of Shadow 2 doesn’t make use of it. Not even once. It’s not even acknowledged how Dracula understands how to use elevators, generators, circuit breakers and the like.

Lords of Shadow 2 could have been one of the last great action games of the last-generation of consoles. Instead it will be held up as an example of the staleness, lack of innovation and everything and the kitchen sink approach to game design many titles suffered from towards the end of the last (protracted) console generation.

Dark and broody, but only in the way a 14 year old who listens to Simple Plan and “knows” that every song is about them, Lords of Shadow insists upon its own seriousness. In doing so, it totally forgets to have fun. Making Dracula a character that is not only boring, but also totally non-threatening is a feat in and of itself. Though it’s not one I’d be congratulating. 

Somewhere along the way in development of Lords of Shadow 2 something went awry. It’s hard to say what, but it never manages to grab hold of that magic that seems so close to its grasp. It’s by no means a terrible game and those who enjoyed the first Lords of Shadow may find some extended value in it. Unfortunately Lords of Shadow 2’s bark is far worse that its bite.

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