After the mind-bending closing cinematic of the first LoS, I
waited years for details about Gabriel Belmont’s second coming, imagining what
it would be like to stomp around Mercury Steam’s gloriously reinvigorated
Castlevania world in the legendary vampire’s boots. His prowess is certainly
felt in the challenging combat, but the addition of unneeded stealth gameplay
really detracts from the enjoyment.
A tutorial segment catches us up on Dracula’s history
between the Ressurection DLC and the ending cinematic of LoS1 which showed him
emerging in a modern world. The castle is under siege, and players control Dracula
at the height of his vampiric powers, blasting apart soldiers like soggy paper.
An apocalyptic light clears away the invaders, and Dracula is left to face off
against the last man standing, his son Alucard. Just as things start to get
interesting with that scene, the game abruptly wrests control away and launches
into a narrated collage to dump backstory (and summarize Mirror of Fate in case
you missed it like me) which completely breaks immersion. The story picks back
up when modern-day, decrepit Dracula awakens and seeks to reclaim his lost
powers in order to stop Satan from returning and destroying the world. This
true start of the story felt like recovery after being thrown from a cliff.
There were too many threads left untied, too many unanswered questions about
how and why Dracula slept for millennia. Thankfully, as the rest of the story
plays out, there is a well conceived plot twist that satisfies all curiosity,
but I was scratching my head in confusion for the first 2/3 of the game leading
up to it.
The quest to regain Dracula’s power will take him through a
mostly abandoned city built upon the ruins of the massive vampire castle from
the first game. The environments are designed well enough, and I found myself
stopping to take in the breathtaking art and architecture that’s strewn across
practically every wall. It may be beautiful, but it’s not vibrantly so. The
city feels lifeless. There is no compelling reason to explore the environments
besides collecting shards to increase health or mana or to find scrolls that
explain the history of the city, but I found myself drawn to doing so anyway
simply to see every corner of the artistic levels. Thankfully, not all of
Dracula’s time is spent amidst the cold stones of the city, as there are plenty
of flashbacks that carry him through portals into the hallways of the immense,
titular castle that defines the series.
The combat is where Lords of Shadow 2 really shines. The
fast-paced, challenging encounters that made the first game so enjoyable have
returned. Gone are the light and shadow magic combos that were added to
Gabriel’s whip, replaced with entirely new weapons in Dracula’s arsenal. The
vampire killer whip has been ditched in favor of a congealed cord of blood that
can be summoned at will. Light magic is replaced by Dracula’s icy Void Sword,
which can steal life. Shadow magic has become the fiery Chaos Claws that
deliver slow but devastating attacks. Players will still have to spend points
earned in combat to unlock combos for these weapons, but a new experience
system boosts the power of the preferred weapon. The more you use it, the more
powerful and vital the weapon becomes for defeating the tougher foes later on. All
in all, the developers maintained the feel of the game’s core combat mechanics
with just enough tweaks to keep it fresh.
If the game had simply stuck to what it does best – tell an
engaging tale punctuated with periods of thrilling battles – Lords of Shadow 2
would have been a well-rounded experience, but by adding a frustrating stealth
element to some of the modern city’s environments, the developers went a little
too far experimenting with the formula. These sections thankfully don’t last
very long, so long as you can perfectly time the awareness of invincible guards
that can kill the prince of darkness in a single shot. This instant death might
have made sense in the beginning of the game, when Dracula was starting to
reacquire his powers, but the ridiculousness of it sets in later when he is at
or near full strength. If Dracula is strong enough to kill Satan, then why
can’t he take out a couple of Satan’s test-tube soldiers? Implementing the
stealth sections of the game only served to frustrate me from time to time, and
they really broke immersion with the rest of the game which was just fine as
is. I respect Mercury Steam’s desire to add new gameplay, but the stealth
elements were too poorly designed and implemented to be any real fun.
Despite this minor grievance, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2
provides a satisfying conclusion to the arc of Gabriel Belmont. Had the
developers simply stuck to their whips, tweaking the already fun combat in
minor ways only, rather than force an unneeded and frustrating stealth
component, the overall experience of Lords of Shadow 2 would have benefited greatly.
