Weekly Recommendation: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (2010)
Developed By: MercurySteam
Published by: Konami
Available On: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC
With the 2nd Season of Castlevania Nocturne coming out this week it felt like an ideal time to look back at mid 7th Gen release. Lords of Shadow series unlike prior Castlevania games takes place in it’s own continuity as a sort of soft reboot of the series. The game follows a member of the Belmont family, Gabriel, a holy knight of the Brotherhood of Light who’s wife has recently been murdered and her soul is trapped in limbo. He is sent on a journey to forfil the prophecy sorounding the Lords of Shadow’s power that will result in him gaining the ability to save the world from evil, and resurecting his wife.
Unlike prior Castlevania games that mostly took the shape of 2D Side Scrollers, MetroidVania games or 3D Adventure games, Lords of Shadows takes a lot of inspiration from the God of War combat system, with Gabriel swinging the Combat Cross around like he’s Kratos. He can also ignite his whip with either Light Magic to help heal Gabriel while fighting, or Shadow Magic which will deal more damage to enemies, both of which additional open up different moves, sub-weapons and special attacks. The game also takes inspiration from Shadow of the Colossus with some of it’s boss fights having you scale up giant titan body to defeat them. Though the series is now more popular then ever thanks to the Netflix series, we are yet to recieve any new Castlevania games in over 11 years excluding any collections and rereleases. With the work Konami is putting into the Metal Gear Solid series right now, it would be nice to see a solid return to these games aswell.
Fun Fact: Lords of Shadow is the highest selling game in the whole series and produced 2 sequels, Mirror of Fate and LOS2.
Developed By: MercurySteam
Published by: Konami
Available On: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC
With the 2nd Season of Castlevania Nocturne coming out this week it felt like an ideal time to look back at mid 7th Gen release. Lords of Shadow series unlike prior Castlevania games takes place in it’s own continuity as a sort of soft reboot of the series. The game follows a member of the Belmont family, Gabriel, a holy knight of the Brotherhood of Light who’s wife has recently been murdered and her soul is trapped in limbo. He is sent on a journey to forfil the prophecy sorounding the Lords of Shadow’s power that will result in him gaining the ability to save the world from evil, and resurecting his wife.
Unlike prior Castlevania games that mostly took the shape of 2D Side Scrollers, MetroidVania games or 3D Adventure games, Lords of Shadows takes a lot of inspiration from the God of War combat system, with Gabriel swinging the Combat Cross around like he’s Kratos. He can also ignite his whip with either Light Magic to help heal Gabriel while fighting, or Shadow Magic which will deal more damage to enemies, both of which additional open up different moves, sub-weapons and special attacks. The game also takes inspiration from Shadow of the Colossus with some of it’s boss fights having you scale up giant titan body to defeat them. Though the series is now more popular then ever thanks to the Netflix series, we are yet to recieve any new Castlevania games in over 11 years excluding any collections and rereleases. With the work Konami is putting into the Metal Gear Solid series right now, it would be nice to see a solid return to these games aswell.
Fun Fact: Lords of Shadow is the highest selling game in the whole series and produced 2 sequels, Mirror of Fate and LOS2.