Pixels and Perspectives #2: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

Hello everyone! Due to the joys of having a birthday around tax time, I got myself two new games for the 3DS. One of them, a stellar title that I will discuss later. The other one... I was wondering whether or not it was going to be good. It seemed like a wild card.. This company has been trying to get this series going again by rebooting the plot lines. So, I took a shot, gathered up my money, and hoped that it wasn't a horrible night to play the next installment of the Castlevania series.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate now sponsored by Garnier Fructis.

So, in case if you don't know the background of this series, Castlevania has been a series that stems all the way back to the NES days. It has followed the journey of the Belmont family (amongst others) in their journey of defeating the dark lord Dracula. The series started as a 2D platformer, but a change happened in the mid 90s when there was a new focus in gameplay. In Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, there was a non-linear change in gameplay which vaguely resembled the popular game Super Metroid for the SNES. This spawned a new buzzword called "Metroidvania", which I HATE (but I'll talk about that in a different post). Then.. there was a turn for the not-so-good. Castlevania decided to go 3D, losing that 2D feel that many fans loved. Ever since then, there has been a split in the series; one vein explores the Metroidvania feel while the other attempts to make a 3D Castlevania that doesn't suck. 

So... why did I do that? Because this is a portable Castlevania that was firmly declared to NOT be a metroidvania. The dude at Konami claimed that this game was going to be something new; a new phase in castlevania gaming! Well... the game did it... sort of. It has 2D gameplay, 3D backgrounds, and a somewhat adventurous element that the metroidvania series had. Well, onto gameplay later, as of now we need some plot!

THE PLOT

This game follows three different characters: Alucard, Trevor Belmont, and Simon Belmont. I will say, I love the character art for Simon.

No... sorry... wrong Simon... I was talking about THIS Simon Belmont.

I mean, look at him! all of his skin showing!? He is so high level. 

Of course, this is a journey that follows Simon in his defeat of the dark lord Dracula! but why? Of course... someone killed his family and stuff and he needs revenge and redemption... we get it. Well, the game is split up in 3 parts, one for each character. What's frustrating is that once they start to get the development happening they switch to the next act! It was irritating, because once I got to the point where I almost cared for Simon they switched to someone I didn't care about. Thankfully, the characters do develop a chemistry and you realize why they all know each other.