Okay, so the name is a little bit ridiculous. But the game actually looks pretty impressive, thankfully shedding the three-dimensional gameplay that we’d been expecting and instead opting for a more reasonable and desirable 2.5-D. If you’re anything like me, you could probably play another 2-D Castlevania title in the vein of Symphony of the Night perennially for the rest of your life and remain happy, but I digress.
Grappling looks fun, but it’s not as responsive as we’d like
Having seen the opening and some snippets of gameplay from C:LoSMoF (lawl), I approached the demo with a welcomed sense of hope and curiosity. The beginning of the demo features some sweeping camera work as Trevor Belmont enters the castle grounds, suggesting a stylish use of the perspective. However, it isn’t long thereafter before you encounter your first enemy, and at that point the differences become considerably more evident.
You fight using—surprise!—a chain whip, and you can choose between either a regular strike or a weaker area strike (used to clear out the immediate area). But the gameplay doesn’t feel immediately responsive all the time, and the combat is somewhat of a bore. The enemies I was dealing with required quite a few hits to kill, and it just wasn’t all that fun dealing with them—pretty repetitive stuff overall. The first boss wasn’t exactly a challenge (good considering this is an E3 demo), but it didn’t purge any of these sentiments, either. It’s kind of a return to old-school Castlevania gameplay, but with a lack of requisite responsiveness.
The first mini-boss in the demo
That sort of feel extends into the platforming sections that I played as well. Trevor is soon tasked with ascending through a large vertical room through the use of well-timed jumps in conjunction with his whip (grappling onto marked points), and it never really feels perfect. It’s not bad, but it’s just not quite up to the snappy, polished standards that we’re used to when we think of the series and its legacy. At some point you reach the top and are required to do a slight amount of backtracking to work your way into the next area… but traversal isn’t really all that fun either.
Which brings me to the next point I think I ought to cover. It’s been said that the game doesn’t necessarily follow the Metroidvania formula—though the map certainly looks sort of similar—but that means you won’t be doing a lot of that backtracking and finding new items to work your way into new passages connecting to familiar areas. A lot of people, myself included, really enjoy this sort of gameplay, and for me it’s a bit of a disappointment that we won’t be able to enjoy much of it in Mirror of Fate. I’m not saying that every Castlevania needs to be the same now, but that’s one aspect of the series that I’ve really come to love—even if it was born of another series entirely initially. (To its credit, the team has gone on record saying that a ton of secrets do exist and that exploration is heavily encouraged.)
The same goes for the RPG elements; they look to be completely absent. There is no leveling up or even acquisition of new equipment. This bums me out; it’s yet another series trait that I’ve come to appreciate and even expect.
Eye-candy, yes. Let’s hope the rest of the package shapes up to supplement it.
I truly hope that, given time, Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate does refine itself into something that captivates in spite of its intentional omissions. I feel like if the gameplay is polished and ends up solid enough to offset the lack of RPG-driven depth and my inherent love of the Metroidvania formula, it could still end up as a valuable installment that just feels different from the path the rest of the series has taken in recent years. I’ll reserve judgment until release, because we’re obviously dealing with unfinished software here, but today, I leave intrigued, but unfortunately not impressed.
