Reviewed: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2

Published by: Konami | Developed by: MercurySteam | Genre: Action-adventure | Format: Xbox 360 (Tested), PS3, PC | Available: Out Now | Price: £34.99

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 is the sequel to the hugely successful 2010 game and the 35th game in the Castlevania franchise since the initial release in 1986. The general plot of the game without giving up too much away is that you, playing as Dracula for the first time in the Castlevania series are awoken long after the conclusion of the first game and you have to regain your powers after you are warned by former foe, Zobek (who is voiced by Patrick Stewart again) about the return and upcoming threat of Satan.

Straight away, the game shows you what your 15-20 hours experience with Castlevania: LoS2 is going to be like, facing you against hordes of relatively weak enemies as the game throws as many tutorials at you as they can within a few minutes before you are forced in to your first of many boss battles. The boss battles are the most memorable and probably the most enjoyable part of the game, each boss is unique and all have different strengths and weaknesses, you must change your approach for each one. One of the odd things about the boss battles though is the difficulty of them as the game goes on. You would have expected them to get more difficult as the game went on but I didn't feel like that was the case at all, many of the bosses faced in the first third of the game felt just as hard and in some cases, tougher than those you battle in the final third of the story.

Lord of Shadows 2 is an open world game but only in the same sense that the most recent Tomb Raider is an open world game because the only thing it really means is that you can go back to previous locations and take care of anything that you missed earlier on like collectibles. It's a nice addition for you completionists out there but will mean little change for the average gamer.

The gameplay and general combat is very good as far as action-adventure games go, it can be overwhelming at first but once you take the time to learn the combos after you unlock new skills, and figure what the best way is to take out each of the enemies it becomes a lot smoother. The game will not allow you to button-mash, you are certainly forced to study the combos because if you don't, you will be dying a lot.  I was playing on Creature of the Night (Medium) difficulty and I found it a very good challenge, unlike the majority of video games that get released these days that are incredibly easy to complete, this was a nice change. The story of LoS2 is interesting but I wouldn't describe it as gripping, confusing may be a more accurate word actually, I did feel like it improved drastically though in the last few hours as the story was reaching its climax. I honestly didn't really care about any of the characters which was a shame because a stronger story like in the previous title would have gone a long way in this one. There were however parts of the game where Dracula ventures to battle his own personal demons in his castle, these moments clearly outshined the main story in the present day. 

Other parts of the gameplay like the Uncharted or Assassin's Creed style climbing or the way too frequent stealth sections I did not enjoy, they weren't particularly difficult, but they were frustrating and they just seemed like a way of making the game longer. The climbing could be especially frustrating, the game would sometimes give hints on where you should jump next but it wasn't always clear, unlike Assassin's Creed where everything is climbable, nothing is climbable in this game apart from the set direction you have to go. In the stealth sections, you summon bats to distract guards and you transform in to a rat and have to figure out how to sneak past the enemies that for some reason you can't just kill like every other enemy in the game. These sections would not have been so bad if you were given better direction about where you go or what you should do. Another frustrating thing about this game was the load times, the only time you saw a load screen was when you started the game or if you died, but they mask them badly in game by making you wait in an elevator for an extremeley long time or making you wait for a lengthy period in a room before the door opened, it really takes you out of the game.  

Visually speaking, Castlevania: LoS2 is stunning. The settings you play in are phenomenal, both in the modern day and some of the more traditional medieval Castlevania settings, the colours and the art style in the game are also fantastic, they really help give the game the really unique look that it has. The great look of the game made the fact that the character models were pretty poor quite surprising, some of the main characters like Gabriel and Zobek look pretty bad for a 2014 game when you see them up close on cutscenes. The majority of the bosses looked great however, they clearly put a lot of work in to them. But the same can not be said for most of the standard enemies you face, the mutated enemies and the skeletons look especially bland, many different enemies look so similar it is hard to tell them apart, and telling them apart is pretty important in combat. The voice acting wasn't great either, I was impressed by the performances of Patrick Stewart as Zobek and Richard Madden (better known as Robb Stark from the Game of Thrones TV series) as Alucard but Robert Carlyle who voiced the main character did not blow me away, which may have had more to do with the character than him in his defence.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 felt like it was trying to do too much, yes the extra things like stealth and climbing did add variety to a game with it's fair share of repetition but I can't help but feel that LoS2 could have been a bigger success if it simply stuck to what it did best. The issues I have with this game though are only small details compared to overwhelming positives, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 is a beautiful game with very enjoyable gameplay with a campaign that has fantastic length and an interesting story throughout. If you are a big fan of the Castlevania franchise or action-adventure games then I have no doubt that you will have a great time with Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 despite it not being up to the level of it's predecessor, however if that is not the case and you are looking for a game to get introduced in to the genre then I doubt this would be the one for you.

If you enjoyed Lords of Shadow 2, Konami is releasing DLC for the game named 'Revelations' on March 25th where Alucard will be a playable character.