Review #89: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate

 What a horrible night to have a curse.

 Castlevania Lords of Shadows was a fairly divisive reboot, some loathed it but some liked it. One of it's biggest detriments was how different the gameplay was from any other Castlevania. Mirror of Fate aims to return to the Castleroid/Metroidvania formula while retaining the new mythos and adding some classic characters to the mix.
 The game takes place upon 4 different time periods, each one with a different protagonist from the Belmont clan. The first chapter is a very short prologue/tutorial with Gabriel Belmont, the hero from the first game, as the protagonist. The next chapters have you playing as Simon Belmont, Trevor Belmont and Alucard as they try to stop Dracula, Gabriel Belmont. The story is nothing special, but the way they integrated the classic characters into the new mythos was fantastic and pretty smart. If you hated the LoS reboot due to it not being Castlevania enough, then don't even bother, you probably are not open to change and should probably stay away from this game.

 As for the gameplay, the game takes place in a 2-D plane with 3D graphics. While it does borrow plenty of elements from Castleroids, it doesn't exactly play like one. Castleroids are known for giving the player a huge map to explore with tons of areas inaccessible at first until you find a new skill or power up that let's you go forwards, usually requiring some degree of backtracking. In Mirror of Fate, each character has his own part of the Castle to explore, which means each map is a bit smaller than expected. And while there are areas you can't access at first, each chapter should take you 2-3 hours to clear, so you'll be getting what you need in order to find all the secrets pretty soon. The game is also pretty linear, for a Castleroid, exploration is rewarded with Hit point and Magic upgrades, but it's entirely optional, you always know where to go and, as far as story-related objectives are concerned, will never hit a road block.
 All four characters play almost exactly the same. The only real difference being the items and sub-weapons that each character, except Gabriel, come across. All whip combos and basic moves carry over from hero to hero, which makes sense as leveling up unlocks new moves. This also means that HP and Magic upgrades carry over from hero to hero. All in all, it doesn't really feel as if you are playing as a different character. Something I found pretty neat, is that every combo comes from the original Lords of Shadow game, and while some may consider it lazy, it does add a bit of continuity.

 When it comes to combat, it feels just like Lords of Shadows but in a 2D plane. You get two basic attacks: Direct Attacks and Area Attacks. Direct attacks are the strong attacks, and surprisingly, the fast ones, Area Attacks are slower and deal less damage, but cover a larger range. You can also block and even parry enemy attacks, or you can hold the block button and move to the sides in order to perform dodges. Even though it's played in 2D, the analog move is relegated to movement, the directional pad allows you to switch between sub weapons, which consume hearts(1 per use of any item) or toggle magic skills. Frankly, combat felt a bit slow at times, being a Castlevania in 2D I expected the more swift and fast combat from older games, but being a Lords of Shadow game, with combos, it does make sense that enemies can take more punishment.
 A very neat, even if slightly useless as chapters are not too long and areas not too large, is that you can place notes on the map, so if you come across a door you can't open yet or a gap too long to jump, you can pop a note(up to 50) to remind you of what type of obstacle you were facing. The game is not too hard, but you can change the difficulty at any time. Something that make take a bit of time getting used to is that there is no way to manually save your game. The game autosaves pretty frequently, and checkpoints are incredibly generous, but coming from previous Castleroids and Save Rooms, it took a while to get comfortable with. Speaking of getting used to, there is falling damage. Deadly falling damage. What kind of exploration-based Castleroid kind of game has you taking falling damage!? Regardless, that's one thing to keep in mind, so you can't just rush through rooms by falling through large gaps. Not that you can rush through, as loading times between each area of the castle are pretty long, specially for a portable game. Not cool. Lastly, the game has a lot of QTEs during bosses, heck, two of the most impressive looking bosses are QTE only. These are pretty annoying, and the button prompts are kinda small for a small screen, some of the longer QTE sequences can get pretty annoying due to it, at least button prompts do not change every time you retry.

 The game is beautiful. The new character redesigns are fantastic, pretty in line with Gabriel design's from the first game. Even better, while Lords of Shadow only had a handful of classic enemies, this game bring a lot of Classic enemies into the LoS continuity. Fleamen/hunchbacks are back, Possessed Armors, Skeletons that throw arc-projected projectiles, Mermen and a few more. And between all characters, you also get to use classic sub-weapons, redesigned for the LoS world. The Castle looks gorgeous, even if at times it may be a bit too dark. Character Models are pretty good looking, but the real icing on the cake are the cell-shaded cut-scenes, which look gorgeous, even if characters don't move their lips when talking. Oh, and I usually don't use 3D on games since it makes the FPS drops... not in this game, or at least not noticeably so, pretty nice. Voice acting is plentiful, and the whole cast does a pretty good job. Sadly, the music is nothing special, which is really disappointing considering that this is a Castlevania game, known for their phenomenal tunes.
 Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate is an alright game, it's competent and fun, but it does carry it's fair share of annoyances. QTEs shouldn't have been included, while it tries, admirably,  to be a Castleroid it doesn't just quite get it, and I'm not sure if the order in which you play the three chapters after Gabriel is the most... suitable one.
 6.5 out of 10.