Game EXP: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Ultimate Edition (PC)

Well, I had about 60-70% of a complete article written and believe it or not, while sitting on my lap, my cat was able to somehow delete everything that I had written.  I cannot exactly explain how it happened, but it occurred in a way that made my go-to "Ctrl-Z" command not work.  Maybe he saw that I was having a hard time with trying to get a picture integrated into my document and was not able to do what I have previously been able to do, so he thought that starting over was a viable option?

So, rather than try and recreate everything that I had written, I will attempt to give you the highlights of my time playing Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Ultimate Edition on my laptop with a corded Xbox 360 controller (if only because I felt that Castlevania games should be played with a controller).  I am also going to inundate it with pictures because of how beautiful I found this game.

Oh, and there might be spoilers on some level, so just be warned.

Before we get down to silver tacks (eh!?), I should say that Sir Patrick Stewart was absolutely amazing as the narrator for the game.  I wish that I could listen to him read a novelization of this game because holy hell it would be fantastic.

Okay, I must admit that I played the majority of the game on either Squire (the easiest difficulty level) and Warrior (the next highest) as I felt that that was challenge enough for me.  I started the game back in January 2014, but after hitting a brick wall in the form of the first major boss fight against the first Lord of Shadow, I stopped.  Jump ahead 1040 days later to November 2016 and I picked the game back up again to give it another go, and after watching a YouTube video as a guide, I learned that certain boss fights have checkpoints and that I apparently had not been actively using the "dodge/roll" ability like I should have been by that point in the game.

So once that boss was taken down, it took me about another month, playing on-and-off, here-and-there before I finished.  Overall, the gameplay reminded me a lot of God of War, although having only played God of War: Chains of Olympus, but I say that in a good way.

Something that I loved about the reboot, was that there was a lot about the game that just felt like Castlevania, despite the fact that it was not a side scrolling game or developed by Konami.  The monster design was somewhat similar to previous iterations and it was pretty exciting running into re-imaginings of classic monsters like weak-ass zombies, flying heads (not Medusa heads here, but they seemed derivative), and animated armors.  Some players might have been upset with the sub-weapons being limited to daggers and holy water flasks, but how they were integrated into the game felt very natural and honestly, in this type of game where you have two different buttons for strengths of whipping, activating two different types of magic which have their own associated combos, having a limited number of sub-weapons felt more than enough.

Killing some weak-ass zombies.

One aspect of the game that pleasantly surprised me was the puzzle solving in the second half of the game.  Often times you are given the option to be told the solution to a puzzle, or you can solve it for yourself which results in more experience points.  As I recall, there was only one puzzle in that I actually had to look up the process to, not the solution as the entire level was a puzzle, not just a particular section.  The rest of the time, I was able to figure out the puzzles using my own brain power, although some took longer than others, while others were annoying as they could be solved by trial and error, while other still felt that I done them a dozen times by the end of the game.

One of the extras in the game that became unlockable by cashing in small amounts of experience points (usually between 5 - 25) which would otherwise be used to purchase combos (which could cost anywhere around 1,200 and 25,000), was both concept sketches and artwork.  This I absolutely loved, but I tend to love special features that are included in movies and while all of the extras included in this game (that I was able to discover anyway) was artwork and concept sketches, but as I was surprised by even this, I was more than happy.  The only way this game could have had better extra special features was if there had been writer/director/developer/actor commentary.

More artwork because damn it, I say so!

Before I head back in for the evening, I will say that almost without fail, nearly every time I played for more than 45 minutes to an hour, the game would "break" in a similar way that happened when I played Resident Evil 5; I will take the blame for that though because I have not come across many people online complaining about this happening.  Sometimes this splintering of a character would become distracting enough to either restart a stage or just give up for the day/night, but more often than not, I could finish the stage, then turn the game of and then back on again.  It was annoying when it happened, but not much more than that.

One other complaint was that while almost every level was linearly built, there were a few times where I felt genuinely lost, either not knowing how to proceed through the rest of the level, or confused by a gameplay mechanic that was not well introduced.  It was not until about half way through the game that I found out that I was able to perform a dash move that could break certain walls.  I also did not that there were a couple of specific ways to use magic in combination with certain button combinations and combos.  This could be chalked up to having not played the game for nearly three years, but these required actions felt like they came out of the blue like I was expected to have been using these abilities since they were first acquired.

As I wind down here, I also felt that MercurySteam's handling of Christianity was wonderfully handled.  Gabriel being a member of a holy order called The Brotherhood of Light.  Not once did I feel that Christianity was being mocked in a way that would be typical with modern horror stories.  To me, it felt that there was a level of respect for the religion that I could appreciate.

Lastly I wanted to gush a bit about the  music that Óscar Araujo composed for the game, which I previously mentioned in a MIDI Week Singles post a few weeks back.  With the exception of one track, everything was completely new and while it sounded more grandiose compared to most other Castlevania soundtracks that I have heard, it felt like glue that held the world together.  The game could have been created exactly as is had been, but if the music did not have the same scale, it would have felt very underwhelming.  I would highly recommend listening to the soundtrack in its entirety the first chance you get.

You know, just hanging around.

If you could not tell by now, I had an absolute blast playing Casltevania: Lords of Shadow - Ultimate Edition.  Even the two DLC stories, although short were pretty decent and definitely made me feel a bit better about how the main game ended.  I will say though that I ended up going through both DLC stories on easy because bloody hell a number of those fights were fantastically difficult and even with checkpoints during battles, I do not know how I would have been able to beat anything beyond Squire difficulty, let alone thinking about even attempting the Paladin difficulty level.  I guess I just don't have the stamina, mental fortitude (or fingeral dexterity?), or time to get that gud.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Always In The Way

P.S.

I wanted to share this scroll I found on a knight (something that happens throughout the game), but I very much appreciated this "shout out" to Monty Python, even if it seemed kind of out of place where it was found in the game.

P.P.S.

And one last time, more concept art.  I don't think you ever get close enough to any of the windows to see this level of detail, but the fact that it was done during the pre-production stage of development shows that MercurySteam was coming up with practical details that both help flesh out the world and make it feel more lived in otherwise.

P.P.S.

I also forgot to mention that while I did take some time backtracking through levels to find the hidden items that upgrade your health and magics, I did not gather all of them.  It kind of felt that some of these items, which could only be gathered after you had a specific skill or weapon were placed in earlier levels in order to pad out the game a bit, but they are not necessarily required to beat the game (although they probably were for me even on Squire difficulty).  Plus, I did not mind the backtracking as it gave me an excuse to go back through levels after I felt I was a bit better at the game; and I had more life,  magic, and zombie ass-kicking combos in my arsenal.