Continuing with my new year resolutions, I'm pushing for finishing a list of games that I've owned for years and never found the interest. It was time for Castlevania Lords of Shadow!
Four years have taken me to complete the game. I remember to buy it second hand, played it a little bit, dislike the (too high) difficulty and pass on it. When I joined the Ryse project, since it could be a reference for us, I resumed playing for a while but again lost interest around 40% of the timeline... until now.
Before the sequel is released, and already knowing the ending thanks to Enric and his presentation on the Gamelab, I've just finished the game. By all means is the best game done by the Spanish videogame industry in the last 20 years (probably after Commandos 2?) and it deserves all my respect. Plus, I know many guys at Mercury Steam, so I'm happy for them.
They made a good number of right choices: Instead of reinventing the wheel they pretty much copied the combat system from God of War, as well as their QTEs and bosses. Those are good references, and they adapted those systems to their needs and sometimes improved them. In addition to this, the art direction is not only outstanding but also quite varied. Practically every new chapter has a new theme.
On the minus side, albeit having an acceptable story most of the plot twists happen in the last 30 min of the game. 95% of the game is just an succession of 'the princes is in another castle'. And as I said, I think the difficulty was a little too punishing for me, although I can understand that since it's a Japanese IP and they fancy hard games.
So, if you like the hack'n'slash genre, you'll probably like Castlevania LoS. I'd love to see more Spanish studios making games as good as this one. Maybe some day...
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