I somehow feel that I need to explain myself for choosing this game to talk about, because to be honest, there isn’t anything special about Castlevania: Lords of Shadow in and on itself. On the one hand, this game is nothing more than an unremarkable hack n’ slash games that draws influence from both God of War and Shadow of the Colossus. You play as Gabriel Belmont, professional vampire (and other creatures) hunter, who despite using the titular whip of his family, plays in a way that feels like a weird mixing between God of War‘s combo system and Dante’s Inferno‘s dual magic system. This combat system becomes the main mode of interaction with the gameworld throughout the game, with the notable exception of three boss fights (all of them reminiscent of Colossus) that instead rely on reflex tests and Quick Time Events.
While this combination sounds interesting on paper, the end result is a surprisingly uneventful game that lacks depth and rhythm, since most encounters are easily resolved spamming the same combos over and over, and the boss fights wind up becoming memory tests. Overall, these elements compound into boring game sessions that don’t provide any of the usual satisfaction that this game genre usually delivers. The visuals and soundscape (which, given the lack of mechanical engagement, are forced to work harder in order to capture the player’s interest) are left inert and a little bit lifeless as a result, basically nothing more than a (admitedly, quite pretty) collection of images. Adding to that an uninspiring story (despite having quality voice actors like Patrick Stewart and Roger Carlyle), means that this game should be nothing more than a footnote in the medium’s history, basically a God of War clone and nothing else.
And despite these facts, I feel like having to defend its existence, or at the very least, the potential that this game carried with it. Admittedly, most of that potential was due to factors that were beyond the game’s control, but ultimately, they are important to understand how the game came to mean what it meant for some people.
First of all, this game was supposed to be the entryway of a venerable franchise into the so-called “HD Era,” a proper adaptation of the world of Castlevania into the highly competitive 8th console generation. After having survived for a while in handhelds and reiterating similar design schemas than those that marked the franchise’s high point, Konami clearly saw this product as the one that would “modernize” the franchise (or, at the very least, make its core mechanics appealing to the triple A market). It could be speculated that, having had more success, this game could have significantly changed the direction that Konami has taken in recent years, abandoning videogames altogether and focusing more on pachinkos.
This game is also significant because it was one of the first great opportunities of the Spanish gaming industry to prove itself in years. After sustaining itself for a long time as a second-tier producer, some companies began to gain traction during the late 00’s thanks to some notorious hits, such as Scrapland or Teslagrad, which showed that the Spanish scene had some promise as an generator of creative products. The opportunity that Konami offered to what was at the time the top company of the country, Mercurysteam (which were the original creators of both Scrapland and Clive Barker’s Jericho) was seen as a historical opportunity for several outlets in Spain, who began to promote the game’s earlier success as herald of a new “golden age” of Spanish software (a “rebirth” of the supposedly golden days of Spanish videogames of the 80’s). In doing so, these outlets basically trusted this game’s success not just with the future of Mercurysteam as a successful studio, but with the future of Spain as a viable venue in which to create innovative videogames.
In hindsight, all these players put too much hope on this single product, and because of that, a big opportunity got wasted by following too much game design fads of the time. Castlevania only managed to survive for little more than two entries before disappearing, Mercurysteam peaked and then began to dwindle amidst several controversies, and Konami began its slow but steady retreat from console and PC gaming. And, last but not least, Castlevania failed to revitalize itself as a hip franchise for newer generations. All in all, this was a gigantic historical opportunity that came and went and which was tragically misused.