I'm not sure when the last time I mentioned Castlevania: Lords of Shadow was, but there's now a sequel. I don't mean the DLC, which I still don't have, but an actual sequel. Apparently this awesome game didn't sell enough to make a regular game on the Xbox or something again so it's on the 3DS. It's called Mirror of Fate. There will be spoilers of varying degrees. I'll try to keep to minor ones.
So let's talk about characters. I haven't played any of the older Castlevania games, just Lords of Shadow and now Mirror of Fate. But I've seen Victor play a few of the others. Castlevania has a lot of pretty guys in it, and I don't mean gay pretty, I mean like Link pretty. So I was excited about this game cause, well... Gabriel instantly made the top ten hottest guys in video games/movies/books list. Not just for his long, dark hair, but also for his angst and his ability to keep going even with his whole world crashing down around him. Now, apparently this game condenses things quite a bit. So long-time players will find Simon is Gabriel's grandson and Trevor and Alucard are the same person. Are either Simon or Trevor/Alucard hot? No. I'm sorry, but no. Simon is a redhead and, no offense, but ew. lol But he is really awesome. He's fun to play as. He has a fairly unique fighting style and special moves that, at the very least, make you smile and occasionally make you laugh. I don't like his clothes much either. Trevor has dark hair, yes, but his face is ugly. He's got good clothes, though. Trevor plays a lot like Gabriel did in Lords of Shadow, at least from what I can remember, it's been about 3 years. And Alucard? He can do a lot of fun things, and is actually a little better looking than Trevor. Bizarrely enough... But, really, Gabriel is still the best, even in this game.
The game is fairly short. I seem to remember playing Lords of Shadow for 8-10 hours at a time, yet this game only took me about 10 1/2 hours to finish. I am still only about 80-some% done. But I do pride myself on playing and completing the entire game on Normal, instead of Easy. I actually didn't realize I was playing on Normal until I was on a really hard boss. And by then I figured why not, I'd gone this far. Some of the bosses were really hard. So when you get to Dracula you're all "Ah, this is going to be super hard..." But it's not. He's actually a really easy boss. Though, the final battle is a little harder but still not as bad as some of the other bosses.
Quicktime events how I hate you! I get to a cutscene, sit back, grab a drink of water or some food, set the controller down (or system, I guess in this case) to stretch my fingers when all of a sudden "X" omfg, what!? *chokes on mouthful of soda and drops candy bar in mad dash to hit the button* And then I die. I also can't enjoy cutscenes cause I'm always sitting there with twitchy fingers waiting for that horrid X or Y, or, even worse, Hold R. And then there's the ones where you have to hit the button multiple times but it doesn't tell you that right away. You don't get enough of a grace period on hitting the right buttons. Sometimes I panic and it takes me a while to find the right button. Give me an extra second or two! I always have to redo quicktime events several times before I get it right, and usually I only get through them on memorization, not because I have quick reflexes. It totally messes up what might be a good scene to watch. However, a definite plus for this game is that actual storyline cutscenes are in a different animation style so I know for sure I can relax for a bit.
I tried to use the 3D. It's the first 3D game I've played for the 3DS. I found that I instantly set it to half-way. And over the next 15 minutes I found myself turning it further and further down until I eventually just set the game back to 2D. My issue with it is I can't hold it at a good angle and the picture kept jumping.
The story is good. It's along the same lines as Lords of Shadow and I can see it being a sequel very easily. It's like a mini-game, kinda. I even cried a little at the end. The gameplay is good. The game is very addictive and once I started playing I couldn't put it down. I usually played during Tommy's naps and after he went to bed for the night. And whenever he woke up it was really hard to turn it off. It's a very, very good game.
Anyway, the reason for this review is to try to get sales up! I want a third game! If Lords of Shadow didn't sell enough for them to make a full-on game what makes anyone think a handheld game that's only 10 hours long is going to make enough for another sequel? So if this review didn't convince you to buy it maybe this fanart I found will... because, well... oh, my... *fans self*
No comments:
Post a Comment