Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Trailer Spoils Everything

[John Funk]

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Trailer Spoils Everything

Castlevania: Lords of Shadows [http://www.amazon.com/Castlevania-Lords-Shadow-Playstation-3/dp/B002I0J6DC/ref=sr_1_1?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285770970&sr=8-1] hits shelves next week, and this 11-minute trailer is here to cover every single facet of this reboot of Konami's vampire-hunting series.

**SPOILER WARNING**

In case you hadn't heard, there's a new Castlevania out in a week. If you hadn't heard, then you seem to be the precise target audience for this final pre-launch trailer, because this is eleven minutes of some guy (with a very pleasant British accent, admittedly) laying out absolutely everything about the new game.

You will learn that this is a reboot of the series, and it apparently has nothing to do with the other Castlevania games (except for when it does). It tells the story of Gabriel Belmont, a man out to defeat the mysterious Lords of Shadow in order to either bring his dead wife back from the dead or to lay her soul to rest.

You will learn that there will be platforming, violent-looking combat and puzzles to solve. You will see giant enemies called Titans that must be climbed and defeated, Shadow of the Colossus [http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Colossus-Playstation-2/dp/B0009I6S0O/ref=sr_1_1?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285771063&sr=8-1] style. Essentially, if you had no idea what Lords of Shadow was about before, now you know all there is to know.

I'm really trying to keep an open mind here - and not just because I'm the guy who's going to be reviewing it - but while it looks good, it just doesn't look very Castlevania to me. If you took ten-second clips from random spots in that trailer, you might think you were seeing any number of games, from Prince of Persia to God of War to the aforementioned Shadow of the Colossus.

Sure, when you're dealing with a 20-year-old series with more retcons and story inconsistencies than your average comic-book franchise, a reboot is completely understandable. But other than Gabriel's name, calling the whip Vampire Killer, and vague allusions to Dracula (and considering the Japanese name for the series is "Devil's Castle Dracula," he'd better be in there somewhere), it feels like there's something missing.

In other words, I'm okay with a more combat-oriented Castlevania that takes more than a few pages from the God of War playbook, but if I don't hear "Vampire Killer" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xynKponE-qQ&feature=player_embedded] I'm going to punch a squirrel.

(Via Joystiq [http://www.joystiq.com/2010/09/28/castlevania-lords-of-shadow-trailer-lays-it-all-out/#continued])

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[jamesworkshop]

Really i would compare it to Dante's inferno

 

[Nedoras]

It overall looks pretty good. It looks more combat oriented, but so was Lament Of Innocence and I really didn't mind. I hope that there's a good amount of puzzles and platforming though. Running through an area killing waves of foes is all fine and well, but it tends to lose it's luster over time.

 

[scotth266]

I actually feel a lot better about this game now. The changes made don't seem to be bad, the story looks good, and Castlevania has survived massive changes to its formula with little difficulty (Aria Of Sorrow, anyone?)

 

[dnadns]

I wasn't really expecting too much from the game, but having played the demo now, I'm looking forward to getting it delivered. The atmosphere is great right from the start (having Sir Patrick Stewart as a narrator does help) and while it does remind me of God of War and others from looking at it in trailers, it didn't feel like that when I played it. Mind you, the demo is rather short and most certainly not representable for all of the content shown in the trailer above (no platforming or puzzles involved).
But it did feel immediately like Bram Stoker's Dracula right from the first scene and I don't see anything missing there at all.

I just hope that there is a bit of interesting story to this and not something like "oh, here is your mentor-like sidekick with only slight resemblance to Sean Connery. he is totally not going to die in a sacrifice for you and he is also not dracula in disguise *wink wink*".

From the information so far, this still looks like the most promising attempt at bringing the series into the third dimension.

 

[BabySinclair]

Well it's down already unless you watch it on youtube. Any reason?

 

[Chancie]

Well, I think it looks pretty good. Lucky for me, I didn't really care for Castlevania before, so a reboot doesn't affect me all that much.
I know some crazed Castlevania fans, though, that might not be so happy to hear this.

 

[Mr.Pandah]

I've been playing Castlevania recently and this actually looks like it hits the atmosphere of the previous games pretty well. I like the looks of it to be honest, and if they were going to bring it up to date, this looks to be the way to actually do it. I'm very surprised.

 

[Fox242]

Damn. This looks pretty epic. Nice to see that a lot of effort has been put into this. Maybe I'll get this for Christmas.

 

[fulano]

So...where are the spoilers??

This was an infomercial that recycled a bunch of previous footage, and other than showing us some of the puzzles, some gameplay elements, and confirming that Dracula will appear in the game in some form, we got none. That's a good thing.

 

[BlindMessiah94]

Sure it's a clone of 3 or 4 other games combined, but it still looks decent.

Is this for the 360???

 

[aaronx83]

LOL, this guy just told me all the story, i can skip all cutscenes now

 

[Nedoras]

Sure it's a clone of 3 or 4 other games combined, but it still looks decent.

Is this for the 360???

Yes. It's for the PS3 and the 360.

 

[BenzSmoke]

I think it looks very Castlvania-y. I'll just wait til I get more info. before I decide to buy it or not.

 

[Karathos]

Poor John, hang in there during the review mate! I haven't played Castlevania games in aaaaages - but reboots have a tendency to ruin game series for me, so I'm not going to hold my breath.

 

[Cheefa_Da_Reefa]

yea there better castlevanias theme in that game because from the looks of it it doesn't look very castlevania like to me even lament of innocence or cv64 had more of the castlevania flavor to it...but eh you cant judge a book by its cover until you read it so ima give it a chance for old times sake

 

[Upbeat Zombie]

Well the only castlevania games I played were the ones on the n64 as a kid, so I was never to worried if this was good or not. But this game looks pretty promising from what Ive seen.

 

[John Funk]

So...where are the spoilers??

This was an infomercial that recycled a bunch of previous footage, and other than showing us some of the puzzles, some gameplay elements, and confirming that Dracula will appear in the game in some form, we got none. That's a good thing.

For some people, even those story element spoilers and puzzle answers are spoilers enough.

Besides, it was more catchy than the infinitely bland hed "Explains Everything" which is what I had before

 

[Scars Unseen]

I'm not so sure I like the way the whip combat looks. I'd prefer something that doesn't let your attacks take up the whole damn room. I don't know. Something more... whip like.

Aside from that I always thought that a more Prince of Persia style of platforming would suit a 3D Castlevania, but with a whip.

And I guess you could throw in the sex mini-games from God War, only with whips(kidding on that one).

So what I'm trying to say is that if you are going to make a Castlevania game that doesn't focus on 2D side scrolling platforming action, then it might not be a bad idea to focus on the series iconic weapon, and not just make it a big, flashy, flaming chain of death.

That said, I'll consider buying LoS pending reviews. Consider me skeptical though, seeing as I haven't finished a 3D Castlevania game since Castlevania 64. I've just been grateful that Konami has continued the 2D tradition on handhelds.