Castlevania: Lords of Shadow for PlayStation 3 Reviews by Gamers

I was really looking forward to playing a new Castlevania game as it has been a few years since myself and a Belmont teamed up to take on the evils of the night. This game started a little slow but after a hour or so I was hooked.

The graphics were pretty good for the most part, a little fuzzy in a few parts but overall crisp and sharp. The music I really enjoyed as I felt it set the environment well for the dark and gruesome world. Controls I had a bit of a problem with, I found that often while walking from one section of a level to another the camera angel would change the control scheme wouldn't adjust with the new angel the character was facing. Fixed simply with letting go of the right stick and it would reset instantly. Only was a problem when fighting bosses and you would move form one screen to another and the change would cause you to walk directly into the boss and take damage or worse.

The game is decently long somewhere between 12-15 hours I spent playing through my first time. I liked the level up system where as you would collect experience from fighting enemies to distribute on your choice of skills to strengthen the character. There are lots of little odds and ends to collect, gems for life and magic and what not, to make it worth a replay.

I enjoyed the story line, especially the narrative before the start of each chapter so think twice about just skipping it. Game play was really fun most of the time, only a few boss battles that made me want to pull out my hair, tons of combos and attacks to slay the hordes of dark minions.

Good taste Castlevania, I have to say I really enjoyed the game a lot more than I anticipated I would. I have to say the the ending movie after the credits was worth playing the entire game itself so don't miss that.

I think most of the reviews will and have focused on the comparison to the original immortal classics that are Castlevania. I wonder if a 2d game would interest the current generation of gamers. I'd imagine you could make a 600 hour 2d game with the technology these days.

Things I really liked about the game:
Favorite thing was... the music. I often found myself listening to it and really enjoying it.

Things I liked about it:
Scenery, it was majestic. I enjoyed mass slaughter on occasion. The boss were very interesting and I found myself even intimated by them. I would look at the boss and say how the heck am I going to kill that.

Things that were neutral:
The similarity to any other game that is out nowadays... ie god of war. I haven't played GoW so I enjoyed it.

Not a super great story line.. kind of interesting. I'm glad patrick stewart read.. he rules.

Things I didn't like:
Of course not being able to change the camera was awful. This leads to other annoyances... Ie trying to pick up items in a weird spot (items used to open doors or what have you). This was also frustrating when you were trying to activate something while something else was around. I'm a constant pain for the programmers to figure out spacial relationshions and order of priority.

Things I hated:
Some moves made many of the creatures too easy to kill. For instance... If I grappled.... the world stopped so I could kill one critter with ease after a splatter of blood. It was super annoying figuring out how the circle ring worked... after that I don't think I missed it more than twice. If I did miss it I was more annoyed than challenged. It didn't add much other than giving me some interaction.

I haven't played on the harder levels so if the game is more difficult in the areas I complained... then oops.

Overall fun to play through... It was a hopefulness of what might be next around the corner and some sweet mahem. Didn't bring me back but hey.. it's reborn....!