Quick Look: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate

Zobek?

Zobek

Zobek!

조백

Zobek.

Zobek.

Bought this today and to my surprise I'm really LOVING the game so far.

Zobek?!

What?

...Zobek?!

Also weekend Quick Look <3

Keboz?

After seeing SOTN yesterday... and my fond memories of the DS games... fuck this game.

Call him!

these ds quicklooks are awful to watch. its teeny tiny. Just show the main screen with the action on. please god.

It won't look better all stretched out.

@paulwade1984: Ctrl + is your friend

This looks roooouuugh.

I like me some castlevania but, at least from the stream, this looks about like a PS1 game. Which is fine cause the graphics on a game like this are not really that big a deal to me. I'm just kind of surprised cause other 3ds games i have seen look pretty good.

The camera should have been locked to the 2D plane, rather than being allowed to float the way it does. Would have improved the feel and flow if it was like previous Castlevanias and not in a "I dislike new things" way.

And I seriously disapprove of the gameplay if it's going to be like this. What was wrong with Dawn of Sorrow, was it too much CVX? I liked those kind of fights, none of this "get locked in a room, kill enemies to progress".

(Theory! Was going to be a downloadable PS3/360 game?)

Dear god the art design is horrible. Simon looks like a wrestler was thrown through hot topic

The demo was a complete disappointment. It's just a ported down version of the console version. A bad God of War ripoff with awful controls, worse graphics and terrible game play.

You never fight more than 3 enemies at a time and then you basically juggle them for 5 minutes until you pull a boring QTE finisher. Even the boss at the end of the demo was the most anti climactic thing.

Just imagine how awesome a REAL metroidvania game would have been on the 3DS. sprites on a 3d background. Imagine how big that game could have been with the capacity of the 3ds carts and the size of the screen.

The real kicker is that Mirror or Fate treats the platforming and combat as 2 entirely separate things. You're either fighting OR platforming. Never both at the same time. When you've finished beating the 2 enemies on the entire screen then you just grapple the glowing points in the world.

In the previous games you had to figure it out for yourself. If there was a jump that was too big you knew you got an item later on that let you come back here. There' wasn't a glowin "GRAPPLE HERE!" point just flat out telling you. You had to do the combat and the platforming at the same time. Enemies were on small ledges that you had to jump up and it was a puzzle to be solved.

Another complete disappointment from Konami.

Yuck! Looks baaaad.

Whose decision was it to allow fall damage in a Castlevania game? Seriously.

Even worse, what the hell happened to the music? Konami? Hello?

For everyone who is disappointed by this game, I find all of your points to be completely truthful and valid. For me personally, though, having the "Lords of Shadow" name affixed to the front of this game mitigated my disappointment somewhat. By being an LoS game, I already knew it wasn't going to be the Castlevania I knew and loved. As a straight-forward action game, I think it's pretty all right.

Dawn of Sorrow still looks better than this

It is to bad they didn't use the art style from the cut scenes since that semi cell shaded look would make the normal game look better. From what I've played so far it seems alright.

I'm into the story of Lords of Shadow as well, so I'll definitely get this! Though I've always hated the character designs in it ;|

I can't believe Brad and Vinny were ragging on the DS games, Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia. While every game did introduce many characters, no one really transferred over to the next title, making it take a more Final Fantasy approach. The games though, were based on exploration and had immense RPG mechanics that made every title awesome. The story still dealt with Dracula and his castle, so I don't know why they're being harsh on them.

The first Lords of Shadow could have been a completely different game if you simply took out the "Castlevania" in the title, replaced the main character with some crazy adventurer and gave him a different weapon than a whip. LOS is not the Castlevania we know and love.

Huh, that's Robb Stark as Alucard looking dude, weird.

@infestedandy: Speak for yourself. Not every Castevania fan is as narrow-minded as you are. I loved early Castlevanias, I loved SotN and I also love LoS. In fact, I like that game's lore way better than the Anime crap introduced in the GBA/DS Igavanias. It's great that LoS it brought back the European style of early Castlevanias.

I liked Symphony of the Night in the PS1 and the original Lords of Shadow had great presentation and art direction, IMO. But, for what I've seem so far, Mirror of Fate took the worst parts of both games and mashed them together.

Wouldn't bother me if they chose one formula or the other, but the mashup was a really bad idea.

Also, where's Zobek? I have some statues in my yard I need help moving.

Man, this looks bad. The DSvanias where awsome but this just looks incredibly boring.

Which button calls Zobek?

To say the DS games storylines were 'bat-shit crazy' is an understatement. I read they had to downsize this game into the 3DS, so Konami has an HD PSN & XBLA version stored. But the release will depend on how well this game sells for Nintendo, which they have the exclusive rights for portable.

@infestedandy said:

Dunno, man. Lords of Shadows was as much of an offshoot from the formula as Symphony of the Night was back in the PS1 era. All proportions guarded, SotN was basically a Metroid clone while LoS was a God of War Clone (and the best GoW clone, if you ask me).

Simon Belmont looking pretty Final Fantasy.

I want to know who at MercurySteam was responsible for this mistake.

Zobek!!!

@cptbedlam: THIS!!!

This game looks like hot garbage.

They managed to give this an even more stupid name than all of Igarashi's GBA/DS games.

So an ad for the game plays before the Quick Look? Marketing!

The demo was horrific, the framerate made it unplayable for me. I have no doubt that Brad Shoemaker never played Order of Ecclesia...a lot of people missed out on that one but it was unbelievable and actually changed up the formula quite a bit. The day Iga makes a 3DS Castlevania I will throw down my money right away, because it will be fantastic!

Played this game at E3 last year and was thoroughly disappointed. I am one of those people who want a SoTN style game, but dammit, that style is a million times better. If you're going to attempt to emulate it this closely, you might as well go all the way.

Also, the framerate was just as bad when I played it last year. It really makes me sad for all of Konami's franchises that have been outsourced like this. They deserve better.

What I wouldn't give for Konami to make a some sort of remake of SoTN for Vita. Though at this point they would probably screw it up.

Oh, so this game is 3D, and also 3D, but not 3D. Got it.

The portable Castlevania games were close to two years apart and I felt that was an appropriate release schedule for that series.

It seems unfair to criticize the plot of Castlevania so harshly because that has never been the highlight of the series and the games have been loosely connected no matter what kind of cohesive narrative Konami pretends is there.

I think that Mirror of Fate suffers because it went for a graphical presentation instead of an artistic presentation. The visuals look muddy (like PS1 games) and previous 2D Castlevania games are sprite based and have lots of colors and distinct environmental colors. That said, Mirror of Fate might still be a buy in the $20-25 range.

It looks like a playstation game but ironically SoTN looks way better.

damn...thought this would have turned out better....

So is the Lords of Shadow franchise officially the low-framerate version of the Castlevania universe?

They should do an HD console version of this game like they hinted at. Would look tons better with a higher frame-rate and more hi-res assets.

The reason for the kinda sketchiness in the visuals is probably because it was actually made in HD first. They've said that they made the HD versions(which for an eventual console release, they have "sitting on a computer somewhere"), and then ported it down for the 3DS. I have a strong feeling the eventual console version will look significantly better.

Regardless, I can't wait for the HD release so I can actually play it, same as RE:Revelations. No way I'm buying a 3DS.