Vampire Killer

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is turning out to be a really good game.  I have discovered that the key to its enjoyment is to play on the lowest difficulty.  I was originally playing on "warrior" but I was pulling my hair out with frustration, so I dropped  down to "squire".  I know, kind of embarrassing to be a mere squire but that's how it is.  The difference as far as I can tell is how much damage enemies do to you and (most importantly) how much life you restart with after a death.  On warrior if you restart at a checkpoint you have as much life as you had when you got there.  The problem is that I was being pushed into boss fights with 30% health and dieing almost instantly, over and over.  Add in the fact that I had to look at a goddamn load screen and have to pause and select "skip cut-scene" every time and a controller throwing event was imminent.

Lords of Shadow handles health in such a way that the better you do the more health you can recover.  Let me see if I can explain.  Initially, the only way to heal is to find a health shrine and absorb all of its glowy green goodness.  These are few and far between however so in the beginning of the game you're really playing to survive between these shrines.  This wasn't too much trouble though because they place them before major encounters.  Then you get light magic which you can use to heal yourself but it's not as simple as just casting "heal".  Here is were it gets complicated.  For most of the game you have two gauges, one for light magic and one for dark magic.  These magics let you perform certain moves and abilities buy activating the magic and then performing the move.  You have a limited amount of magic and you have to replenish your magic by absorbing neutral energy orbs. These orbs are dropped by enemies and can then be sucked up into either magic gauge with the left and right stick buttons.  The problem is that you can't just defeat the enemies, you have to have a high focus.  Focus is yet another gauge that fills up the more you hit enemies without getting hit yourself.  It fills faster if you use a variety of combos.  The higher the focus the more orbs the enemies drop.  If you want to heal you have active your light magic and then hit an enemy.  Some of the damage you do will be converted into health.

See the problem yet?  If you want to heal yourself, you have to hit enemies without getting hit yourself long enough to make them drop orbs, stop to absorb the orbs (which makes you vulnerable for a second), then active light magic and hit some more enemies to actually get the health.  And no, enemies hit while light magic is active will not drop more orbs.  So you can see where entering a boss fight with low health and no light magic would be an issue.

Anyway, on "squire" the game feels right and balanced.  All that bullshit I just explained above flows more naturally and is actually kind of fun.  A lot of people point out (our maybe even complain) that this is a God of War rip off.  I can see why people would say that, both games are overhead action games involving a chain weapon.  But that's like saying Sonic the Hedgehog is a Super Mario Bros. ripoff because you run from left to right and jump on enemies' heads.  God of War doesn't own the bloody action game genre.  I would also point out that Castlevania has been around since 1986 and has always involved a whip.  So who's copying who?  Another comparison people make is Shadow of the Colossus.  This is because of the Titan bosses that you have to climb up to defeat.  I think it's also an apt comparison because both games are beautiful!  Really both GoW and Shadow are great games so who cares if LoS is similar?  That to me it's a good thing.

I do want to mention the story before I wrap this up.  Much like Black Ops I didn't expect the story to be as good as it is, but finding out what happens next has become a real motivation for me to keep playing.  Just like Black Ops I feel like I know how it's going to end, but at the same time I'm not sure.  It seems like anything can happen.  Lost did that very well, baiting you with little bits of subtle foreshadowing that you knew were somehow important but it wasn't clear how.  I watched that show rabidly.  I wanted to find out if my theories were correct.  We've reached a point where more and more video games are able to deliver that same kind of storytelling.  Having read comments from others I know I'm in for some surprises with Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.  I can't wait to see what they are.