It’s the sequel spin off that tells the story about Dracula and his origins. Developed by MercuryStem and edited by Konami, it was released in 2014. It keeps the basics of the first game but with a different graphic engine.
The Satan cult is preparing everything to revive its lord, afraid of the great power coming back Zobek is decided to bring the Prince of Darkness from his slumber to battle one more time. Gabriel Belmont wakes up to fight the holy paladin from the Brotherhood of Light showing that he is a god chosen and immortal.
Zobek plots a truce and makes a proposal to work together against the cult and prevent Satan return, Dracula accepts and the new adventure begins.
SPOILERS WARNING Castlevania Mirror of Fate (N3DS game)
Trevor arrives to the castle to fight Dracula, he fails in his mission and is assassinated by the Prince of Darkness, also his father, who didn’t know the true until the fight finished. Feeling guilty he takes his corpse and makes him drink his blood hoping to revive him someday. (End of the spoilers)
Highlights for Castlevania Lords of Shadow 2
Story
Hidden in society the Satan cult is preparing the return of his lord, with strong influence in political, financial, religious fields they are untouchable.
Zobek owns a big corporation in the modern world where he is trying to prevent Satan´s return. Afraid of his great power he is not match for the demon, but Gabriel is his best bet.
With a proposal in mind Zobek brings the Prince of Darkness to the modern world to the battle against the cult and its acolytes. Interrupting the millennial slumber of the first Belmont, the offer is eternal rest in exchange for cooperation preventing the cult from reaching their goal.
The narrative is very confusing trough the game, there are certain parts that switch between the modern and the old world but it’s an evil needed for the greater goal.
Gameplay
It’s the main and stronger point of the game, lots of improvements and mobility compared the its predecessor. Lords of Shadow 2 shines for the accurate and enjoyable gameplay, furthermore, frenetic action and a full set of aerial combos with a great number of skills available.
Shadow whip, chaos claws and void sword are the main base of his powers where all the skills come from. Gabriel will have to recover his powers after his centurial slumber.
Mixing with vampiric skills as shape shifting in rats’ nest or dragon, mist form, possession, pyrokinesis, telekinesis, blood manipulation, enhanced physical strength, command over demon legions, demon wings, immunity to holy magic and immortality.
Making Draculi one of the stronger characters in the Castlevania universe due to the vast set of skills and resistances, even Satan fears his power.
Making emphasis in holy magic resistance due to wear the mask of God and his chosen, also served at the Brotherhood of Light. Also got the immortality defeating The Forbidden one, a powerful demon sealed in another dimension.
The battle speed is upgraded and the camera is movable which is perfect for battles. However, there are a few health recovery points in the game, so the chaos and void powers are key to progress in the game mainly the boss battles.
Narrative
The confusing and far-fetched story in Lords of Shadow 2 shines in the narrative, there is an important reason to tell the story the way it is but that’s explained ahead to the end, the last chapters explain the whole plot.
That’s the main reason why the story may be considered as a bad or good one. The game takes too much time to reach this chapter so you can tell until the very end.
The familiar hardships and cult plots give Dracula a very difficult way to enjoy the story, there are too many questions plus the mix with modern world makes it very difficult to swallow.
Graphics
Using a different graphic engine is difficult to say if this one is better than the first game one. In fact, the modern world showed up with this release makes it very difficult to understand, the classic games have that kind of fantasy art, at least my own opinion is not a good idea.
This topic was one of the big changes from the first tittle, the linear story and static camera were the main problems, so the change of graphic engine came from these roots.
The freedom to explore the castle and modern city gave this semi open world sensation and frenetic gameplay. An outstanding result in this front.
Sound
The sound effects don’t have any kind of issue in any part of the game, seems well implemented and synchronized. Doesn’t reach any outstanding or bad adjectives, so its good work.
The original soundtrack is made by Oscar Araujo & Ferrán Cruixent, an OST winner of the BSO awards in 2014 to the category best soundtrack.
Performance
The game was tested on the Steam Deck 512GB original Valve model, runs smoothly at 60fps the whole game without frame drops.
It’s a 2014 game, the Steam Deck has enough processing power to run it lasting more than 4 hours of gameplay at fully charged battery with standard configuration. A very enjoyable and immersive experience beating demonic hordes.
The game doesn’t have any king od error or glitch that can corrupt the file or close the game, but as any device of this kind, check the temperature long gaming sessions.
Conclusions
- It has a fluent gameplay and revamped battle system, more freedom to explore and a good graphic update.
- The story is the weak link in the tittle, a confuse narrative and the mixed environment between modern world and classic fantasy art are difficult to take in.
- You need to finish the whole game to understand the confusing story.