Though narrated by Patrick Stewart in full portentous mode, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is very much a visual experience.
From its first scenes, the game oozes Romanticism. Trembling villages brandish torches and pitchforks, cowering from the threatening storm before a crude palisade of hewn logs. Gabriel Belmont — a proud, imposing figure of red and black, wild-haired and grim-featured — stalks forward into battle against slavering werewolves in silence. Only a few scenes later, he grapples with adversaries riding savage giant wolves as Gabriel’s enchanted charger pounds through a sun-dappled hunting path.
It’s heady stuff. Lords of Shadow shares God of War‘s kinetic battles and its vibrant scenery, though it lacks the latter’s toxic fixation on proving its violently masculine pedigree. That shouldn’t be taken to mean that combat with Gabriel is anything but ferocious. He wields his chain-whip with fluid skill in violent but controlled combos and steadily acquires new secondary weapons to fill the gaps, from crystals housing fierce demons to silver knives effective against lycanthropes.
Two forms of magic act as combat resources, built up through successful combos and evasions; Light magic heals whenever Gabriel does damage, while Shadow magic inflicts even more savage injury. Because there are no other regular forms of health regeneration but the occasional fountain, the only way to heal consistently is the use of Light magic. Battle becomes a combination of evasion, resource management, and combat proper, emphasizing skill and technique over frenzied offense.
Lords of Shadow boasts fantastic production values. Its voice cast is almost universally talented, though often underutilized. Scenes and battles are accompanied by dramatic brass and strings interspersed tastefully with (largely male) choir vocals. Lush landscapes dappled with shafts of light and dotted with ruins provide a regular parade of new sights, inhabited by a steady parade of monstrous Gothic horrors.
The production values are essential, because, while the conventional plot of Lords of Shadow is competently told, it’s told more than shown. Set at the turn of the first millennium, the world has somehow become cut off from Heaven and God (yes, a game that actually mentions the Abrahamic god, shock!), forcing the souls of the dead to reside on Earth while evil creatures, led by the titular Lords of Shadow, ravage the world of the living. Dispatched by his superiors in a generic “Brotherhood of Light” to learn more about the crisis, Gabriel’s stake in this is contact with his dead wife, whom was murdered only days before the story begins. He hopes to return her from the dead by claiming the power of the Lords of Shadow himself.
Gabriel’s isolation from others is both the game’s handicap and its strength, allowing for his gradual descent into despair but limiting his opportunities to display it. The outwardly stoic protagonist is a man of few words and few dramatic onscreen emotional flourishes, though his gentle voice clearly hides old pain. Each act of the game is almost entirely stand-alone, and the Lords of Shadow get relatively little screen time, so Gabriel’s longing for his wife becomes the unifying story arc.
Lords of Shadow‘s main narrative thrust comes from the senatorial narration of Zobek, Gabriel’s older ally/mentor/stalker, and the mournfully beautiful landscape through which the two travel. It’s clearly a world with history, every location littered with the ruins of a vanished golden age. Over this backdrop, the vampires, werewolves, and necromancers forming the three major antagonist factions hover like vultures. Other monsters occupy a more ambiguous role. Though invariably hostile, they are the last vestiges of pagan times, in retreat before the Abrahamic faiths. Melancholy vistas accompanied by pensive orchestral themes reinforce the elegiac themes and intensify a sense of detached alienation.
Environmental storytelling is Lords of Shadows‘ strongest narrative tool. It employs the pathetic fallacy (humanizing or linking the world around the characters to the story’s events) to steadily trace the protagonist’s diminishing connection to normal life more effectively than the unsubtle narration or minimalistic story scenes. Where Zobek’s narration tells what occurs in the always-stoic Gabriel’s mind, the environment shows it by thematically linking his surroundings to his state of mind. By the climax, where Zobek would have us believe Gabriel is an instrument of bitter rage, the world around him is utterly dead and barren, a place of blasted rocks and bleached bones.
The game’s finale deserves special mention. Though the last antagonist is somewhat abruptly introduced, his few scenes are actually quite effective, and the post-credits coda is amazing simply for its future potential. It’s hard to give the pivotal twist away, but suffice to say, it calls into question almost everything we’d take for granted in a Castlevania title.
Lords of Shadow makes a clear break with the prior Castlevania franchise, while honoring the conventions of its forebears in a dozen small ways. Konami made an excellent decision with the title. It’s nice to finally have a 3D Castlevania title with such bite.