Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate HD has a name that takes longer to say than most AAA titles take to complete.
The game is a sequel to its big brother title Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, while being a prequel to Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2. Confusing doesn’t even begin to describe the over convoluted naming and timeline structure of the Castlevania series, but thankfully Mirror of Fate HD Remix Turbo Championship EX+ Edition makes up for it by being a fantastic looking and playing game.
Mirror of Fate was originally released back in 2013 for the Nintendo 3DS, Playstation Network and Xbox Live Arcade. The plot centers around Simon Belmont (dressed like what an 8 year old Japanese kid thinks is cool as he doodles in his notebook) who, at a very young age witnesses the murder of his mother by the rampaging hordes sent by Dracula.This attack on his family comes because his father, Trevor Belmont had ventured forth to destroy Dracula, failing in the process. The story is cliche to the point of being cliche, but nobody really jumps into a Castlevania game for an Academy Award winning story, but instead for the Metroidvania style gameplay that it has near perfected over the years.
Unlike it’s big brother, who has taken the God of War approach of gameplay, Mirror of Fate goes back to its roots with its 2.5D sidescrolling gameplay. Developer MercurySystem have crafted a game that clearly has Symphony of Night in its sights as the game it wants to be. I can appreciate taking the best game in the series and using it as your inspiration, but I would have liked if Mirror of Fate took some risks with its gameplay. While the level design of the castle is heavily based on Symphony of the Night, the actual weapons and game mechanics hearken even further back to the original Castlevania series on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Since you are once again playing as a Belmont, you have access to a whip that can attack left or right, with the added ability to area attack and deal damage to all surrounding enemies when you are being rushed. You also have a secondary slot in which you can equip one of the games various items for use. There is this at home kind of feeling you get when you come across one of the classic items from the series, like the holy water or axe. Like before, you can only use these secondary items if you have the hearts available for use, but this time around hearts aren’t as plentiful as in the original trilogy. You now must find heart containers that are hidden throughout the stages (they no longer rain down from every destructible item) and because of this, you will find yourself saving them mostly for boss encounters.
The graphics are really quite nice, and help set the darkened mood that the series is known for, but still allow for strong colors to show through. There is nothing more painful to me than to see these new titles, with their fancy next generation graphics, all look like they’ve been dragged through a mud pit. There was a time, not that long ago, when games had color, were enjoyable to look at, and didn’t look like every other game released. It’s refreshing to see a game make use of this overly exaggerated style without taking itself too seriously. The only nagging problem we had is when we are thrown into one of the games many cutscenes, which are presented in an overly cell shaded manner. It’s very reminiscent of the recent TellTale games, most notably The Wolf Among Us. There’s nothing bad, in fact the cutscenes look quite nice, the problem lies with the fact that the game looks very little like those cutscenes. This becomes even more apparent when the game randomly decides to use the in-game engine for other cutscenes. I personally would have loved if they just went completely with the cell-shading, as that style really lends itself well to this particular style of game.
The music and sound effects are what you would expect from your standard Castlevania games, with spooky and ominous music permeating each of the games stages. Weapons sound appropriate, and the effects blend nicely giving each of your weapons and abililites some modecum of weight. One thing that you may find startling is the fact that Mirror of Fate has lsome voice overs. There is actually a great deal of it, but it is really hit or miss most of the time. You may get a scene between two characters where the acting is decent, for a Castlevania game at least, and yet other times the voices trigger randomly, and feel very forced. For the first chunk of the game I didn’t even realize there was any voice acting, as everything up to that point had been text, until a random cutscene ended with a really poorly recorded woman crying. It’s almost as if they couldn’t decide if they wanted the game to be fully voiced, or all text, and came up with this weird middle ground instead.Mirror of Fate plays like a more classic Castlevania games, and for that I am happy, as there hasn’t been a decent side scroller in quite some time, especially on the PC. There are a number of secrets to collect, and the game encourages backtracking through the levels once you acquire new items and abilities, upping the replay value immensely. That’s not to say that this is a perfect game by any means. The jumping feels… well, off. Jumps, especially toward ledges always make it seem like you are going to come up short, but magically will pull you in like there’s a weird magnet strapped to your ridiculas demon head cumberbund. Still, there are other times when you think you can easily make a jump, only to fall to your death. Mirror of Fate also has some RPG style leveling elements, but these are implemented very half-heartedly. The leveling system serves little else than to pop a notice on screen letting you know you gained a level, without really adding anything.
I have played, and reviewed a number of DS/3DS ports that have made their way to the PC, but Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate HD is by far the most impressive I have ever seen. If you didn’t know that the game was ported, you could easily think it was a full release in its own right. While it’s no Symphony of the Night, Mirror of Fate is a very competent game, and an excellent entry into the this new Castlevania series. If you are a fan of the classic 2D games, then you are going to really enjoy Mirror of Fate.
PC (reviewed)• 360•PS3•3DS
Style
1-Player
Publisher
Konami
Developer
MercurySteam
Steam Release
March 27
You can read the full, detailed review in the April issue of GAMbIT Magazine HERE available on your browser or favorite smartphone.
About Author
