Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Stunning, beautiful, engaging, emotional, and fantastic.
The story of the game and the acting are both well thought out, and well performed. The environments in the game go everywhere from lush, beautiful, and bright to dark, decrepit, decaying and crumbling. You'll see many different environments n Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, and they all look good. The story is well written and narrated, engaging and emotional as I felt strong sympathy for the characters. The pace of the story is chosen very well, too, and so feels like an adventure proper.
The combat system in the game makes the oh-so-common strategy of doing nothing but button mashing not work as well, especially so on the tougher enemies. This is because the game provides a decent challenge, and hordes of enemies. In order to survive, you'll often have to take advantage of the focus ability you will learn, which rewards stylish use of combo attacks and skillful countering and dodging of enemy attacks with more energy for light or shadow magic.
Furthermore, the attacks Gabriel is capable of using are cool and flashy, but there's enough variation to never have to use the same attacks over and over. Grappling enemies also adds more depth to the combat, with the ability to dispatch smaller enemies quicker, and finishing larger ones off after weakening them.
The boss battles, too, have a good variety to them. Clever use of grapple finishers and relic-earned special moves often make boss battles more enjoyable.
Fans of Castlevania will see some homage to the original games at several points, and these things admittedly made me smile, because I could tell that the developers truly are as great fans of Castlevania as some of us are. I think Mercury Steam has succeeded at their goal of re-imagining Castlevania and making it both for old fans, and new.
The biggest issues with the game are repeatedly re-used enemies, a few frustrating puzzles, and the camera. At times, the camera can be irritating, with the occasional off-screen enemy. However, the flaws of this game are far outshined by the areas in which it performs better. Overall, this is a great Castlevania game, and a must-have for fans of the series and new players alike.
Scores out of 10
Graphics 7/10
Sound and Music: 10/10
Fun: 10/10
Story: 10/10
Replay Value: 10/0
Overall: 9.5/10