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Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate Hands On Preview

Castlevania returns to its side-scrolling roots, but things are a bit different now.

Rebooting a beloved and well established franchise like Castlevania was risky even before Konami outsourced the project to MercurySteam. But the little known Spanish developer, whose only major credit was the unremarkable Clive Barker's Jericho, would impress critics and fans with 2010's Lords of Shadow enough for Konami to greenlight two sequels. Mirror of Fate, a 3DS exclusive, is the first.

Mirror of Fate follows the bloodline of Lords of Shadow protagonist Gabriel Belmont across three generations. Transformed into the legendary vampire Dracula, Gabriel declares war against the Brotherhood of Light and sets in motion a conflict which brings descendents Trevor, Simon, and Alucard to arms against him.

This game breaks new ground for being the first side-scrolling Castlevania title developed outside of Konami as well as the first to trade sprites for polygons. The visuals are strong overall despite aliasing and underwhelming character models. Environments are detailed and well designed. The 3D is used to good effect and well suited for a side-scrolling game because of the added depth.

The 15- to 20-minute demo primarily highlights the game's combat and platforming elements. It begins with no introduction to the story, immediately dropping Trevor into the grounds of an old church and sending him off to battle.

Mirror of Fate's lineage is clear. Combat is similar to Lords of Shadow, with Trevor boasting a full suite of combos and defensive measures such as blocking, countering, and rolling. The demo provides access to only one secondary weapon and no magic, so Trevor's retail skill set is certain to be even larger. The combat translates to side-scrolling design with mixed success however, limited by awkward controls.

Movement is unresponsive. You're required to move with the analog stick, but it's a waste of 360 degrees because Trevor seems like he only wants to go the four base directions. The control scheme gives the impression of trying to squeeze too many commands into too few buttons. Platforming brings to light a few unexpected button mappings, such as the right shoulder button assigned both to starting and releasing a grapple. With that said, I was beginning to adjust to the controls by the end of the demo.

Mirror of Fate is said to focus on exploration more than its predecessor, but the demo was too short for me to get a sense for it. Following DS standards, the bottom screen displays the map. One of the game’s coolest new features is the ability to drag and drop custom notes to the map. It wasn’t necessary for the mostly linear demo, but I imagine it will be incredibly useful for exploring and solving puzzles.

With key gameplay elements for which Castlevania is known—exploration, magic, puzzles, secondary weapons—largely absent from the demo, my picture of the game as a whole is incomplete. That said, my impression is Castlevania fans who enjoyed Lords of Shadow should find plenty to enjoy here too, but the controls will take some getting used to for sure.

Mirror of Fate is scheduled for release March 5 and is said to set up the events of Lords of Shadow 2, coming later in 2013.


 

Comments

Dandichu

03/03/2013 at 11:52 PM

I was looking at some screenshots for the DS release- and a lot of them seem pretty poor on first glance. Most of what I saw reminded me of a browser MMO with good backgrounds. You touched a bit on the 3d in your review- do you feel like in 2d this game could've done better?

Coolsetzer

03/04/2013 at 08:57 AM

I'm looking forward to picking this up tomorrow. I was impressed by the demo. Trevor had a surprising number of moves with his whip, and there were a variety of moves available. It also didn't feel like he froze while attacking, which is important. I did notice that the enemies rarely were stunned by your combos until the end of them, when you pulled off a heavy attack. Btw, I think that they used polygons for the Rhondo of Blood remake for PsP, Dracula X Chronicles.

Would you like me to submit a user review for the site? I have pretty much played all of them. Unless you guys are going to do that. ;-)

Matt Snee Staff Writer

03/04/2013 at 10:36 AM

I was impressed by this too.  I don't know if the real game will be good or not, but I liked this a lot, so much that I downloaded SoTN to catch up on the series.  But I really want to purchase this one too.  Might hold out for reviews form friends first though.  

Temperance

03/05/2013 at 01:23 PM

I can't say I'm thrilled that this game is as combat-focused as Lords of Shadow.  I've also learned that Mirrors of Fate has the closed-off encounters from it, too.  Anyway, this reboot is not going off in the direction I had hoped it would.

Matt McLennan Staff Alumnus

03/05/2013 at 04:50 PM

I played the demo of this game last week. Just gotta wonder what Koji Igarashi is up to or is getting any work in general, because having fallen in love with the DS games, MercurySteam's God of Castlevania is NOT an Igarashi game in that it doesn't get what made those three DS games good; button mashing attacks? Get the fuck off. QTEs?! UGH.

2-D Castlevania is now is the garbage bin alongside Twinbee, Gradius, and Sparkster. God I miss 90s Konami so much.

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