Die, monster! You don't belong in this world!

I'm sure you all remember this quote - infamous or not - from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. In fact, I actually heard it during the demo version of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 I tried out one time. Of course, it required buying Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate HD on XBLA, but I'm not too concerned since I played the original 3DS version before. I just had to try out the demo after starting a new file in Mirror of Fate for old time's sake. Granted, I have yet to finish the very first LoS on the 360 since I got too carried away with other video games and my college life at the time, but it matters little to me now in terms of storyline...at least, now that I read up on the plot out of curiosity. You could say I'm not really missing that much since the LoS trilogy basically follows the same premise of the Castlevania franchise as a whole, only in an alternate universe. For example, the Combat Cross is the equivalent of the Vampire Killer whip, though I'm sure you already knew that by now.

Anyway, I'll keep my thoughts as brief as possible because I only got to finish MoF on the 3DS last year. So far, the Lords of Shadow trilogy seemed quite interesting, even though I am aware that most Castlevania fans tend to compare it with all the other non-LoS games in regard to the storyline as a whole, as well as some reviews that pointed out the predictability in MoF's plot. Hell, I actually admit that Alucard being Trevor Belmont and Dracula being Gabriel Belmont felt quite hard to swallow at first - not to mention the fact that Trevor is Simon's dad rather than his great-granddad. Storyline aside, I found the 2.5D gameplay to be sorta decent, even though it got a little overabundant on the checkpoints - including boss fights. Then again, it's probably because I only played on Normal that time, and I still am doing so in the HD version before attempting to play on Hard and/or Hardcore. I will give MercurySteam credit in which they at least tried their best to make a 2.5D Castlevania game, let alone the one in the LoS trilogy that takes place in the alternate universe.

After trying out the demo version of LoS 2, I looked back on an article about how it'll come off as great and non-linear in comparison to what the first LoS was. I might consider buying it, but I'll probably wait until after the official reviews come in, for I recently came across a GameFAQs topic about Game Informer having given LoS 2 a 6 out of 10. If you've got your own thoughts on the Lords of Shadow trilogy, like how well MercurySteam is handling it on Konami's behalf, feel free to comment.

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"I'm-a Wario! I'm-a gonna win!" ~Wario

"It is GOOD day to be giant man!" ~Heavy Weapons Guy

"What is Bill Rizer? It is just the name of a single entity who has been gone for centuries." ~Master Contra

I never played any of them (except briefly with a demo to the first game), but it seems like the series would've been better as a one off game instead of a trilogy largely because the reception to the 3DS game and LoS2 has been meh, where as the reception to the first game was great.

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