Well, this new Castlevania isn't this bad, but it's certainly no Symphony of the Night. Hell, it's not even a Dawn of Sorrow.
Basically, this Castlevania is content to toss out all of the signifying aspects of what makes a Castlevania game (outside of some mentions of Belmonts, some werewolves, and a gothic-light atmosphere) in favour of cannibalizing every idea that every third-person action game has ever had. Don't get me wrong, some of this is fun in a "let's spot the game!" kind of way, but this isn't a game that's going to win any innovation awards.
You play as Gabriel Belmont, an impossibly built (seriously, isn't this getting a little old by now? Can't we just have some normal-ass people in games for once?) gymnast/killing machine who has literally no personality of his own, other than what the portentous narration delivered by Patrick Stewart, tells us about him. Now, I've read lots of complaints about Stewart's performance in the game, but I actually found it to be delightfully hammy, in an over-the-top Lord of the Rings kind of way. Gabriel is travelling the world, ridding it of monsters and the Lords of Shadow, all, apparently, for love. Aww, isn't that sweet!
None of this matters, of course, because basically what you're going to be doing is God-ing it up, God of War-style, for about 80% of the game. On the medium difficulty level, it's actually quite satisfyingly challenging, and the game has a much more involved combat system than the similarly carbon copied Enslaved, which came out the same day. You unlock a whole bunch of combos throughout your adventure, and though I had a hard time telling whether I was dying due to lack of skill or due to poor gameplay planning, the fact that I wasn't able to tell makes me think that the combat system is relatively solid.
Less solid, though, are a lot of the ancillary details of the game. So many terrible gaming styles are included in this game that, while they thankfully pass by in a blur for the most part, they turn Lords of Shadow into a mangy mutt of a game. Quick time events are abound, but so are: less-than-stellar horseback riding, poorly implemented parkour sequences a la Prince of Persia, and Shadow of the Colossus-esque boss battles. It's a veritable Coles Notes of modern gaming. (And fun fact! This game wasn't even supposed to be a Castlevania game in the beginning! What a great way to do a reboot of a classic series!)
If you managed to see that Kojima Productions is associated with this game, rest assured – that eminent design studio's guiding hand is only felt in the game's many, many, MANY cutscenes. For such a paper-thin story, it sure does have a lot of cutscenes. So unnecessary.
I had some fun with this game, sure, but unlike, say, Metroid: Other M, which also tossed out its franchises defining characteristics for a spectacle-filled action romp, Castlevania doesn't have a single original idea (whereas I still maintain that by feeling and playing unlike any other action game I've ever played, M:OM is a successful action game, if not a successful Metroid game). This just leaves you with the feeling that all you've got is a shadow (pun intended, of course) of what makes the Castlevania games of yesteryear so engaging. If all I wanted to do is kill shiny (seriously, while this game is very able graphically, it's SO SHINY) supernatural bad guys, I'd play Dante's Inferno. OK, that's a lie. You couldn't pay me to do that.
Time played: 2 hours. Rental.