Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate

Lords of Shadow is a subtitle that many Castlevania fans have come to fear. The first game to take that name changed the series direction to one more focused on action and spectacle. The level design was based on exploration disappeared in favor of a much more furious combat system. Some of the previous games, such as Symphony of the Night and Order of Ecclesia, gave Metroidvania its suffix, cementing it as a genre thanks to their interconnected environments, feeling of desolation, little sense of direction, and a design that links progression to backtracking. Lords of Shadow, on the other hand, was more like God of War, with its protagonist fighting with long chains, dismembering his enemies, and climbing enormous structures. Mirror of Fate tries to reconcile the two genres, merging the Lords of Shadow combat system with the exploration of a huge environment.

Mirror of Fate’s plot is pretty simple, based on the need for revenge, and the idea that this feeling is able to endure for generations. The story involves the tragic Belmont family and its eternal struggle against the vampire Dracula. Trevor Belmont wants to take revenge on his mother’s murder and leaves for the vampire’s gothic castle with the intention of destroying him. Simon Belmont wants retribution for the death of his father, Trevor, and travels to the castle to discover his fate. And the enigmatic vampire Alucard wants revenge for the curse put in him by Dracula.

Mercury Steam showed with the first Lords of Shadow that it can create tragic characters; characters who lose everything they love and fight because they have nothing left in their lives. Mirror of Fate follows exactly this guideline – and even the villain is humanized with the inevitability of his despair. Destiny is a recurring concept in the game and a shadowy masked figure serves as its personification, accompanying the characters throughout the dungeons of the castle, dictating their actions and pointing the way.

On the other hand, the developer has also proved that it has no idea of how to build an efficient, cohesive narrative. If in the first Lords of Shadow there was an epilogue so absurd that it came out feeling more like a joke rather than a hook to a sequel, Mirror of Fate presents a narrative structure that sabotages all the conflicts and twists of its story. Since the developers have chosen not to follow a chronological order, players will first follow Simon Belmont, then Alucard, and finally Trevor. Thus, when playing with Simon the player will know that Trevor has failed in his mission and, when commanding Alucard, attentive players will already notice the plot twist of the last act. Even more alarmingly, and completely unacceptable, is attesting that the climax of the game – the final battle against Dracula – happens at the end of Act II, in Alucard’s story. That is, as Mirror of Fate concludes with Trevor in Act III, the game ends in the most anticlimactic way possible.

This structure also has a negative impact on character progression. Mirror of Fate is an action game with a similar system to God of War with dead enemies even releasing red energy orbs that serve as experience points. While in the first Lords of Shadow players could unlock new combos, buying them with these red orbs, in Mirror of Fate progress is automatic and the experience gained makes the character level up and achieve new pre-determined attacks. This design – despite fitting the theme of inevitability and destiny – is extremely limiting. Besides that, as the story accompanies the journey of three distinct characters, Mercury Steam also chosen to make this system static. That is, the attacks that Simon learns, Alucard will also know. And the level that Alucard is at the end of Act II will be Trevor’s level at the beginning of Act III. Besides making the combat repetitive, since Simon will play in the exact same way as Alucard and Trevor, this choice doesn’t make any sense within the narrative structure – Trevor could never be stronger and more “experienced” than Alucard, for example. Far more effective would have been if each character had its own style of combat, which would guarantee both diversity and cohesion.

However, for this to have occurred, the game certainly would have to be much bigger than it actually is, as it can be easily completed in under ten hours. The castle presented is large enough, but it lacks complexity. That is, the player will cross various halls and courtyards with extreme agility, since there is little to do in them, besides moving onwards killing whatever there is in the way. If Mirror of Fate has excellent puzzles, they are few and far between since they are relegated only to Alucard’s story. The game would also have benefited from having more inspired set pieces, such as the intense sequence in which Trevor must escape a huge landslip caused by the fall of a bell, since such moments insert needed energy to an action game.

Despite these flaws, the decision to elaborate a level design more focused on exploration is definitely a good one. Players can traverse the dungeons of Dracula’s castle in search of secondary items, with inaccessible areas becoming viable as new equipment is acquired – such as a chain that lets you jump large distances, for example. This design helps establish the castle’s visual identity, allowing the player to better understand the links between one area and another, being encouraged to notice more both the level design and the art direction. It is true, however, that Mirror of Fate doesn’t have a complex design or little sense of direction  – there’s a floating arrow pointing to the goal after all – but this move to the Metroidvania genre is, undoubtedly, a step in the right direction.

The combat system, on the other hand, is a slightly shallow version of the one in the first Lords of Shadow: combos, based on long and medium-range attacks, are practically the same as the previous one, and there are usually two types of attacks, which ensures a bit of strategy. However, one of its most interesting mechanics is inexplicably absent. In the previous game, magic was the reward of a good fight – by hitting the enemy many times without taking damage, players were rewarded with magic orbs. In Mirror of Fate, this mechanic is entirely absent, leaving the combat less interesting.

The combat animations, essential to convey the brutality of the action, are still great, and the stereoscopic 3D of the 3DS further amplifies the sense of fury thanks to the good use of camera angles that make the members of creatures fly against the screen. Boss fights are also benefited by the effect, since they take it into account: The Night Watch, for example, uses the deep layers of the environment by leaving his torch attacking the player while it hides in the background. The 3D also enhances the beauty of the environments created by Mercury Steam. The extravagant Gothic aesthetic of the previous games was completely abandoned in favor of a more realistic and less colorful one. However, artistic care was not lost in the process, as evidenced by the huge, agonizing heads carved in stone that guard the castle’s underground entrance.

The energetic old soundtrack, though fantastic, would never combine with these sterile environments. For this reason, it was replaced by several orchestrated arrangements by composer Oscar Araujo, which sometimes serve to create anguish with sudden dissonant notes, sometimes to amplify the feeling of solitude with low and sparse melodies, adding weight to the Gothic atmosphere with the use of a choir.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate is a much bolder title than its predecessor. By attempting to combine a level design focused on exploration with a dynamic combat system, Mercury Steam has managed to create an intriguing game. Unfortunately, however, a problematic narrative structure sabotages any emotion that its story could evoke, leading to a good but visibly flawed title.

December 04, 2018.

Originally published in Portuguese on March 19, 2015.