This week my most anticipated game of the year comes out:  Castlevania: Lord of Shadows.  Or Lords of Shadow.  Either way, it’s Castlevania.  Yes, it’s a 3D Castlevania, and yes, we already had a so-so Castlevania release this year that actually was in 2D, and on consoles, however I’m still excited for this.  A friend recently asked me if I was anxious for the game since it’s not 2D, it’s not a Metroidvania, and it’s not helmed by IGA, and I said “yes, in fact there has never been a Castlevania game that I didn’t have high hopes for.”  That does include the N64 games.  Hey, I didn’t say I liked them afterwards, I just said I had high hopes. 

Castlevania is always my go-to series, along with Metroid, which also saw an “experimental” release this year, one that in my opinion, and apparently most people’s opinion, wasn’t that great.  But that’s Nintendo, and they don’t really handle the Metroid series well.  Part of that might be because Japan hasn’t been that keen on the series ever since the original, so maybe they can’t get a grasp on what we love about it.  Thankfully when they pawned it off onto Retro Studios, they turned out some good entries in the series and took it into a new direction.  That sadly led to the eventual second pawning off to Team Ninja who felt they needed to have a first person element because hey, that’s what every western game player likes, right?

But this isn’t about Metroid, this is about Castlevania.  They just seem to have a decent formula for these games, no matter what play style they use, that so far has lead to great things.  For one the atmosphere is always amazing, even if it’s 2D sprites.  The castle is always designed to be insanely gorgeous and made to seem massive, as big as any planet Samus has landed on, and this entry doesn’t seem to be any exception.  Since Symphony of the Night, the controls for the Castlevania games have been great, especially when compared to the older titles, and even the two PS2 entries had solid controls with decent combat.  They really look like they’ve upped their standards here, introducing more of a God of War type combat which seems to be a no-brainer to introduce in the series.  If fighting enemies is satisfying, that can ease the pain of not getting any experience in the game, however that element has been thankfully retained.  The introduction of puzzles seems like a good idea, too.  There wasn’t much of that in prior games, but it’s a welcome addition.  Platforming is always important, and has been promised to be in the game as well.  Finally, Castlevania has always had a decent storyline, because it has been subtle and hasn’t overpowered the gameplay, and it looks like they've really worked on the story here.

That leads into some of my concerns about the game.  One of the appealing factors of a Castlevania is the sense that it’s you against everyone and everything in this giant castle.  This entry makes it seem like there is a giant cast…or should I say castle haha…of characters that you’ll encounter.  Now I have no problem with this, as prior games would have you run into folks throughout your journey that would help tell the story, but the encounters were minimal and didn’t interrupt gameplay for that long.  Part of me worries this won’t be the case and your encounters will be more abundant.  Thankfully the developers have confirmed that cut scenes will be at a minimum, and in fact the longest cut scene is 12 minutes and is the game ending movie.  Trust me, I’m somebody that is okay with cut scenes, but this is Castlevania we’re talking about here.  We saw what a large cast of characters and long cut scenes can do to Metroid in Other M, so you can probably understand my concern. 

Even though the devs have also stated this isn’t a Metroidvania, they have said that you can play the game in a way that you’ll find items which will unlock something that you have to backtrack to get to, so it seems that you can play the game straightforward or opt for a more “open world” or “false freedom” experience.

Obviously I have my concerns, but I’m still cautiously optimistic about Castlevania.  It’s still one of my favorite series of all time, it’s spawned my favorite game of all time, a number of my favorite game soundtracks, and is still going strong after two decades.  I hope that they never abandon the 2D installments of Castlevania, but I’m glad that Konami cares enough about the series to keep it going strong.  Maybe this is the start of a new chapter in the series, and someday we’ll look back and say it began with Lord of Shadows…or Lords of Shadow, whichever.