Buy Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate HD

WOW this game is a must for castlevania fans!!!I didnt expect it to be so good but seems it is an excellent title!It manages to revive the platform gerne,which older castevania games used and also the best part,in my opinion,is that mirror of fate continues the story of castlevania lords of shadow and connects it with lord of shadow 2!!!Now i can totally understand the story of Gabriel Belmont,Alucard Belmont and Simon Belmont!!!9/10!!!

Being a long time fan of Castlevania since the late '90's, I was eager to pick up Mirror of Fate HD due to its classic side scrolling gameplay which reminded me of Symphony of the Night. Whether you are a new or old player, this game is nothing short of a blast! The story is intriuging, the combat fun, and the graphics are brilliant (for being a 3DS Port)! I enjoyed how the gameplay consisted mostly of exploration and the very layed back atmosphere made it more enjoyable than stressful and overly intense.

This game in particular gives great nods to the past with certain key rooms and areas that remind me of the older games: something I really appreciated. Although Castlevania has had a facelift, the series is still thriving!

No matter who plays Mirror of Fate, I assure you that this title is an instant classic to be enjoyed for years to come!

Very very good, even if a bit easy, just like the first LOS. This is not bad, of course, but basically a good block will destroy the enemy you are fighting (like in God of War).
The game is not too short, nor too long, there's basically no backtracking excluding two sections (but you can complete both of them within ten minutes, nothing complicated), you need to revisit areas only if you want collect all scrolls and power-ups. Probably the best mix between old and new Castlevania games.

some of the boss fights can piss u off and sometimes the mechanics feel broken but gameplay is good love the lore/story

decent side scroller with a explorable map with various collectables. multiple playable characters, but they all very similar on playstyle.not to be confused for a metroidvania.

I was actually impressed with this title. It is reminiscent of earlier titles, namely Symphony of the Night, Aria of Sorrow, Harmony of Dissonance with a large number of game mechanics while delivering the newer combat and gameplay experience from the Lords of Shadow series. Beautiful and earie scenery and a decent music score keep you immersed in the game while you trek across multiple Acts and multiple characters. A solid entry into the Castlevania world!

This game was along the lines of the old side scroller parts of the series, the parts that I enjoyed quite a bit. It reminds me of Symphony of the night the most. Enjoyed the whole way through.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate is the second game in the Lords of Shadow Trilogy. After I played the first game- which I found to be a great first step albeit not without some noticeable flaws- I was looking forward to playing its sequels. And when I got to Mirror of Fate, it did not disappoint.

Whereas the first Lords of Shadow was primarily a hack and slash beat 'em up with Prince of Persia style platforming, Mirror of Fate combines the combat of the first Lords of Shadow, the platforming of the original Castlevania, and the exploration of the Symphony of the Night-style Metroidvanias, mixing them all together to form a playstyle all its own.


Visual Presentation: 2.4/3

While not as visually stunning as its predecessor, the scenery in Lords of Shadow still does not disappoint. It manages to showcase a wide variety of areas within the castle, each with its own unique feel and artistry behind it, all of which is very well done.

The story, while not necessarily bad, is rather short and simplistic- and the only real "twist" to the game's plot is revealed in the opening cutscene. It's presented well enough, but if you're hoping for the story-heavy narrative that was presented in the first game, you will be disappointed.

Also, I would like to complain about the cutscenes... For some reason, the game has FMVs that are done in a completely different style from the main game and in-engine scenes; while they're not bad on their own, the contrasting style is a bit of annoying, being an unnecessary and jarring change- though not as bad as that of the DLC cutscenes in the first Lords of Shadow.


Audio Presentation: 2/2

The flawless voice acting of the first game returns, and while there's not nearly as much of it, what is there hasn't lost a step, including Robert Carlyle reprising his role as Gabriel Belmont.

The music is wondrous, being ambient when it needs to be, and powerful when it comes to boss fights. For the most part, you have these quiet, eerie themes which add much to the atmosphere of the haunted castle, and it really picks up when it needs to. There's really not much to discuss here, I can't think of a single thing in this area to complain about.


Gameplay: 4.8/5

As mentioned in the opening comments of this review, Mirror of Fate seems to combine elements from all three styles of former Castlevania games, and blends them together into something all its own. The game is divided into three chapters (plus a prologue which only adds a few minutes to the game), each of which has you playing as a different character: Simon Belmont, Alucard, and finally Trevor Belmont.

Platforming at times is reminiscent of the original Castlevania games, whether you're jumping over pits of rancid water, using your whip to swing over pits too large to jump on your own, or climbing up the signature Clock Tower that so often tells you that you're near the end of your journey.

But mind you, you don't start out with all your abilities... Much like the more recent main series Castlevania games, exploration is key. While the main game can be quite short, there's plenty of hidden goodies to find in true Metroidvania fashion, although in some ways it feels more Metroid than 'Vania. What I mean by this is that you're not finding RPG-style equipment dropped by enemies and increasing your stats by leveling up, but rather, you instead can find health, magic, and subweapon increases scattered throughout the castle, all hidden to various degrees. The map system is an excellent aid for this, and even allows you to take notes to remind yourself to go back to an area you couldn't reach before.

And finally, we have combat- while not nearly as varied as the original Lords of Shadow, the combat here is still quite solid, maintaining the direct attack/area attack style that was originally found in Lament of Innocence. Whereas in Lament of Innocence and Lords of Shadow, area attacks were meant to hit lots of enemies all around you, Mirror of Fate takes a slightly different approach due to its 2D sidescroller nature, and instead makes it so that area attacks are more focused around attacking both ground and air- while most area attacks will still leave your six exposed to enemies.

Each character has two subweapons which are unique to them. While none of the weapons can be combined with magic as in Lords of Shadow, they can all be charged up to unleash more powerful versions of them. Some are redesigned versions of classic Castlevania subweapons- such as the axe, boomerang (cross), oil flask (holy water), and hourglass (stop watch), while two others are newcomers to the series in the form of bats and electric bombs. In classic Castlevania style, you collect hearts which serve as ammunition for these weapons, and for some reason do not heal you... People have been confused by this since 1987, I'm not expecting an answer now.

In addition to their weapons, each character has two unique types of magic, one defensive in nature and one offensive. Simon calls upon the power of a holy maiden to protect himself from attacks, or upon the power of an ancient warrior to fire arrows upon his foes. Alucard can transform into a mist to dash through enemies and drain some of their life force, and can turn into a wolf to increase damage. And finally Trevor can use the medallions from Lords of Shadow, allowing him to heal himself with attacks via light magic, or simply deal more damage through them with shadow magic.

Boss fights are interesting and varied, and as with Lords of Shadow, they are the best part of Mirror of Fate. They represent the most powerful minions under Dracula's command, and eventually even Dracula himself, giving intense challenges and often blocking the path of the greatest rewards.

Finally, quick time events have be drastically reduced from Lords of Shadow; no longer do they interrupt the flow of gameplay every time you need to perform a finisher, though they do still appear at a few points in the game, including a "boss battle" which is just one long quick time event sequence.


Final Verdict: 9.2/10

All in all, Mirror of Fate is a game that takes the best of the new and the old, and learns from the mistakes of its predecessor. While it doesn't bring anything particularly new to the franchise, it does make an effort to ensure that everything it does, it does well. It is an excellent game that I can see appealing to a large variety of fans, including those who enjoy action-adventure games, those who enjoy beat 'em ups, and those who enjoy platformers.

7/10.

Like an immortal Dracula that continues to return from the dead, the diehard CV community continue to hope for a return to the SOTN Metroidvania style that is the pinnacle of the series no matter what Belmont comes to take the role of whip-slayer.

This is Not a Metroidvania game, nor is it a massive 20 hour campaign that it was marketed as, What it is one of the most enjoyable 2D action games available on Steam that serves as a nice link between the much larger budget Lords of Shadow games.

Sadly, the story, like in LOS2, is incoherent at best. Told in a reverse sequence of events, similar to Memento, the character development is minimal with only the short dialogues at the beginning, and towards the end pushing the narration forward. Some of the villains are quite imaginative, e.g. The Toy Maker, but there is not nearly enough enemy variety to keep the campaigh interesting, 8-10 hours can give you 80%+ game completition, with only returning to earlier parts of the castle for upgrades for higher difficulties or the punishing Boss Rush mode a reason to return for a second helping.

Managing to shrink the whip heavy game-play to 2D is not easy, but this, along with the haunting soundtrack is where MercurySteam succeeds most. Sub-weapons return, and each of the three main characters, Simon, Alucard and Trevor each have their own abilities too. Whip abilities pass from one character to another as they level up, but unlike the other games it is linear rather than being able to chose your own moves. (This also makes no sense chronologically,)

Level design at times is alright, but whoever Dracula gets to decorate his castle should really invest in some good lighting and colours outside of grey, brown and black. Characters feel heavy, platforming is dense ledge grabbing, with occasional air dashing, jumping and whip swinging mingling with the common combat against Dracula's hoards. The game is dark, very dark. But the art design, at times, is Gothic, if a little flat and too constrained.

I can't recommend this for anyone hoping this was a return to form the old-school CV ways. If you enjoyed LOS then it's worth a glance, but otherwise look elsewhere.

Memorable Moment: The First Few lines Alucard spoke. A thick rouge Scottish accent is not fitting of a slightly flamboyant white-haired vampire of Japanese design.

A platformer that only adds to the Castlevania series and keeps up with the pace set by Lords of Shadow.

I feel like this is a game that didn't really know what it wanted to be. It feels like they tried to import the attacks from the 3d games, but those don't lend themselves well to the 2d format, mostly making combat very long and tedious. Normally I enjoy Metroidvania type games a great deal, but in this case, they seem to have tried to port instant death falls into the format. In classic Castlevanias, this is fine, because you aren't looking for a great deal of vertical exploration and any fall should be considered deadly. Meanwhile in a Metroidvania where you're actually trying to look for unusual routes it becomes a punishment for exploration, as it does here. Again, tedious. Then of course, we get the Quicktime events. I will never understand why people feel the need to cram these into games, especially ones that trigger when I have an unavoidable traversal of a section that already slows movement. Boy howdy, mashing a button repeatedly to progress sure is fun to do over and over again.

Its not a terrible game, its just not terribly engaging and has enough flaws that I eventually just got bored and decided to move on, and I say this as a person who's beaten Castlevania 3 and got 102% in SOTN. All in all, its a shame because the artwork and soundtrack are beautiful, and they really did get the overall atmosphere spot on.

Mais um game da mercurysteam que eu gostei muito. Nã0 é um jogo grande, mas tem belos gráficos, boa história, desafio na medida certa e um lindo boss rush. Se você é daqueles que joga tudo no easy, lembre que no hardcore o desafio é real. Tem de 20 a 30 horas de jogo se for fazer 100%. Não comprei pelo full price porque não estou podendo agora, mas vale os 28 reais. Esperando uma boa hora para comprar o castlevania 2 e seus DLCs.

Weak 2D Platformer.

Mirror of Fate is by far the worst 2D Castlevania platformer. Dull level design, uninteresting art, unmemorable music, stiff unresponsive gameplay and meaningless story. The Konami produced Nintendo DS games are far superior in every way even though they are lacking HD graphics.

The game runs well with no serious issues and is best played with a controller.

fan of classic castlevania games since the very first i played on game boy (bemond's revenge) this game was a good surprise :)

6.5/10

I love Casltevania SotN and I missed playing with old Alucard, if you wanna know a bit more about his origins, this game is for you :)

Pro's
-3 playable characters
- Combat is not bad
- Much better than the first Lord of Shadows

Con's
- Castle is almost linear to explore
- Not very fluid as a platform game
- Not really a fan of the graphics (pixel art PLEASE)

Fun game, excellent Castlevania story. A little simplistic, but over all fun.

This is not a terrible game, you can have some really fun moments with this game, but I think that for a 2D Castlevania game maybe it's the weakest in the series (I haven't played all of them, but right now it's my least favorite).
Why? there are lots of reasons; the game try to have exploration but the map it's very linear, the combat and the platforming sections I felt them frequently unfair, it has a couple of bosses that are completly QTEs, and I felt its presentation uninspired (yo can argue that it's a port from PSP and I shouldn't be strict with the presentation, but I think that the music could be a lot better, at least as good like the original Lords of Shadow, and also, older castlevania games of Nintendo DS has more attractive visual style).
I recommend to play first other Castlevania games instead of this; even I recommend to play games inspired by Castlevania instead of this (like Guacamelee, Dust: An Elysian Tail or Rogue Legacy).
Maybe the only good reason for playing this game could be to be preparaed for Lords of Shadow 2; but you can always skip this game and check the wikis.

It's pretty solid, i haven't finished it yet, But im far in and can say. It's Metrovania at it's best!
And it fills the Cap between the first and de second Game very good and in a diffrent style aswell!
Buy it! it's worth every penny

Install, complete, uninstall.
Casual gamers shouldn't expect a mind-blowing experience.
Castlevania fans will most probably be disappointed.
Still, it's a decent game.
If you enjoy metroidvania titles, go ahead.

As a big fan of Castlevania since Rondo of Blood, I was stoked that Konami is porting over Castlevania games to Steam, even though they aren't the stellar IGA-vanias like Order of Ecclesia and Symphony of the Night, but my fingers are crossed. Hopefully Konami shall at least grace Steam with Harmony of Despair if the sales do well.

Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate is a great blend of the classic Castlevania mixed with the later Metroidvania exploration, all wrapped in a solid combat system.

The Pros:
- Great atmosphere
-Great art and music
-Combat is fluid and rewarding
-The pacing is pretty good.
-Character designs and animations are pretty damn awesome.
-Doesn't have all the QTE's breaking up combat. There are a few, but not as many as on the DS version.
-Alucard with a whip, need I say more?

The Cons:
-Sometimes suffers brief slowdowns when entering a new area, even with a top-notch gaming rig.
-Hit registration and enemy invicibility frames can be really random and wonky.
-The various character's combat styles aren't very unique aside from spells and subweapons.
-As in classic Castlevania style: Expect plenty of B.S. deaths, so your patience may be tried.
-Blocking system is good but needs reworking, not enough reward for timing a perfect block.
-The controls are awkward at first and take getting used to. It is strictly keyboard, and doesn't offer much customization.

Overall it is definitely worth a buy if you like 2.5D action platformers. The art is fantastic, and the combat has weight to it. Most of the flaws can be easily circumvented and the pros definitely outweigh the cons. Hopefully this isn't the last time Steam picks up another Castlevania.