Castlevania Lords of Shadow was released in Europe on Friday, I managed to spend a good 10 hours or so with it over the weekend and after a bumpy start have found myself utterly enthralled with this game.

The game sees you as Gabriel Belmont, who sets out to defeat the Lords of Shadow and bring back to life your dead wife. So far so generic. Luckily the game’s story is building towards something rather epic and is far from generic gaming pap.

The game starts off in a small village where you are sent up against werewolves and a larger werewolf. At this point in the game, it feels like a poor man’s God of War and generally continues to feel this way until the end of chapter 2. 

From this point on, things start to feel like Castlevania and despite the game borrowing from other titles starts to feel like its own thing. 

Up to chapter 7 at the moment and the game is going in terms of gameplay, story, music and visuals from strength to strength. Thinking back on the Castlevanias of old they all start a little muted before really hitting their stride a few chapters/levels in. This is really something stunning to look at also. Sometimes you just want to stop and take in the beautiful surroundings as the world immerses you further into the game. 

I really enjoyed Lament of Innocence and Curse of Darkness on the PS2, whilst they felt more like SOTN than this game, this game manages to feel a lot more like the 8/16 bit Castlevania outings, but in 3D. And because of this feel much more like Castlevania than the previous 3D Castlevania outings.

So far the game is something special, I hope it holds up until the final act.