Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate is the 3DS sequel to Castlevania: Lords of Shadow which was a reboot of the series by developer MecurySteam for publisher Konami. The game follows the gameplay conventions of older instalments from the series, with some tweaks to suit the reboot or story devices.
Mirror of Fate Has a story split into four chapters, each headed by a different member of the Belmont bloodline. Gabriel Belmont begins the game; set 25 years prior to the events of Lords of Shadow he imprisons a Daemon 
Lord. From there you get to see Simon Belmont, ready to storm Dracula’s Castle to wreak revenge against him for the murder of his Parents.
Playing as Gabriel serves as very little story wise as it doesn’t really give you much to go on but it does give a rather decent tutorial which explains all the core mechanics with some simple fights; slowed down to allow your input. You’ll come across tutorials like these a few more brief times throughout the game but they never cause the game to lose traction.
Simon’s story is one of the lengthier acts and is also the one that will probably feel the most constrictive as his movement is quite cumbersome due to his abilities being more limited than the other characters. Other characters gain a little more with regards to traversal and combat movement abilities. The double jump and early access to the rappel (which Simon has to earn), helps them feel less weighty.
The bulk of the combat involves using your whip and eventually combat cross. While on a 2D plane, it has many of the characteristics that the 3D reboot brought in. You have both horizontal and vertical whip attacks and as you level up during the game, you will gain access to more combos and attacks with different degrees of power and “wind up time”.
Blocking and dodging attacks are important due to the nature of the health system. Health and magic both have individual shrines that can fully restore its corresponding bar; it can be used multiple times if you go between rooms of the castle or return to a checkpoint after dying. It can make things a little easy depending on how savvy you are during combat but either way the frequent checkpoints mean that on lower difficulties the shrines help keep you from breaking stride over deaths.
Secondary weapons vary from character to character but they tend to have one charged ranged weapon that can cause an instant kill and a slightly more utility based item. Integrating them into combat is important as their high power allows you to gain breathing room with some of the more difficult enemies or help you quickly dispatch of single targets when you’re being swarmed.
Magic is different for each of the characters and the Light and Dark magic returns for one character whilst the other two get their own specific magics as well. It leans towards one being defensive and maybe healing you and the other giving you a damage boost of sorts. Magic is returned to you when you kill enemies as well so you’ll never fully run out unless you completely ignore the shrines and squander what else you have during fights.
Platforming is handled reasonably well, as platforming allows you to grab onto most ledges (which are highlighted) and jump between them, sometimes swinging on rappel points or traversing ravines via ropes. It gradually gets more intense and as heights are a real threat in this game mistiming or misjudged jumps can leave you for dead.
There isn’t a huge amount in the form of collectibles. The closest sort would be the scrolls detailing the various creatures that you defeat over the course of the game; the other secrets are the scrolls of dead Brotherhood Knights whose final memories lie imprinted on the paper. It gives a little more story and insight into the world but you’ll rarely find anything describing anything you haven’t already come across. After battles with new creatures you’re sure to come across a corpse heralding a warning about it.
Story
The story continues the reboot that the original Lords of Shadow game does. It follows three different characters and once you get about halfway through the game you will be able to more or less tell what’s going to happen throughout the story. Its weakest link is probably the fact that it is very much a filler to set up its sequel; the console bound Lords of Shadows 2, as although the game itself is quite long the story feels quite light and unfulfilling.
Presentation and Audio
The games 3D effect is quite sharp in some of the closer frames but over distance there is some blurring. The game has standard 3D “realistic” models for the gameplay but during cinematics it uses a cel shaded approach which is arguably better in terms of how it looks aesthetically but it also hides some of the more jagged models. Voice actors are pretty reasonable; with Robert Carlyle reprising his role as Gabriel Belmont and the rest of the audio fits well with the tone that the game sets.
Gameplay
The 2D fighting system is quite interesting if not a little basic to begin with but with progression comes more options. Blocking and dodging play a large role in combat and I can’t fault it for being quite an agreeable combat system. The platforming is quite robust; having swinging, rappelling, and various airborne acrobatics. There isn’t a huge amount of backtracking and what is there is rarely very far or for anything particularly interesting.
Overall
The game has some nice elements but between switching characters and the lower emphasis on exploration compared to those in the main thread of the series; it never really gets where it needs to. Once you start to enjoy/ get the hang of a skill set you end up parting ways with it; leaving you with less connection to the characters. It will last a fair few hours; running in somewhere over the 10 hour mark dependant on your skill and exploration habits.
Comments:
I’m a big fan of the original Lords of Shadows and I’ve enjoyed a lot of the DS instalments of the main series; so I have been waiting on this for quite a while. Unfortunately, while I still enjoy the game; it did feel as though it wanted to let the story carry the gameplay rather than the other way around. The Castlevania exploration style of gameplay took a bit of a back seat in this game and unfortunately, the story can’t really carry it like it tries to.#
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
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