Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Ultimate Edition Reviews

Interesting story and nice gameplay.

Yikes, poor clone of God of War and Shadow of the Colossus. Absolutely dreadful mechanical mess of QTE's and horrendously specific platforming with been-there-done-that stiff combat. For shame, Konami.

Did you ever think... "Hey I really really like the Castlevania series but just I wish Konami would completely ripoff the OG God of War games from the Playstation 2 era. I totally want it to feel like they just re-skinned Kratos with a Belmont"? No!? Never? Well Konami's did and they did a good job too.

Amazing old school hack&slash with baba yaga and satan! Kojima heavily influenced the game. I love christian themes

It's strange re-visiting this game in 2025 and realising just how old it is now... i was there when it first came out and was considered Crysis level state of the art graphics, development, and gameplay. It does feel somewhat dated, more QTE's than you can shake a stick at. but it also has an irresistible charm of the era. The combat, story, artwork, and overall [i]vibes[/i] of the game are stellar. There's nothing to fault here, the game play can be difficult and challenging but not unfairly so, mastery of its combat is highly rewarding. overall 10/10 i don't think you could produce a 3D Castlevania game in any better way.

A pretty decent spinoff with some rough edges, wish the sequel was just as good. DLC couldve been a little more rather than an excuse to squeeze more money

There are other games that do what this game is trying to do, and they do them a lot better. Instead of buying this, buy any of the Devil May Cry, God of War, or Darksiders games. Keeping in mind I was playing on the "Knight" difficulty, which is the hardest that is available at the start (there's a harder difficulty that unlocks once you beat the game). Combat is not very exciting, most small enemies can be killed with the grab attack, so when you are surrounded by small enemies it is usually far more efficient to just spam the grab rather than do combos. But even when you do use combos, the game encourages you to play a very particular way to build up a magic bar which you use for healing and damage boosts/more combos. You heal by using the magic bar to attack enemies, but you need to be doing very well (not getting hit and chaining combos) to actually build up the magic bar, which is really ironic, because if you're doing well you don't need to heal, but if you're struggling you don't have enough magic points to heal yourself Another big gripe I had was the game encourages you to parry and dodge, but it is very unintuitive when you should do it, there where multiple times where I was hit by an attack when it was still winding up (like the enemy was about to swing his sword, and I get staggered/damaged while his arm was in the air above his head before he swings). There's also very little feedback on your attacks, I don't know how to explain it but there's no "oomph" to your attacks like there is in DMC or GOW, so it doesn't feel as satisfying, could be intentional due to the weapon being a whip rather than a sword or something, but idk, I didn't like it. Also I know it's very of the time when this came out, but so many quicktime events..... grab an enemy, parry an attack, final hit on a boss, turn a lever, open a door, hit a switch..... all quicktime events. Very minor in the scheme of things but another thing that particularly annoyed me was your character moves kinda slow, but you unlock a sprint ability after a few chapters, however, this sprint ability only lasts for about 5 steps (seriously, I counted) before it stops and you have to use it again. Why?! Not an especially bad game, but not very good either. Maybe worth picking up cheap if you've already played all the actually good hack n slash games out there. -Edit- Completed the game, do not recommend.... the last (DLC) boss has to be one of the worst designed boss fights in any game I've played.

this game just makes me think about how great we had it back then, ik it has dlc but honestly for a discount nobody that is a big fan of hack and slash games should miss out. Gabriel is edge kino. Gameplay is awesome, story is good and the artstyle is fantastic.

The story is amazing, the gameplay is excellent very intuitive controls.

One of the BEST games i played by far! The story is interesting and the graphics for this year is absolutely stunning! I wish KONAMI will make more games as this one I played on the xbox360 as well, I play and enjoy every time as the first time :)