Reviews

Through A Glass Darkly

The Castlevania series has a grand legacy on handhelds. Whether it's the Game Boy or GBA classics, or even the fancy 3D re-workings for the PSP, the Belmont clan have made good on their promise to hunt down undead evil regardless of if you're on the bus, sat on the couch, or stuck on the platform waiting for your evening train to arrive. It's no wonder, then, that Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate looks so instantly comfortable on the dual screens of Nintendo's 3DS. After MercurySteam's first Castlevania: Lords of Shadow game hit the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 a few years back, Mirror of Fate sees the series coming home.

It's a beautiful game, with the 3DS's stereoscopic display rendering Castlevania's gothic environments in three wonderfully spindly dimensions. Levels are atmospheric and colourful, shambling enemies are well animated, and when the action gets really frantic, the camera moves in close, or even tilts round to get a different view of proceedings. Mirror of Fate is a 2D game in terms of actual gameplay, but most of the time you won't realise it. It's one of the best-looking games on Nintendo's handheld, and with titles like Kid Icarus: Uprising out there, that's saying something.

Curse You!

Mirror of Fate's story is suitably gloomy stuff. Throughout the course of the campaign, you take on the role of various members of the Belmont family as they try to wreak vengeance on the dark forces that have blighted their lives. This involves travelling to a huge, sprawling castle in the mountains, and slugging it out with the mythical beasts that live there. You'll split your time between clambering around complex 2D environments and laying into monsters with your chain and combat cross. The action's pretty simple, but the plot gets confusing fairly quickly. If you come to Castlevania for the story, in other words, you're going to want to take notes.

You won't have to take notes as you explore the castle itself, though, even though you can drop reminders onto the map when you come up against a secret you can't access just yet. While Mirror of Fate returns the series to its 2D origins, it lacks the intricate nature of previous games in the franchise, which were all about back-tracking around a huge environment. Instead, you'll be busy simply getting from A to B, navigating various ledges, chasms and underground pools as you wait for the next boss fight to present itself.

Getting around feels a little jarring at first, and the controls take a few minutes to settle in. If you've grown up with the smooth platforming of Mario or even Nathan Drake, you're going to find Mirror of Fate a little clunky as you hop from one piece of the level to the next. Once the traversal starts to click, though, you'll be ready for a bit of combat, and this is a much slicker affair, with decent defensive and offensive options and a range of specific nasty tricks spread across the characters you play as. One guy might be able to throw axes at his foes, for example, or summon a ghost who will attack on his behalf. Another, meanwhile, might fire out hordes of bats or slow time to lay on truly devastating attacks.

Monster Hunter

The combat's so good, in fact, that it will keep you playing even when the platforming threatens to frustrate, or the lack of decent collectables starts to bore you. The adventure's broken up by a handful of puzzles, but none of these will trouble series veterans, which means it's down to some lavish boss battles to really bring a touch of the old Castlevania challenge to proceedings.

Overall, then, Mirror of Fate's not quite up there with the series' best moments, but it's still a pretty and very confident game that offers a good few hours of gothic adventuring and monster hunting. If you're a fan of deep, dark castles and the nasty things that gather inside them, you're in for a good time.

GAME's Verdict

The Good:

• Great visuals
• Decent combat
• A good long campaign

The Bad:

• Platforming can be annoying
• The story's a bit of a mess
• Puzzles are too basic