games website "Castlevania: Lord of Shadows" detailed review: The masterpiece returned to PC

After all, the Kojima team was involved in the entire development of the game, but did not interfere much with the game, and gave the production team enough trust (because Mercury Steam leader Dave Cox was a product manager for the Metal Gear series). However, Mercury Steam's final result did not disappoint the island or its players.

The console dual platform has nearly 150W sales, Metacritic comprehensive media score 85%, so the PC version was released after 2 years, and the sequel is also in intense planning.

Of course, this is only external performance, the Shadow King compared to the 2D version of the traditional Castlevania, the original total map achievement has been canceled, changed to the achievement of each chapter;

No maze exploration, weapon collection, equipment system, only by collecting a large number of items hidden in the game to increase HP and MP; Learn new skills through experience points gained in combat;

These drastic changes give players the feel of a modern mainstream European and American ACT (in fact, it is not a feeling, it is a fact), and it borrows from a hodgepodge of elements from various successful games such as God of War and Prince of Persia, such as QTE, oversized BOSS battles, monster rides, and both light and dark soul sucking modes.

More outdoor scenes were added, and the game music and graphics maintained the high quality of the series. Compared with the magnitude of the change is not as big, but the controversy is particularly far away "Resident Evil" in terms of players' acceptance of this is still relatively flat.

In conclusion, whether you are an old player who sticks to the game or a new player who is looking forward to change, whether you are always complaining about the game's lack of progress and complacency (refer to the Western European brother series), or you are abusing the game after the change (refer to the sex life of Lyon), as players, we can never change an established game.

The only thing we can do is enjoy the quality of these games and wish the developers and their games the best. After all, games are a testament to the history of our generation.

Game introduction

This story takes the end of the world as the background, the Shadow Master releases all the ghosts and evil creatures living in the land of the dead to the earth, causing the earth to be filled with the breath of death.

Set in the beautiful southern Europe of the Middle Ages, the protagonist Gabriel is not a member of the Belmont family but a paladin of the Brotherhood of Light, and Brielle's wife is killed by the dark forces of the dark Lord and her soul is imprisoned. The protagonist embarks on a quest to find the true meaning of murder, sacrifice and betrayal.

Summary: Spanish-based game developer Mercury Steam is closer to the origin of vampire culture in terms of cultural origin, so we can expect a difference between Japanese and European vampire culture.

Game screen

As a console platform game two years ago, the picture of Castlevania: King of Shadows is still good, and the picture has made great progress after landing on PC.

Mapping accuracy compared with the host version has been greatly improved, known as from the host version of 720P increased to the native 1080P (of course, in the PC trial version can not see more screen improvement, because the PC trial version and the host trial version two years ago is exactly the same, is the opening level, is really lazy......) .

To say that the screen advantages of this game are mainly concentrated in the scene and artistic design, the grand and magnificent epic scenes, from lakes, swamps, forests, waterfalls, caves, valleys, dungeons, graveyards and other natural environments as well as temples, holy places, fortresses, bell towers, gardens, villages, palaces and other artificial buildings as well as a variety of indoor environments, all reflect the designer's skills. These beautiful or grand or strange landscape for the player to spread a layer of magnificent picture.

A large number of building layouts in the game are full of dynamic Gothic style, and the game's internal world is well communicated to the player's mind on this side of the screen, so that once we are immersed in it, we will be amazed at these quaint and magical artistic atmosphere. During the game, pay attention to these remarkable independent and elegant buildings, which can give us a prominent, exciting and upward shock and appeal.

The details of the game are well mastered, such as birds in the forest that are startled by the sound of the protagonist walking, small animals running away from each other, snowflakes flying onto the screen slowly melting, scattered candles in the distance flickering in the wind, sparks in the furnace.

In terms of artistic setting, costume design, props and various characters and monster images pay attention to lifelike and artistic logic. Excellent color use and contrast become the generalization and perception of abstract beauty, which is the combination or integration of a tangible reality and the infinite virtual landscape symbolized by it.

The effect of light and shadow is good, whether it is the air fluctuations caused by swinging the barbed chain in the heat of battle, or the sparks of cold weapons in the air. In many scenes we can still see the faint sunlight, the dim cold light and the flickering fire.

Let the overall game screen full of dynamic, bring us a unique art enjoyment. In terms of CG processing, because Kojima personally supervised the production, and Kojima Hideo we are already familiar with, is specialized in playing cinematic CG, so the CG camera processing of the game is very good, many scenes are full of momentum, a good atmosphere of the game, I can see that the production team has made a lot of efforts and not to fool players.

Of course, the shortcomings still have to mention, first of all, due to the relationship of time, the overall picture level of this game has only been reduced to a medium grade, in the anti-dog teeth and mapping accuracy has fallen, carefully observe the ground texture in the game, the ambiguity is still relatively high.

Because the game mainly focuses on the depiction of large scenes, it is sloppy and rough to deal with some small scenes. Of course, I believe that most players will focus most of their attention on appreciating the beauty of different styles during the game, so as to ignore these subtle places. After all, not every player is as bad as writing reviews and looking for nooks and crags.

The second is the game perspective problem, the game is similar to the "God of War" fixed perspective, but in part of the perspective processing compared with "God of War" is far from, of course, compared with "God of War" such a scale level of 3A masterpiece, many game perspectives can only give immature evaluation.

For example, many long-range perspectives in the game require players to carefully identify their position, some perspectives will pull too close to lose half of the field of view and miss a lot of things or be attacked by monsters, and the speed of running from the perspective to the close-range perspective is relatively slow.

And the perspective transition will often be very abrupt and let the player unprepared, resulting in a sense of loss in the direction of the operation.

Summary: Beautiful artistic setting, unique and non-repetitive scene design brings players a visual feast of more than ten hours. (The overall art style feels a bit similar to Darksiders, though the two games were released just a week apart, so there's absolutely no copying.)

Game music/sound effects

"Castlevania: King of Shadows" music production specially invited veteran musician Oscar Araujo, its soundtrack style is full of male momentum, overbearing, often using a very grand symphony not only shows a delicate, soft style but also has a sense of momentum and rhythm.

Therefore, this grand and epic representation is also used in this game to re-interpret the world of Castlevania with the power of the film. The music scene is grand, imposing, and can't help but feel invigorated under the careful taste.

The percussion is a little weaker, because the hero only has one weapon the whole time, so, you know, the whole time it's just the whoosh of a steel chain slicing through the air and swinging at the enemy. The game dialogue is normal, but the game has Japanese voice, for the island group "Metal Gear" original voice actor, love must try!

Summary: The magnificent music brings a hearing enjoyment to the ear.

Game operation

The basic combo mode is similar to most acts, namely continuous X light attack, continuous Y heavy attack, XY alternate derivative attack, long press storage attack, and air combo with jump key A.

Part of the common joint move demonstration, click the big picture has a code change no code!

Throwing technique: RT key play, the main fighting mode of miscellaneous soldiers, most of the miscellaneous soldiers can be directly killed by the throwing technique.

QTE: Different villains can directly enter the QTE when they enter the casting state, while elite monsters and bosses need to hit them until their bodies glow white. There are two QTE button methods, the first is similar to the "Tomb Raider 9" big trap small circle way, when the big circle into the small circle, press any key XYA can (gamepad operation), then appear handsome end; The other is similar to "God of War", the screen four directions randomly appear a button, the corresponding gamepad button can be pressed.

Bounce back: Bounce back is an essential system in the ACT, and the utilization rate and success rate of bounce back is also one of the important differences between experts and ordinary players.

This game's attack decision is earlier than other games, because most monsters have attack decisions at the start stage, so it takes some time for everyone to adapt. After successful rebound, you can quickly save the soul slot, and the light magic state will successfully shock the surrounding monsters.

After the projectile is reversed, you can quickly press XXX or YYY for counterattack to quickly accumulate the soul tank. However, it is not necessary after all, but more used to play handsome in low difficulty and challenge in high difficulty

Relic ability: To open the relic ability, you need to obtain the dark hand guard, whirlwind boots, Seraphim wings three sacred objects, relic ability is mostly some special moves and skills, practical, such as two jumps, accelerated running, dragon whip, a variety of large range of high damage moves and light dark magic.

Part of the relic ability demonstration, the same click on the big picture has a code change no code!

Summary: The game action is smooth, but some of the moves are low, advanced moves are not learned when they are easily beaten by a variety of chrysanthemum, of course, you can choose a QTE in the miscellaneous soldier battle, but this has a greater impact on the fluency of the battle, see personal preferences. The striking sense is better, the power of swinging the whip is full, and there will be strong light performance after hitting.

Game style and system

The gameplay is very generous (the Xbox360 version has a capacity of 2DVD......) Say personal on the Xbox360 has played 2DVD capacity of the game is really not too much, impressive is the endless unknown, stockings space 3, big cousin, little brother 3 these), the PC version of the original console version of 12 chapters +2 DLC chapters (13, 14 chapters), enough players on 2, 30 hours.

The game has four difficulties, squire, warrior, knight, Paladin (Paladin difficulty requires a game to unlock), the different difficulty is the enemy's attack desire and attack power. The four levels of difficulty correspond to four levels of completion (84%, 92%, 100%, 110%), and completing the level requires collecting all hidden elements, completing the highest difficulty level, and completing all level challenges (level challenges account for 10% of completion).

Interface detail

All levels complete 110%

The game system is very rich, worth players repeated clearance, first of all, the game uses a large map display, players can change the map at any time to play, while you can clearly see their level completion, magic gem fragment collection degree and detailed trial content in the map interface.

Collected Philosopher's Stone and trial contents

Collect and solve puzzle elements: The game's collection elements need to investigate glowing corpses on the side of the road, in addition to the normal hint scroll, there are 90 collection elements in the game, respectively, 30 green/blue/red magic gem pieces (respectively to boost the life/light magic/dark magic cap).

There are a lot of puzzle elements in the game, both difficult and interesting, of course, if it is more nerve-wracking then in the puzzle next to the storage of the tip scroll corpse, you can choose to spend EXP to buy the puzzle answer, but as a consequence will not be able to get additional EXP rewards.

Level test, as the name suggests, is a level challenge, in different levels have their corresponding different challenges, such as killing the enemy in X minutes, killing the enemy with X weapons, killing the enemy in X ways, killing XX only enemies, and solving puzzles or being attacked by XX, etc., there are a variety of ways to test, OCD + perfectionism can try, And it's convenient because you can switch maps at any time.

Magic system: The magic system is divided into two kinds of light and dark magic, in which the light magic has electric properties, attacks the enemy to restore their own strength, the big move is a range of attacks, secondary weapons will also change the effect; Dark magic has its own fire attribute, the big move is a single high damage, and the attack power of the secondary weapon is greatly increased in the dark magic state. Magic regeneration is to drain enemy spirits (kill enemies, QTE finish enemies and kill enemies when the tank is full).

The main character's weapons, secondary weapons, sacred objects, etc

Secondary weapons: A total of four, throwing knife, crystal, fairy, holy water. The knife can store power and can also open remote organs. The crystal is a one-time use item, summoning the demon to carry out full-screen killing, and the crystal fragments need to be collected again after use. Leprechauns can trap individual enemies for 10 seconds when summoned, but not against bosses. Holy water is enemy vertigo, light and dark magic has different effects.

Secondary weapon demonstration, also click on the big picture code change no code!

Riding system: A total of 5 mounts, horses, spiders, warthogs, trolls, not only can use XY keys to attack enemies can also be used to solve puzzles.

Mount

In the game, you can see detailed maps of characters and monsters, including the resistance and damage level of different secondary weapons against different monsters (shield for resistance, Red Skull for vulnerable). There is also a small game called vampire battle chess, the gameplay is similar to chess, can be single/double battle, the game can unlock a lot of art setting of the game after the completion of the original painting, worth collecting!

The final BOSS map of the original game without DLC can be seen that the final BOSS is resistant to all secondary weapons

Vampire Battleship, chess lite

Art set original painting

Bottom line: Pretty rich, huh....