Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 + Mirror of Fate

[REmaster]

I got the game and while the 3D is good, I find the game to be lackluster. I am a big fan of the NES and DS games and was expecting it to play like the DS games, but it's more similar to the NES games. That's not bad at all, but I do find the experience to be off. I get nostalgic while playing it, but beyond that I don't think it's a 10/10 game. More like 6 or 7 out of 10.

In my opinion LOS1 is a much better game in general, but it's hard to compare the two when they are so different style wise. One is on the grand scale of home consoles and features a pre-dracula world, while the other is scaled down to the 3ds and features dracula and more of direct Castlevania influence. I agree that the game was a bit disappointing, for me at least in a few areas. I felt like the ending was a little rushed, which I'll get to in a moment. I also felt like the music, one of Castlevania's long standing strong points(which was amazing in LOS1 even with it's new orchestra style)was a bit lazy in MOF. The pieces that were in it were good, but listening to the same three tracks the whole game wore out their welcome pretty quickly, especially the "battle" music. I still give Mercury Steam props for creating their own 3DS engine, and while the frame rate is still far from fluid they improved it leaps and bounds from the early build.

Spoiler:

show spoiler

I also wasn't too pleased with how 90% of Alucard's chapter was puzzle solving. What was up with Alucard's wolf form? The body looked alright but the head looks like it belongs to a mech warrior. The whole game sets up Trevor to be the ultimate badass, since by the time you play as him your skills/health/magic are maxed out or close to it(depending on how many scrolls you've found/XP you've built)so you tear right through even the toughest enemies.

As for the ending, if you complete the game with all acts 100% you unlock a special cut scene titled "Seperate Ways"(here's looking at you, Ada). All it shows is Alucard grabbing the combat cross and escaping the crumbling castle as Simon(now miles away even though they were in the same room?!)looks on, bidding him farewell. Just seemed a bit abrupt to me. I really thought when Simon asked Alucard who he was and Act 3: Trevor began, that was Alucard basically telling him who he was and how he became a vampire.

I was expecting them to show a reaction from Simon, but instead he's shown outside the castle watching it crumble. It's like the whole time Alucard is reflecting on his tragic story, Simon was hauling ass in to the mountains. You also have to wonder about Gabriel/Dracula. Obviously he's not dead, and will be returning soon as LOS2 looks to be set around the same time period. I'm curious to know if Simon or one of his descendants will be featured in LOS2, as it has been confirmed that the Belmont clan will still be alive and well during those events and will be added to the long list of people who want to destroy Dracula(Brotherhood of Light, Alucard, Belmonts, Satan)