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Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate - new details, dev interview

by rawmeatcowboy
04 February 2013
GN Version 4.0
The following comments and details come from producer David Cox...

On inspiration and goals

"We wanted to create a game that felt almost like a sequel to Dracula's Curse, as if there'd never been a Castlevania game since that. We didn't want to specifically make a 'Metroidvania' because we felt that would be copying what had been done before. We wanted to go back to the classic games and build on that."

- heavy focus on combat, platforming, and branching pathways
- play as Simon, Trevor, Alucard and another secret character
- the whole game takes place in Dracula's humongous castle
- each character will have a unique route through various portions
- very rarely will those routes intersect
- basic light/heavy attacks can be performed on-ground an in air
- one boss can summon demonic wolves
- combat involves parrying and dodging
- defeat enemies to gain experience orbs
- the better you perform in battle, the more you obtain
- level up to learn stronger combos
- secondary weapons include throwing axes, holy water, and more
- magic attacks as well
- Simon can use the Belnades spell, which automatically blocks incoming attacks
- this power can help you reach new areas as well
- bottom screen is a map
- write notes on the map to mark areas you want to revist
- this is done by dragging a note symbol from the upper corner of the bottom screen to any room displayed on the map
- lift the stylus to prompt a text screen, where you can write a brief description of what you've found
- the Combat Cross can act as a grappling hook
- explore to find health and magic meter increasing chests
- also collect scroll collectibles for XP bonuses

On seriousness

“One of the things that we felt about Lords of Shadow is we’ve taken things a little too seriously. And we miss some of the humor that perhaps the series has had. We didn’t want to do it in a kind of obvious way. We wanted to be more subtle. We thought, ‘Let’s not take ourselves too seriously. Let’s have some fun.’”

- stunning enemies opens up throw attacks
- Simon can uppercut skeletons
- they will taunt you with their bony fingers if you take too long to act
- you can also snap the necks of lizard-like creatures
- miniboss: staff-wielding Night Watchman
- small puzzle elements to solve as well

On story as a focus

“[The story] has always remained a focus of the game. That idea is just having the relationship between the Belmonts and Dracula explained. That’s something that — especially as a player of my age who grew up with the original games — was really Belmont gets Dracula, kills Dracula, but why? What’s going on there? What has happened? We’ve kind of taken the premise of it being a blood feud, and we’ve built upon that so the fate of the character — the fate of Gabriel’s decisions in Lords of Shadow — affect his son. And what Trevor does affects his son [Simon], and it’s kind of like through the ages, it’s kind of this blood feud that snowballs and snowballs and snowballs. It’s not until the very last scene of the game that everything falls into place in terms of story. It’s a bit like [the Christopher Nolan film] Memento, I suppose.”

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