Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate

Pierre, the purist, doesn’t like change. Once, his favorite Italian restaurant went under and, in its place, opened a fast-food joint. Instead of spaghetti carbonara, they made cheeseburgers now, with fries deeply drenched in oil. There were some chicken nuggets, too. People loved it, but Pierre, as you can expect, wasn’t exactly thrilled. So, he did what anyone would do in this situation: he went out and hunted down the new owners, who witnessed a swarm of bats erupting from their window and take the shape of a very pissed-off vampire. Pierre, however, was feeling merciful that night and decided to settle on a deal: the owners of the fast-food joint would get to live if they put Italian dishes back on the menu, similar to the ones that Pierre loved to watch his human slave, Guillermo, eat. They had a week to comply, and when the agreed-upon time came, Pierre was very pleased to see a spaghetti carbonara on the menu. But his happiness was more short-lived than the owners of that fast-food joint. For you see, Pierre’s Italian restaurant used to make its carbonara with fresh pecorino romano and guanciale, which is the classic way, the right way to make a carbonara, but here they were cooking it with industrialized pre-grated parmesan cheese and bacon. Pierre is a merciful vampire, so he could have forgiven that and just killed the owners instead of wiping out their entire bloodline, but they also went and added heavy cream to the mix. That was the final nail in the coffin Pierre sleeps in. He showed no mercy.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate is kinda like that second carbonara.

Following the first Lords of Shadow, which changed the series’ direction from exploration to action and spectacle, Mirror of Fate tries to find common ground and meet the series’ fans halfway, reconciling the action of Lords of Shadow with the exploration of a huge interconnected environment of classics such as Symphony of the Night and Aria of Sorrow. And if the final result is not exactly bad (on the contrary, it’s perfectly serviceable in its own right), it still pales in comparison to them.

The story follows the tragic Belmont family and their eternal struggle against Dracula, revolving around the idea that revenge is a feeling – and a need – that endures for generations. Trevor Belmont wants revenge for his mother’s murder and so leaves for the vampire’s gothic castle to end him once and for all. Many years later, Simon Belmont wants retribution for the death of his father, Trevor, and travels to the castle to discover his fate. Meanwhile, the enigmatic vampire Alucard also wants revenge for the curse put on him by Dracula.

As the title implies, destiny is a recurring concept in the game, with a shadowy masked figure serving as its personification, accompanying the characters throughout the dungeons of the castle, dictating their actions and pointing the way. The characters here, then, quickly become tragic figures: their untimely end seems set in stone, inevitable, a product of their flaws and mistakes. Even Dracula himself is humanized, haunted by the inescapability of his despair.

The issue here is that Mirror of Fate presents a problematic narrative structure that sabotages all the twists of its story. Instead of following the chronological order of events, we control Simon Belmont first, then Alucard, and then we finally move to Trevor. This means that we already know that Trevor failed when we play with him, and when commanding Alucard, we may already notice the plot twist of the last act. The point is to reinforce the tragedy of events, of course, making Trevor’s demise seem inevitable precisely because we know that it has already happened, but here the tradeoff is not worth it, as this structure also robs the game of a proper ending: the climax in Mirror of Fate – the final battle against Dracula – happens at the end of Act II, in Alucard’s story. That is, as Mirror of Fate concludes with Trevor in Act III, the game ends in the most anticlimactic way possible (a better order, then, would have been Simon, Trevor, and the Alucard, so the tragic motif is maintained but now also with a proper climax).

But this structure also breaks the logic of character progression. Much like its predecessor, Mirror of Fate is an action game with a similar system to God of War, where defeated enemies release red energy orbs that function as experience points, for example. While in the first Lords of Shadow, we could buy new combos with these red orbs, in Mirror of Fate, progress is automatic, with new pre-determined skills unlocking when the characters level up.

This new design is stricter and more limiting than before, robbing us of any choice regarding which skills to unlock first, but in doing so, it fits perfectly with the theme of destiny and how each character’s future is set in stone. So, the real problem here is that this system carries over from one character to the next (the attacks that Simon learns, Alucard will also know, and the level that Alucard is at the end of Act II will be Trevor’s level at the beginning of Act III), which doesn’t make sense within the game’s narrative structure: Trevor could never be stronger and more “experienced” than Alucard, for example. Far more effective would have been if each character had their own unique combat style, which would have ensured both cohesion to the narrative and more variety to the gameplay.

Mirror of Fate also tries to return to its Metroidvania roots, but just like that fast-food joint… with mixed results. We can finally go back to exploring the dungeons of Dracula’s castle in search of new abilities and equipment that make reaching previously inaccessible areas possible – such as a chain that lets us jump large distances, for example. But Mirror of Fate is too afraid of letting us get lost – of the most crucial parts of the feeling of exploration – and puts a floating arrow on the screen pointing us to the goal. It’s carbonara with heavy cream and pre-grated parmesan cheese. It kind of works, but you can understand where Pierre is coming from.

The castle presented here is large enough, but it also lacks complexity. That is, we’ll cross various halls and courtyards very quickly since there is little to do in them, besides moving onward, killing whatever stands in our way. Mirror of Fate, at least, has excellent puzzles, but they are few and relegated only to Alucard’s story, which gives it some personality, but to the detriment of pacing.

The game would also have benefited from having more inspired set pieces, such as the intense sequence in which Trevor must escape a huge landslide caused by the fall of a giant bell, since such moments provide the bolts of energy an action game needs. And they’re especially needed here, as the combat system is a shallower version of the previous one. Combos, based on long and medium-range attacks, are practically the same as in the first Lords of Shadow, but one of its most interesting mechanics is inexplicably absent: in that game, when we kept hitting enemies without taking damage, we were rewarded with magic orbs, which pushed us to get better in each fight. In Mirror of Fate, this mechanic is entirely absent, leaving the combat less complex and interesting.

But the combat animations are still great at conveying the brutality of the action, and the stereoscopic 3D of the 3DS further amplifies the effect, thanks to the good use of camera angles that make the parts and members we just cut off from creatures constantly fly against the screen. Boss fights also benefit from the effect, taking it into account: the Night Watchman, for example, makes great use of the increased sense of depth by leaving his torch attacking us in the foreground while he hides in the background. The 3D also enhances the beauty of the environments: the extravagant Gothic aesthetic of the previous games is still in full display, as evidenced by the huge, agonizing heads carved in stone that adorn the castle’s underground entrance.

The vibrant soundtrack of the classic Castlevania games, although fantastic, would never have fit the somber tone of these new environments (sorry, Pierre), so the orchestrated arrangements by composer Oscar Araujo are meant to amplify the feeling of solitude with some subtle and sparse melodies that add weight to the Gothic atmosphere – but unfortunately, this time around there’s nothing that matches the beauty of Waterfalls of Agharta here.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate tries to meet Castlevania fans halfway, giving a competent, but shallow imitation of the very thing they craved. So maybe the developers should have just doubled down on their original vision instead, going out with dignity. After all, people like Pierre are never satisfied with compromises. On the contrary, as the grandchild of the owners of that fast-food joint knows very well, as they arm themselves with whips and crosses to storm Pierre’s castle, they just make people like him angrier.

September 29, 2025.

Originally published in Portuguese on March 19, 2015.