What at first seems like an admirable attempt to carry on the series ends up being a parody of it's former self.
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow was sort of a reboot of the franchise released on the Xbox 360 and PS3. The entire timeline had started over from the beginning and the gameplay was changed from a 2D Metroid style game where you explore a castle, to a 3D hack and slash game with stylized characters.
Now, the series has gone back to handhelds while still retaining the new lore, art style, and to a degree gameplay of the the console Lords of Shadow, while reintroducing elements that made people love the series. However, this new hybrid game unfortunately showcases the worst of both game types rather than the best.
To elaborate what most people liked about the Lords of Shadow game on consoles was the fluid, fast paced combat that was very similar to something like God of War with it’s whip-based combat. In Mirror of Fate the characters and environments are 3D models but the gameplay happens in 2D (similar to Street Fighter 4) the problem occurs when you realize they tried to get this fast paced combat to work on a relatively tiny screen in a 2D plane. Your combat abilities are far too limited to please a hack and slash junky but there is enough variety to form powerful combos and fast movement. Throughout the game you need to be dodging enemy attacks not blocking them and later in the game some of the enemies give you very little time to react so by the time you see the attack coming you are locked in to an attack animation and are forced to take the attack, which, at the higher level of difficulty, is unacceptable. Some people are saying the controls are terrible, but I think that is going a little too far, I suppose it’s worth mentioning that I am playing on a 3DS XL which makes playing games with my adult hands much easier.
