Lords of Shadow isn't a bad game, but it is a very inconsistent game. I'd swing between really enjoying myself playing this and then hating the game... the level design and combat encounters really can veer between the extremes. The vampire lands section is probably the peak of the game, minimal frustrations and annoyances there with some genuinely interesting and well designed areas. This game most excels with its art design, even as a 360 game played backwards compatible on Series X it looks very nice with some great looking areas. I also couldn't stand any difficulty higher than easy, I like hard games but this just felt annoying and not at all rewarding to play until I cranked the difficulty down. When the levels were great, like the three towers or the castle balcony, it really shined with potential, and if it had more of that it could've been something special. If anything, that makes this stand out as something of a historical curiosity; it's wild playing this game with the perspective that this company would go on to make Metroid Dread.
Inconsistency really is the biggest strike against it though. You'll have stuff like, here's the game introducing the speed boost power, and then a few levels later it sets up a blatant speed boost section that shows several timing based gimmicks to clear... GOTCHA, actually that's a trick by the level designer and the speed boost is impossible to use as the solution to the room, and you're not supposed to punch the switch that literally says to punch it when examined. You actually need to ignore all context the room provides and randomly try throwing a dark magic infused knife at the switch (this is the first time that ever happens and it only is required once more afterwards). The game gave you the tools and presented it as using them but nope, curveball - that happened frequently. Brauner was a fun fight, but then you face his brother Olrox in a nearly identical but worse fight that is stretched out 4 times with a gimmick where you cannot prevent him restoring health until after an unavoidable cutscene. Individually after each cutscene, you get a brief opportunity to stop him from being able to heal at that spot, which is required to proceed, and you can't preemptively go destroy his very obvious next three healing spots either: you gotta have him heal first, all four times, no exceptions! This fight is made worse in that he has all of three voice clips that he simply will not stop spewing.
It's even down to minor things like presenting itself as a very serious and grim game with blood and gore and exposed demonic breasts... while utilizing a storybook motif and sound effects that wouldn't feel out of place coming out of a Barbie fairy princess playset. Patrick Stewart will ramble about Gabriel falling to darkness and having nothing but hate in his heart, but that's never actually demonstrated in the game, in fact shortly afterwards it has Gabriel fucking proselytizing to literally Satan about having hope and faith in God at what the game tells you is his lowest, darkest, furthest from redemption point. That threw me off more than anything - I knew going in what the premise of the sequel was and I was shocked to see that reveal relegated to a post-game credits stinger and only explained via unplanned DLC that MercurySteam apologized for. I was even more confused that Patrick Stewart spent so much time talking about Gabriel being unrecognizable and changing radically as he falls to darkness, only for the main story to end with him NOT becoming what he is in the post-credits.
Unfortunately for me, I found the post-credits stinger compelling enough that I'm interested in giving the DLC and the two sequels a shot, despite hearing that they're all pretty widely reviled and that MercurySteam even apologized for the perceived low quality of the DLC, so I guess I gotta brace myself to get ready for that eventually.
Inconsistency really is the biggest strike against it though. You'll have stuff like, here's the game introducing the speed boost power, and then a few levels later it sets up a blatant speed boost section that shows several timing based gimmicks to clear... GOTCHA, actually that's a trick by the level designer and the speed boost is impossible to use as the solution to the room, and you're not supposed to punch the switch that literally says to punch it when examined. You actually need to ignore all context the room provides and randomly try throwing a dark magic infused knife at the switch (this is the first time that ever happens and it only is required once more afterwards). The game gave you the tools and presented it as using them but nope, curveball - that happened frequently. Brauner was a fun fight, but then you face his brother Olrox in a nearly identical but worse fight that is stretched out 4 times with a gimmick where you cannot prevent him restoring health until after an unavoidable cutscene. Individually after each cutscene, you get a brief opportunity to stop him from being able to heal at that spot, which is required to proceed, and you can't preemptively go destroy his very obvious next three healing spots either: you gotta have him heal first, all four times, no exceptions! This fight is made worse in that he has all of three voice clips that he simply will not stop spewing.
It's even down to minor things like presenting itself as a very serious and grim game with blood and gore and exposed demonic breasts... while utilizing a storybook motif and sound effects that wouldn't feel out of place coming out of a Barbie fairy princess playset. Patrick Stewart will ramble about Gabriel falling to darkness and having nothing but hate in his heart, but that's never actually demonstrated in the game, in fact shortly afterwards it has Gabriel fucking proselytizing to literally Satan about having hope and faith in God at what the game tells you is his lowest, darkest, furthest from redemption point. That threw me off more than anything - I knew going in what the premise of the sequel was and I was shocked to see that reveal relegated to a post-game credits stinger and only explained via unplanned DLC that MercurySteam apologized for. I was even more confused that Patrick Stewart spent so much time talking about Gabriel being unrecognizable and changing radically as he falls to darkness, only for the main story to end with him NOT becoming what he is in the post-credits.
Unfortunately for me, I found the post-credits stinger compelling enough that I'm interested in giving the DLC and the two sequels a shot, despite hearing that they're all pretty widely reviled and that MercurySteam even apologized for the perceived low quality of the DLC, so I guess I gotta brace myself to get ready for that eventually.