Finally got round to playing Lords of Shadow 2 and also replayed the first one.
The flaws of the first game stuck out to me more on the replay. The combat system, while fun, is really not made the most of; in part because combat is a surprisingly small portion of the game. The on rails climbing and puzzles do a good job of elevating the game from "corridors and rooms full of enemies" but also slow things down. The great environmental design makes breaks from combat not completely unwelcome, but unfortunately exploring to find hidden upgrades feels very unnatural because of the preponderance unintuitive invisible walls that are there to keep you on track - and whenever you are free to jump around freely the heinous controls make it most frustrating part of the game. The colossus battles should just be deleted.
Still, most of the annoyances are just that. It's a long game and the game has a good rhythm to it once you get into it. The combat encounters could really have done with being fine tuned, though. The game encourages you to perform timed blocks to charge your magic abilities, and doing so feels great. Unfortunately almost every enemy in the game has poor telegraphing and a whole arsenal of completely unblockable attacks. And if you get hit you are essentially back to square one as far as charging magic, so in a lot of encounters where you are completely surrounded, the best tactic is to slowly build your magic by herding and taking potshots. Moments when you fight smaller groups or powerful single targets are the highlights because the combat is really fun at its best.
Probably the thing I was most impressed with on the replay was, surprisingly, the story of the game. It's a simple case of: lords of shadow exist, u go kill them. But it builds up to these confrontations in a satisfying way, with the enemies and environments becoming increasingly more threatening, as does our hero. The ending comes with some twists which I had actually somewhat misremembered.
In my mind, Gabriel becomes Dracula because he defeats all the lords of shadow and takes their power and gets cursed or something ?? but that's not what happened, as was revealed by the DLC. After defeating Satan and saving the world he's actually just fine, but he decides to become a vampire because he really hates some demon that he just heard about. Like, sure, the demon wants to take over the world but it's nothing personal, geez.
Indeed, the DLC is very bad and basically showcases the worst of the game. The first one is mostly puzzles, probably just ones they didn't have space for in the main game. The second one has some horrible platforming and a boss fight. I actually haven't beaten the boss yet and I'm not sure I can be bothered to. Their short length means the storytelling just completely fails to work and feels very at odds with the rest of the game.
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Moving onto the squeal and there are quite a few improvements. The most immediately noticeable one is the increased climbing speed which makes the on rails climbing feel like it isn't completely stalling your momentum. Enemies still have bullshit unblockable attacks that come out of nowhere, but the timing for the blockable ones is more forgiving, so you can rely on your reactions a bit more: blocking early and then deciding if you want to dodge out of it isn't really a viable option in the first game, but here you can make plays like this in a pinch. There's also a lot more enemy variety which helps too.
It still fails to reach its full potential, though. There is a special arena for combat challenges which you unlock by finding collectibles which I was quite excited about. Unfortunately the challenges amount to fighting normal enemy encounters under additional restrictions, such as not using your magic abilities, even though that's what's fun about the combat. Still at least there is a pinnacle to aim for, even though it seems to me to be a somewhat missed opportunity.
Now, probably the biggest change is the abandonment of the level structure. The game is still linear, but you explore an interconnected world (well, two seperate ones). This comes with the welcome addition of a minimap which prevents you trying to explore through invisible boundaries. Unfortunately the worlds you explore aren't quite as nice as in the first game. So there are two settings: a modern day gothic city mixing magic and technology ala Blood Omen 2; and a past version of Dracula's castle. Unfortunately the city suffers from much less variety in its environmental design, while the Castle is nice, as you'd expect. While exploring in the end game I had fun going through pretty much all of the Castle world looking for upgrades, but just gave up immediately with the city, because navigating isn't fun when all the streets look the same.
Unfortunately I think the storytelling takes a hit in the sequel. At it's heart is the same simple premise: there are these acolytes of satan, u kill them. But layered on top is the suddenly convoluted lore of the Lords of Shadow universe, and switching between two settings really doesn't help. The Castle stages are dreamlike and, as I eventually concluded, supposed to symbolically represent the internal struggle of our hero; but the rules of this world are never explained, so it's hard to treat what happens there as too significant and it's very confusing and not as tense or interesting as it could be; and their incessant interruptions make the overall pacing of the whole narrative very strange. But the truth is that the story that happens in the city side isn't much better; you go from objective to objective without much real motivation. The ending also seems to be missing a true final boss fight, which is disappointing.
A dubious new feature is that of stealth sections. At first they're not so bad, but as the game goes on the become a bit of a drag, and at times actually infuriating.
Overall, though, there are fewer moments of frustration than in the first game, though I'm sure I'll remember a few more once I've finished typing. I certainly did enjoy the game and would have kept playing if there had been more endgame content, or a new character to unlock (there is in the DLC but no thanks) .
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In summary, Lords of Shadow games are not bad, though they have some bad moments. If you need the game with the most technically refined combat system then move along, but for the purposes of enjoying a romp through spooky monster land the gears do turn.
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