So, since I reviewed Lords of Shadow 2 and gave it a high score, I thought I would do a quick little review of the only DLC story add-on for the game. I really liked Lords of Shadow 2 despite some issues with certain levels and how, in my opinion, some characters in the overall story got the short end of the deal. This DLC add-on is called Revelations, and it focuses on Alucard before Dracula wakes up. Let us not waste any time and get started with this quick little review!
Like I said above, Alucard is the main character that you play as in this add-on. Alucard is voiced by Richard Madden, who I have mentioned before to be the actor who played Rob Stark from the Game of Thrones TV series. The story starts off with Alucard taking the sword out of Dracula, who has been in a deep slumber for a thousand years. Alucard is then greeted by Dracula’s late wife who tells him that he needs to regain Dracula’s void sword and chaos gauntlets from the demons and enemies that roam the castle. On top of that, he encounters Zobek’s mysterious henchman in the final part of the story. Richard Madden once again does a great job with Alucard, and I wouldn’t mind seeing him reprise the role in future Castlevania titles. I do have some issues with the story, but I will explain later on in the review what those issues are.
Initially the gameplay wasn’t all that different from the main game, but there are some changes when you actually get into the core of the game. First off, there are no stealth missions, and I am glad. You will also be traversing the castle and not the future. Alucard only has one weapon, and that is his sword that he wielded during the parts of the game you saw him in. He does have some of the same moves, but he definitely has a more aggressive play style than Dracula, and the light and chaos magic all retain to his sword. He also has a different set of abilities. His first ability is to turn into a horde of bats to get to certain grapple areas that are too far away for Alucard to grab. The second ability has him turning his spiritual energy into a wolf that can get past spikes, and jump to far-off platforms, but this ends up with Alucard’s body standing still, and open to attacks. The final ability basically lets you turn back time, and restore specific areas and contraptions in the castle for a certain amount of time. Overall, this game is more action and puzzle oriented, since there are no stealth sections. Instead of finding individual shards to increase both your magic and health, you just find these floating contraptions that will automatically increase both of them. The enemies are very much the same, with one or two new variations, and are a little tougher and require different tactics when fighting them. The overall DLC took me about two hours to beat, and if you know what you are doing with the puzzles, you can probably beat it more quickly.
There isn’t too much to talk about in the graphics and presentation department. The game’s 3D graphics are still beautiful and highly detailed. The music is once again very lovely to hear, but the big epic scores only happen during fights, which results in the rest of the soundtrack being atmospheric. Voicework is strong all around, and like I said, Richard Madden does a great job as Alucard.
So, what is wrong with this DLC add-on? Well, first off, you really can’t play this game before playing the main game. It has some spoiler moments from the main game, and is really meant to be an add-on you play after the main story. I also found the DLC to be too short. Sure, the $8 price tag is better than the previous game’s $10 price tag, but since this DLC adds no new enemies or bosses, it just seems like the overall add-on lacks content, since you are traversing around the same areas that you traversed in the main game. I also didn’t feel like the story added much. It just showed how Alucard got the major magical abilities that Dracula uses in the main game. It seems like this add-on could have easily been in the main game and not separated into the DLC. I also found some of the puzzles to be tedious, since they require you to run from point A to point B in a certain amount of time. I found those puzzles to be lazily designed.
In the end, Revelations has a lot of good things about it, and a lot of bad things about it. However, the good outweighs the bad and I did enjoy the final boss fight in the DLC. I would say either wait for the DLC to drop in price, or get it if you are a fan of Lords of Shadow 2. Even though this might be the last time we see the Lords of Shadow time line, we will hopefully see more Castlevania in the future.
This DLC gets a 7 out of 10.
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