Castlevania Lords of Shadows: I was tempted to do an abridged version of this but really, there's not enough plot in my playtime segments to bother. In any event, mid chapter 2. INITIAL THOUGHTS!
-Core Battle system is actually pretty good, way better than expected. It's not as button mashy as I was expecting and you can do legitimate things besides Dial Up combos, instant death kills, and throw an occasional special attack. Basically, there's variety and it's responsive with one exception.
-Platforming stuff isn't too bad either, and they help by making Instant Death not a thing; instead you just take substantial damage when falling off a cliff.
-Enemy design is kind of bland so far, and some enemies are idiotically designed...
-...which leads to the exception. There are segments where you need to pick up Grenades from goblins, which ok, fair, but the "Pick Up" button is the same as "Grab enemy" button, and for some reason the game will decide the latter is more important than the former. Yes, the GENERIC Action overrides the circumstantial one, one that is necessary to advance the game. Really should have just made them two buttons.
-Light Magic idea is cool, and yay healing! What isn't cool is having to absorb Magic via Onimusha logic, which is a real pain when surrounded by enemies and you want to restore magic with all those power ups around. Look, it worked in Onimusha because enemies came in small waves; here enemies can just keep on coming. Just do what DMC did where running over the power up heals you, if not what God of War did where it just gives you regardless of where you are. If you want an "absorption" mechanic, do it the way Ninja Gaiden did where it's a way to get out of reach items!
-Probably the single worst thing so far though? Health. The game never restores your health automatically between stages. The game has a DMC-style Mission Based structure, but doesn't heal you between missions. Like what's the point of a mission based structure if you're not going to do that? Is it because they just want you to backtrack to earlier areas so you can get power ups you couldn't get before? I'd be willing to accept this if this was a Castlevania Tradition, but this is so unlike the rest of the franchise. The Classic 2D games fully healed you when you beat a stage, even as far back as Castlevania 1, the Metroidvanias healed you at every save point, etc. Lords of Shadow basically means if you win a fight at the skin of your teeth, you're boned.
-To add to this, dying doesn't fully heal you; it follows God of War rules where you revive at last checkpoint with the same amount of health you had when you got there. Granted, Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor's Edge did this too, and it was annoying for bosses, but that doesn't make it good design, and it also had that limited restoration mechanic NG2 had. I guess the idea is that because this game doesn't rate you at the end of fights like all the other spectacle fighters, thus no penalty for dying, they had to compensate somehow, but again, this game is so stingy on health...
...basically, yeah, so far it's got a good combat system ruined by how it handles health. Dunno how my final thoughts will be by the end. Plotwise? Gabriel is more like-able than I expected! He's not a good or compelling character, but at least the whole "he's not a happy dude" thing is sensible since his wife's death was 2 days before the game begins, as well as he seems to have honorable intentions. No, this isn't a very done character, but at least I can support this guy's mission and say I want him to succeed.