She's baaaaack

​The tale of Gabriel Belmont is (supposedly) nearing its completion as Konami last week released the first of two planned DLC additions to the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow story, Reverie.

 

While the game proper is quite lengthy, Reverie turned out to be a surprisingly short affair. The gameplay is varied and the story intriguing in this extra dose of Castlevania goodness, but is there enough here to warrant a $10 purchase?

 

Sadly, for those who adored this revamp of the Belmont clan's quest to rid the world of evil, Reverie is still a hard recommendation at ten bucks.

 

Picking up shortly after the game's story left off, Reverie finds Gabriel returning to the living castle to aid the vampire princess Laura. It turns out Laura's "mother," Carmilla, was keeping a dark and ancient evil at bay. If Gabriel does not return to destroy the creature, it looks like the entire world will have to suffer the consequences.

 

​Reverie offers a single new chapter with three new areas of the castle to explore. While you'll breeze through the opening act, parts two and three have more meat on their bones, giving you lots of platforms to traverse, monsters to kill and puzzles to solve.

 

Most of the time you'll spend in Reverie, actually, will be dedicated to these puzzles. This is great, though, since all are unique, well designed, and nothing is rehashed from the original game.

 

While I loved the amount of puzzles crammed into these three maps, the combat was sorely lacking. Only a handful of enemy types show up and nothing here will test your skills as a whip-wielding badass. I would have certainly liked to see a bit more variety in my opponents, if not at least one or two new creatures of the night to take out. And despite Reverie's build-up to an epic battle, there are zero boss fights to tackle. I don't consider this a spoiler so much as a warning. If you're here for the combat, you're going to be greatly disappointed.

 

However, what Reverie lacks in whip cracking, it makes up for in an intriguing continuation of the story, fun platforming and creative puzzles. Unlike the recent Dead Space 2 continuation, Severed, Reverie does not settle for having the player simply retread familiar stomping grounds. This is all new content with several great ideas thrown in for good measure.

 

​Also of note are the DLC's cutscenes. The team ditched the in-engine cinematics for this brief outing, opting instead to utilize gorgious bits of moving concept art. It's a bit jarring how this new style comes out of nowhere, but beautiful to watch nonetheless.

 

My major problem with Reverie (and I mean MAJOR), is that it all comes to an end way too soon. Other than playing the levels on a harder difficulty or trying to locate all of the hidden Frankenstein Fingers, there's little reason to experience Reverie more than once. I'm big on exploration and tend to take longer than most to complete an adventure game simply because I can't stand the thought of not checking every nook and cranny of the map. Despite my anal-retentive play style, however, Reverie lasted me a little over an hour. You're enjoying youreslf, solving puzzles, fighting ghouls, then BAM, "To be continued..."

 

What's available is great but, unfortunately, there's very little bang for your buck here. The next DLC, "Resurrection," is slated for an April release. Since Reverie was delayed a month, I wouldn't be surprised to see Resurrection get pushed back as well. Picking up where Reverie leaves off, Konami promises this supposedly final bit of story will be more "substantial" and feature a "final showdown with a very notorious enemy."

 

It looks like we'll at least get a bigger dose of combat next time around, but I'm going to have a hard time biting, no matter how "substantial" Resurrection is supposed to be, after my all-too-brief experience with Reverie.