History YMMV / CastlevaniaLordsOfShadow

* MissedMomentOfAwesome: Completing the game unlocks the "Snake Outfit" Considering that Konami helped with developing game, you would think you get Snake's sneaking suit! Turns out all you get is [[spoiler: Snake's solid eye, and a barely visible bandanna]]. We could have gotten [[spoiler: Solid Snake beating the crap out of Satan!]]

** They gotta blame it partially on HideoKojima, the developer of ''MetalGear'' series involved in this game's production. To some fans, this game is more of ''[[FanNickname Metal Gear Solid: Lords Of Shadow]]''. YourMileageMayVary, of course.

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel: The 11th Chapter - literally the final area. Falling from the platforms (though not lethal this time) and the cutscenes of traveling between portals just give you breath-stopping creeps.
** [[spoiler:Gabriel's murder of his own wife and Claudia]] under the influence of the Devil Mask counts too. Being mind-controlled to do something so horrific? *shudders*

** [[FridgeBrilliance This might have been intentional]] to make [[PlayerPunch the player feel like a jerk for hating her]] when [[spoiler: She dies at Gabriel's hands]].

* WhatCouldHaveBeen or InNameOnly (it depends on who you ask, hence it's presence here): Prior to the game's release Konami stated that the game was originally intended to be and was in fact, originally developed as an original IP called simply "Lords of Shadow".

* XenSyndrome: [[spoiler:The Castle is the second, not the final act of the game. The final act of the game is in the Land of the Dead. A massive, barren, and very very brown wasteland.]]
** The DLC chapters are also considered to be subpar by many who enjoyed the game to buy it.

* MostAnnoyingSound: Claudia's [[StopHelpingMe constant reminders to find the four Crystal Shards]] in Chapter 2-7. It doesn't help that her telepathic voice uses the exact same audio filter as [[{{Fable}} a certain Guildmaster.]]

* XenSyndrome: [[spoiler:The Castle is the second, not the final act of the game. The final act of the game is in the Land of the Dead. A massive, barren, and very very brown wasteland.]]

** As you'd most likely guess from his name and the fact that he's described in story to be extremely powerful, Forgotten One is a hard boss, but most of it unfortunately relies on FakeDifficulty: the segments between the 2 fights are supremely annoying timed platforming gauntlets not suited for the game's physics or controls, any weak points beyond the first one require you to jump to hit him, where you're unable to dodge anything, none of his attacks can be blocked, most of them have very similar tells and getting your Focus Gauge high enough to get any Neutral Orbs off him beyond the first weak point is an exercise in futility, very few of his attacks leave him open long enough to hit him at all and only a select few leave him open long enough for you to actually hit him and back off before the next attack, every time you take off enough of his health to trigger a QTE and the next checkpoint involves a different minigame where you need to figure out what you're supposed to do on the fly or risk losing all of your hard-earned progress, neither of the stages you fight him in have any Neutral Orb fountains or Health Fonts, and to rub the constant dying in even further, the game uses yet another ill-timed ShoutOut ([[MonkeyIsland "Avoid fighting like a dairy farmer."]]) as one of the "tips" you see when you die.

* FunnyAneurysmMoment: [[spoiler:Ingame variation. Abbot Dorin: "I know who you are! You're sent by the devil! He told me! He always does! He mocks me with it!" Turns out he was right...]]

* {{I Knew It}}: Many fans were speculating [[spoiler: Gabriel would become Dracula]] ''before the game was even out.''
* MissedMomentOfAwesome: Part of the trek through the castle exposes you to a lot of lore about Friedrich von Frankenstein and his experiments with artificial life. Sadly, you never get to fight The Creature, which has been a recurring boss/[[DegradedBoss mook]] throughout the series. Instead, you fight a robot scorpion that he made. In the first DLC you get to collect his severed fingers, which don't really serve any point beyond giving you an achievement if you get all of them.
** The second DLC is a pretty major offender of this as well: after giving you a taste of vampire powers in the first DLC by letting you control Laura [[spoiler: and then having her sacrifice herself for you, you'd think you'd get at least some new attacks in the second DLC. Nope, all that implies that he ever even drank her blood to begin with are the perioidical chest-clutching cutscenes (and not dying when in the realm where Forgotten One is imprisoned) and the cutscene that follows when you finally defeat him, but even that seems to be more due to the fact that Gabriel absorbed a large portion of Forgotten One's power which he was using to open the seal.]]

** [[{{Fridgebrilliance}} This might have been intentional]] to make [[{{Playerpunch}} the player feel like a jerk for hating her]] when [[spoiler: She dies at Gabriel's hands]].

** There are a hell of a lot! [[spoiler:The tragic death of Claudia and her Black Knight at the hands of Gabriel. Later, Pan's HeroicSacrifice. Finally, the relevation of the horrible truth about Marie's death!]]

** As you'd most likely guess from his name and the fact that he's described in story to be extremely powerful, Forgotten One is a hard boss, but most of it unfortunately relies on FakeDifficulty: the segments between the 2 fights are surpremely annoying timed platforming gauntlets not suited for the game's physics or controls, any weak points beyond the first one require you to jump to hit him, where you're unable to dodge anything, none of his attacks can be blocked, most of them have very similliar tells and getting your Focus Gauge high enough to get any Neutral Orbs off him beyond the first weakpoint is an excercise in futility, very few of his attacks leave him open long enough to hit him at all and only a select few leave him open long enough for you to actually hit him and back off before the next attack, every time you take off enough of his health to trigger a QTE and the next checkpoint involves a different minigame where you need to figure out what you're supposed to do on the fly or risk losing all of your hard-earned progress, neither of the stages you fight him in have any Neutral Orb fountains or Health Fonts, and to rub the constant dying in even further, the game uses yet another ill-timed ShoutOut ([[MonkeyIsland "Avoid fighting like a dairy farmer."]]) as one of the "tips" you see when you die.

** As you'd most likely guess from his name and the fact that he's described in story to be extremely powerful, Forgotten One is a hard boss, but most of it unfortunately relies on FakeDifficulty: the segments between the 2 fights are surpremely annoying timed platforming gauntlets not suited for the game's physics or controls, any weak points beyond the first one require you to jump to hit him, where you're unable to dodge anything, none of his attacks can be blocked, most of the have very similliar tells and getting your Focus Gauge high enough to get any Neutral Orbs off him beyond the first weakpoint is an excercise in futility, very few of his attacks leave him open long enough to hit him at all, neither of the stages you fight him in have any Neutral Orb fountains or Health Fonts, and to rub the constant dying in even further, the game uses yet another ill-timed ShoutOut ([[MonkeyIsland "Avoid fighting like a dairy farmer."]]) as one of the "tips" you see when you die.

** Olrox is just like Cornell: a brutal LightningBruiser. Unlike Cornell, he gives no warning before using his charge attack. On top of that, he has a separate attack that will change direction mid-blow to hit you. Even worse, his battle comes right after ThatOneLevel, the Clock Tower.

* AndTheFandomRejoiced: To varying degrees concerning the involvement of Hideo Kojima and the cast of talented actors. On the other hand, [[UnpleasableFanbase plenty of fans]] were hoping for ''Lords of Shadow'' to feature the series' [[NarmCharm traditionally awful voice-acting]].

* BrokenBase: The old fans of the franchise versus the young fans of the IGA titles.

* NightmareFuel: The 11th Chapter - literally the final area. Falling from the platforms (though not lethal this time) and the cutscenes of traveling between portals just give you breath-stopping creeps.
** [[spoiler:Gabriel's murder of his own wife and Claudia]] under the influence of the Devil Mask counts too. Being mind-controlled to do something so horrific? *shudders*

** [[spoiler:It is possible that the good Zobek we see in the game is actually a result of the intervention from his good half, right after he witnessed his dark half having done horrible things to Gabriel and Marie before the game starts. Even with increasingly ominous narrations and actions thanks to the dark half, the good half of Zobek still does everything he could do to aid Gabriel in fulfilling his duty of saving the world, until the final chapter, when it was finally time to let go of his dark half, leaving Gabriel alone to confront it. In other words, Zobek is the good half and a sincere Mentor, and the Necromancer is the dark half and THE Complete Monster - the same goes with the other two Lords of Shadow.]]
*** [[spoiler:Zobek's mention of his belief that Gabriel is THE pure-hearted warrior destined to save the world early in the game further supports the speculation that his good half manages to inervene with the Necromancer. One may notice that his narration becomes increasingly funny and dark as Gabriel enters the Land of the Dead, possibly indicating his evil half is growing stronger and stronger as the game progresses, and he finds himself struggling with it.]]
**** [[spoiler:Obviously he'd do everything he could to help him. He *wanted* him to succeed in getting all the pieces of the mask, so he could take it. Also, given how blatantly evil Cornell and Carmilla were, I'm sure he was pretty rotten prior to being influenced by Satan.]]

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel: Lots and lots! Lords Of Shadow is the king of this trope in all of the {{Castlevania}} games.
* {{I knew it}}: Many fans were speculating [[spoiler: Gabriel would become Dracula]] ''before the game was even out.'' This may have actually been a case of {{Throw it in}}..

* MostAnnoyingSound: Okay, this one's going to sound like blasphemy and is EXTREMELY YMMV, but... Zobek's PurpleProse narrations for each sub-chapter. Patrick Stewart's performance as Zobek in gameplay is fine but there's just something annoying about being intoned at every time you progress a little.
** They didn't call it YourMileageMayVary for nothing.
** A less controversial example is Claudia's [[StopHelpingMe constant reminders to find the four Crystal Shards]] in Chapter 2-7. It doesn't help that her telepathic voice uses the exact same audio filter as [[{{Fable}} a certain Guildmaster.]]

** The second DLC is a pretty major offender of this as well: after giving you a taste of vampire powers in the first DLC by letting you control Laura [[spoiler: and then having her sacrifice herself for you, you'd think you'd get at least some new attacks in the second DLC. Nope, all that implies that he ever even drank her blood is the perioidical chest-clutching cutscenes (and not dying when in the realm where Forgotten One is imprisoned) and the cutscene that follows when you finally defeat him, but even that seems to be more due to the fact that Gabriel absorbed a large portion of his power which he was using to open the sea.l]]

* MissedMomentOfAwesome: Part of the trek through the castle exposes you to a lot of lore about Friedrich von Frankenstein and his experiments with artificial life. Sadly, you never get to fight The Creature, which has been a recurring boss/[[DegradedBoss mook]] throughout the series. Instead, you fight a robot scorpion that he made. Then again, the DLC has been confirmed to include a return trip to the castle...

* {{I knew it}}: Many fans were speculating [[spoiler: Gabriel would become Dracula]] ''before the game was even out.'' This may have actually been a case of {{Throw it in}}..

* {{I knew it}}: Many fans were speculating [[spoiler: Gabriel would become Dracula]] ''before the game was even out.'' This may have actually ended up as a case of {{Throw it in}}, depending.

** They didn't call it YourMileageMayVary for a reason.

* MostAnnoyingSound: Okay, this one's going to sound like blasphemy and is EXTREMELY YMMV, but... Zobek's PurpleProse narrations for each sub-chapter. Patrick Stewart's performance as Zobek in gameplay is fine but there's just something annoying about being intoned at every time you progress a little.