Video Game / Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate

"It seems fate has given me a second chance... father."

"You fight well... worthy of the name Belmont."

— Dracula

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate is a 2013 action-adventure Platform Game developed by MercurySteam and published by Konami for the Nintendo 3DS, and the interquel to the 2010 Castlevania Continuity Reboot Origins Episode Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.

The game starts 25 years after the main events of Lords of Shadow, when Dracula returns after decades of self-exile to destroy his former allies in the Brotherhood of Light and take the world for himself. Trevor Belmont, son of Gabriel and a knight of the Brotherhood of Light, sets out to avenge the death of his mother at Dracula's hands. However, he is never heard from again.

Years later, it falls to Trevor's own son, Simon Belmont, to finish what his father started and free his clan from the curse of Dracula. But the truth of that curse is even more terrible than Simon knows...

An HD version of the game was released for Xbox 360 on October 22, 2013, and on PlayStation 3 a week later. It includes a Boss Rush mode, online leaderboards, a more consistent framerate and redone cutscenes with lip synch (the original 3DS version had no mouth movement when characters were talking, only different expressions). A PC port of the HD version was released in March of 2014.

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Mirror of Fate provides examples of:

• 2½D: The game's chosen format.
• Abnormal Ammo: Regular and Rotten Zombies will resort to pulling their head off and throwing it and Hunter Mermen will spit globs of paralyzing saliva at you.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Sypha, as Simon's mother, went from the original continuity's blonde to a redhead.
• Adapted Out: Fans of the series may remember the team of Trevor, Sypha, Grant, and Alucard from Dracula's Curse. In this game Sypha gets Demoted to Extra, appearing as Simon's mother and having healing/defensive abilities instead of elemental magic. Grant DaNasty is briefly mentioned in a scroll foreshadowing the events of LoS2. And Trevor with Alucard are merged into a single character.
• Air Jousting: With Dracula in Trevor's campaign.
• All There in the Manual: The Bestiary entries you collect explain quite a bit on occasion, such as how the spirit following the Belmonts around is fate personified.
• Anachronic Order: The three acts plus prologue feature Gabriel, Simon, Alucard, and Trevor. The game starts off with Gabriel fighting a demon a year before Lords of Shadow, then jumps ahead fifty-seven years to Simon's scenario — Alucard's scenario takes place concurrently with Simon's — then it slips back thirty years to Trevor's for the endgame.
• Ancestral Weapon: Trevor's combat cross which Simon recovers halfway through his campaign.
• Animal Motifs: Dracula and dragons, Simon and bears, and Alucard and wolves.
• Another Side, Another Story: The game features four successive playable characters: Gabriel Belmont, Trevor Belmont, Simon Belmont, and Alucard. For the most part, they share the same gameplay mechanics, and other than Gabriel, any exploration upgrades are passed on to the next character's story, even if it doesn't make much sense chronologically. They also share Character Level, health, magic, and sub-weapon upgrades, although their arsenal of magic spells and sub-weapons differs between each character.
• Anti-Grinding: Character Levels are not important, and only unlock new whip skills. Plus, enemies don't give off a lot of experience, and all characters share the same level. HP, MP and the amount of sub-weapon ammo you can carry are instead upgraded with Upgrade Artifacts.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: The Lost Soul, personification of the Mirror of Fate.
• "Arabian Nights" Days: In the end of Simon's campaign, the Succubus enchants the Throne Room to make it appear this way in order to seduce him.
• Backtracking: Not required to beat the game, but it is if you want 100% Completion.
• Badass in Distress: Simon gets into a death trap twice, once in a Multi-Mook Melee and the other in an Amusement Park of Doom, and needs Alucard's assistance to help him out in both cases.
• Badass Longcoat: Dracula, Alucard, and Trevor all wear one.
• Barbarian Long Hair: All of the Belmonts have it, except Simon who, surprisingly, is the most barbarian of them all.
• Bag of Spilling: Subverted with Gabriel whose story takes place before Lords of Shadow. Played straight with Trevor, who can Double Jump and Wall Jump before he becomes Alucard and has to re-obtain these skills — although he can't glide after a double jump as Trevor.
• Bat Out of Hell: Trevor fights some disgustingly mutated bats throughout his campaign.
• Beard of Evil: Dracula sports a three-day stubble in the form of a goatee.
• Because Destiny Says So: The Brotherhood sends Trevor to what has been foretold to be his doom to fulfill the rest of the prophecy though Trevor himself has a quite different outlook on life.
• Big "NO!": Alucard, when he realizes what Dracula did to him.
• Blood Magic: What locks doors to Dracula's Throne Room in Alucard's path.
• Boss Banter: Every intelligent boss has something to say to you during their respective fights. Strangely, the Night Watchman has voiced dialogue in the original 3DS release of the game, but is mute in the HD port.
• Boss Rush: Available in the HD version.
• Bottomless Pits: A few, but seeing as the Belmonts take damage from hitting the floor from a great height, this is partway justified.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Dracula gleefully announces this late in Trevor's scenario, but gets shut down easily; after all, he didn't know all the facts.
• But Now I Must Go: Alucard bids Simon a final farewell and disappears into the wilds in the Golden Ending.
• Call-Forward: Dracula uses his Shadow Whip from the sequel in his fight against Alucard, and his Void Sword and Chaos Claws from the same game in the final battle.
• Catapult Nightmare: How we're first introduced to Simon and his backstory.
• Cel Shading: Used in the cutscenes. Regular gameplay uses normal shading.
• Chaos Architecture: Both subverted and played straight. Whilst Simon and Alucard share some areas with each other, most of the areas they visit aside from the theatre and laboratory are unique to their path. This is played straight with Trevor who visits most of Simon's areas in his path which feature a lot more traps.
• Clean Cut: Trevor can do these on the Giant Mook Skeletons, by grabbing their huge sharpened shields and slashing at their midsection during his Finishing Move.
• Climax Boss: Oddly enough, none for Simon. Alucard gets two, one in the Daemon Lord and Dracula.
• Colon Cancer: To ensure players knew this game was a part of the Lords of Shadow Continuity Reboot.
• Colossus Climb: The second half of the Lady of the Crypt boss fight requires you to scale her writhing body and trick her into headbutting the Castle main door.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Some areas are taken straight from the first game e.g. the Castle Hall and Carmilla's Throne Room.
  • The Necromancer who challenges Simon mentions its master, the Lord of the Dead.
  • Dracula copies straight one of Satan's Boss Banter taunts during his fight with Trevor.
  • Dracula uses the Reverie DLC blood orb trick to keep something sealed.
  • The device Gabriel uses to trap the Daemon Lord in the prologue is a much, much smaller version of the contraption that shows up in the Reverie DLC as the gateway to the Forgotten One's prison.
  • You not only fight Dracula the same way you fought Satan, but you also have infinite magic for the duration of the battle, and getting hit by any of his attacks when using the same-colored element does little to no damage to you.
• Compilation Re-release: The HD version for consoles was released together in a package with Castlevania: Lords of Shadow and its DLC, as well as being available digitally by itself.
• Composite Character: Like the previous game, The Reveal here is that two characters are actually one character in this universe. Alucard is a combo of classic Alucard and Trevor Belmont in this continuity.
• Crate Expectations: Nope. Just barrels.
• Cutscene Boss: The Lady of the Crypt's Colossus Climb segment and the Daemon Lord's final appearance (chronologically Trevor's first fight with it but the player's second, due to Anachronic Order) are this plus Press X to Not Die.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Alucard.
• Deadly Disc: The Boomerang subweapon Trevor picks up is now different; it functions like a boomeranging shuriken that attaches itself to enemies and delivers an electric shock.
• Death by Origin Story: Marie and Sypha.
• Death Trap: Simon gets caught in two.
• Defend Command: Pressing L. Also some enemies have this.
• Dem Bones: In classic Castlevania fashion, skeletons are one of the most common enemy types.
• Demonic Possession: Simon, in his battle with Alucard against Dracula.
• Depraved Dwarf: The Hunchbacks are labelled as a race of Dwarves. They're cannibalistic and eat carrion.
• Destination Defenestration: Simon and Alucard throw themselves through a couple of Bloodstained Glass Windows in order to advance.
• Die or Fly: Alucard's mist and wolf form powers first activate when he is moments away from getting killed.
• Distracted by the Sexy: The Succubus attempts this on Simon. He just shrugs it off.
• The Dog Bites Back: When the Watchman has been defeated by Simon, he summons his Scavens one last time. They promptly eat him. Subverted to a degree when it turns out that this is what turned him into the Reaver, which is what he might've been intending to do to begin with.
• Doomed Protagonist: Trevor Belmont.
• Double Jump:
  • Alucard obtains the ability to jump again while in the air after defeating the Daemon Lord, via a pair of wings.
  • Trevor has one from the get go, thanks to some enchanted boots.
• The Dragon: The Succubus serves as Dracula's second in command.
  • The Daemon Lord seems to become one for the Toymaker.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: In Trevor's final battle, you fight Dracula the same way as you fought Satan in the first game - by activating whichever type of magic he's not using and switching to the matching type when he uses an unavoidable shockwave attack.
• Energy Weapon: There are some traps that use these: Simon can use Sypha's spirit to quickly bypass them, but Alucard and Trevor need to find another way around them.
• Epic Flail: A recurring Giant Mook in Trevor's story attacks with a morningstar.
• Everything's Deader with Zombies: Zombies are also one of the most common enemy types in this game.
• Evil Costume Switch: Dracula now sports more demonic clothes, after his Face–Heel Turn in the first game. Trevor also goes from a blue coat and silver boots to a set of black armor after becoming a vampire.
• Evil Counterpart: Dracula to Trevor and Simon, as a former monster hunter turned vampiric Evil Overlord.
• Evil Laugh: The Daemon Lord, being voiced by Richard Riddings, has a glorious guttural chuckle.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Told to Trevor by the spirit.
• Fake Difficulty: The Boss Rush added into the HD version tends to suffer from this, partially because there's no checkpoints of any kind which can be expected since there hasn't been any in any of the earlier games, but more importantly because you don't gain back any health at any point after beating the bosses and the only one with any form of reliable healing is Trevor, who is the last character.
• Falling Chandelier of Doom: Purposefully done by Trevor to advance his path.
• Family Honor:
  • Trevor wants to kill Dracula to avenge his mother's murder and restore the Belmont clan's honor.
  • Simon wants to avenge his father's murder and restore the Belmont clan's honor.
• Fiery Redhead: Simon Belmont.
• Finishing Move: Aside from all bosses being done in by one, if you beat up an enemy hard enough in quick succession, you get a chance to perform one, otherwise you'll have to fight him a bit longer.
• Fish People: The Mermen.
• Foregone Conclusion: The game as a whole (Lords of Shadow showed Dracula alive in the 21st century), as well as Trevor's campaign, seeing as Simon's opening campaign, is about him seeking revenge.
• Generational Saga: The game takes place over three generations of the Belmont clan.
• The Ghost:
  • Zobek is mentioned, and one of his Necromancers is a Boss Battle for Simon, but he doesn't feature in this game.
  • For a good 99% of the game, this is played straight with the Toy Maker as well, who's designed large parts of the castle and several of its death traps, but (aside from the pictures of himself all over his sections of the castle), is only seen in one cutscene, and the only thing he does is let out an Evil Laugh.
• Ghost Town: Where Simon starts his quest.
• Giant Mook: Larger Skeletons
• Girl on Girl Is Hot: The Succubus hopes to entice Simon with this. She's got a harem sitting around.
• Good Wings, Evil Wings: The Vampire Knights all have black feathered wings.
• Golden Ending: Unlocked if you find all the collectables with every character.
• Gory Discretion Shot: The Succubus, who's the most human-appearing boss (and one of only two female bosses) encountered, gets killed just off camera.
• Grimy Water: The poison falls.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Trevor's fight with the Daemon Lord leaves the beast cleaved in twain and missing its forelimbs.
• Harder Than Hard: Beating the game unlocks the highest difficulty level, "Hardcore".
• Heavily Armored Mook: Of Dem Bones.
• Heroic Lineage: The Belmont clan.
• He's Back!:
  • An exceptionally twisted version. Dracula returns from years of exile and soul searching to wipe out his former allies and take the world for himself.
  • Alucard also has one when he remembers his failure to defeat Dracula as Trevor and decides to finish what he started by killing his father.
• Hint System: Alucard's two big puzzles have this, though with each hint you take, the puzzle is worth less experience, and doing them without any hints is needed for an achievement/trophy in the HD version.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Alucard's first encounter with the Daemon Lord.
• Hot Witch: Well, they're all masked, so not too sure. They're not wearing much else though... And then you take a closer look at their bestiary entry. Subverted To Hell And Back.
• How We Got Here: Trevor's path is this for Simon and Alucard's.
• Hybrid Monster: The Daemon Lord, after his first appearance in Gabriel's prologue, comes back as a cybernetic organism.
• I Hate You, Vampire Dad: Alucard is this to Dracula.
• "I Know You Are in There Somewhere" Fight: In the first boss fight with him, Dracula enchants Simon and tries to force Alucard to fight him. Alcuard refuses to hurt Simon at all and shouts "No Way" and other refusals anytime you press any attack button, forcing you to parry his attacks and quickly grab him before he recovers.
• Indy Escape: In the Belfry area, some hunchbacks send a giant bell rolling after Trevor.
• I Never Told You My Name: Dracula already knows Simon is a Belmont because he overheard Alucard talking to Simon. It's one of the first hints about who Alucard is.
• Interquel: Bridges the gap between the main events of Lords of Shadow and its epilogue.
• In the Blood: A running theme in the game is whether or not the Belmonts can escape the curse of their bloodline.
• I Shall Taunt You: Dracula seems to enjoy taunting his opponents even in this continuity.
  Dracula: Hahaha, you fight well. Worthy of the name Belmont.
  • If you die during the Boss Rush, there's another cutscene where he taunts you while sitting on his throne, challenging you to do better.
    • Before him, the Necromancer to Simon as well.
• It's All Upstairs From Here: In true Castlevania fashion, Dracula resides at the top of the highest tower of the castle.
• King Mook / Mook Maker: The Reaver is just a giant Scaven.
• Last Lousy Point: Collecting all the scrolls and treasure chests. Luckily, the game points out on what parts of the map you missed them, though this doesn't help all the way considering how vague the map is in general.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Gabriel Belmont became Dracula.
• Letting the Air out of the Band: When Simon collects the Combat Cross from a glorious pedestal with light cast on it through a beautiful church window, the marvelous "Item Get!" fanfare builds up — and the Necromancer steals the Combat Cross and it goes warbled.
• Level-Map Display: With a big red dot or arrow which way to go next.
• Load-Bearing Boss: Sealing the Daemon Lord in the prologue causes the castle he was nesting in to crumble. Netting the Golden Ending does the same in the regular playthrough.
• Losing Your Head: How Simon acquires the axe. It's embedded in a zombie's skull.
• Ludicrous Gibs: Some Finishing Moves on mooks cause them to splatter.
• Luke, You Are My Father: Trevor to Gabriel, who never knew the boy was born.
• MacGuffin: The eponymous Mirror of Fate, which can reveal both the past and the future.
• Mad Scientist / Monster Clown: The Toymaker.
• Memento MacGuffin: The shard of the Mirror of Fate, Trevor's Battle Cross.
• Metroidvania: Though more Metroid- than -vania than the previous installments.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: The Daemon Lord.
• Molotov Cocktail: One of Simon's subweapons, replacing the classic holy water. It still works the same, more or less.
• Most Common Super Power: The Succubus and her slaves.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Gabriel, after impaling Trevor with the Combat Cross. He looks into the Mirror of Fate and realizes that Trevor is his son, then turns him into a vampire to "save" him.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The secret ending closes with a common scene in the classic Castlevania games, Simon standing on a cliff watching Dracula's castle crumble.
  • Simon gets a spell that summons the spirit of a warrior named Schneider.
  • Simon's other summon spell lets him call the spirit of his mother Sypha for protection. The aura strongly resembles Sypha's classic sprite.
  • During the cutscene before the Alucard Vs Dracula battle, Dracula asks Alucard to "join me in remaking this world." In Symphony of the Night, Dracula used those same words to ask Alucard to join him.
  • The carousel has Medusa, Maneater, and Behemoth heads on it - all monsters from the classic continuity.
  • One dead body you come across belongs to a pirate king of the Danasty family.
  • Alucard's use of wings for his double jump has been a staple since Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
  • The Combat Crosses were built by a man named Rinaldo Gandolfi. Apparently, he was insane.
  • In a cute reference to Castlevania, Simon starts with the leather whip and quickly upgrades to the chain whip.
  • At one point, Trevor flails his whip cracking the [[mask of the Lost Soul]], similarly to a scene Richter did to a skeleton in the opening of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood.
• Notice This: Dead members of the Brotherhood with unread scrolls glow purple, puzzle-essential corpses glow red, and grapple points sparkle blue.
• 100% Completion: Gets you an additional ending cinematic.
• One-Woman Wail: Some of the soundtrack.
• Orphan's Plot Trinket: Simon's piece of the eponymous Mirror of Fate he received from his father.
• Oxygen Meter: For Trevor and Simon. Alucard doesn't need one, seeing as he's a vampire.
• Permanently Missable Content: It is possible not to get 100% on Alucard's path, if you ignore the scrolls in his One-Time Dungeon. You can get a second chance in New Game Plus, but after that, it's over.
• Power Copying: Alucard, as a vampire, can feed upon other creatures and derive powers from them. He only does this in a Coup De Grace Cutscene Of Bosses.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Dracula's classic one-liner from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night returns.
  Dracula: "Enough talk...! Have at you!"
• Press X to Not Die: The 3DS version features numerous quick-time events. The HD version removes many, though not all, of them; mostly the ones for Alucard's wolf doors, Trevor's stone doors, and the ones for finishing off bosses.
• Prophetic Names: Gabriel, who loved mountains, gave himself the last name Belmont because it meant "Beautiful Mountain." His grandson, Simon Belmont, ends up being raised by mountain folk years later.
• The Quiet One: The Spectre of the Mirror can talk, and he does so quite normally in Trevor's path. (Getting a combat cross to the face and breaking off a large chunk of his mask because of angry smoldering generic rage courtesy of Trevor probably shut him up.)
• Recurring Boss: The Daemon Lord, the Executioner, and Dracula.
• Recurring Boss Template:
  • The Necromancer fights nearly identical to the Grim Reaper. Considering his master was Zobek, The Lord of the Necromancers (and alluded to be Death in Lords of Shadow), it makes sense.
  • Dracula, as well, fights a lot like Satan in Lords of Shadow; this is probably because at the moment he is the Prince of Darkness.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Dracula.
• Revision: The game establishes that Marie and Gabriel had a son, but Marie hid the child from Gabriel to protect the boy from his father's fate.
• Rise from Your Grave / Waking Up at the Morgue: Alucard awakens entombed in the castle.
• Saved by Canon/Doomed by Canon: The first game ends with the now Death Seeker, Who Wants to Live Forever? Dracula still alive and rotting away in self-imposed exile centuries after the events of Mirror of Fate.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The Daemon Lord. He is imprisoned in a magic orb by Gabriel in the prologue and is freed by witches during Trevor's segment.
• Sequel Hook: "This isn't how a vampire is supposed to die."
• Sexy Discretion Shot: When the Succubus pulls out all the stops in her fight, we see Simon's shocked face as she has an orgy with her harem.
• Scenery Porn / Scenery Gorn: The game has lots of majestic castle vistas and just as many crumbling, decrepit ones.
• Shock and Awe: Trevor's second subweapon is a battery bomb which creates a large electric Sphere of Destruction that traps and damages enemies.
• Shout-Out: As with its predecessor, references to other franchises abound:
  • One of the dead Brotherhood knights is found in pipes overgrown with fungus and his note mentions a brother named Mario. Sadly, this one is changed to remove the Mario reference in the HD version.
  • The reflectors in the Carousel Engine look like giant Pokéballs.
  • The animation of Alucard receiving the bats subweapon mirrors a scene from Batman Begins.
• Sinister Scythe: The Necromancer.
• Slouch of Villainy: Dracula, leaning back on his throne.
• Soft Water: Played straight for Alucard, who gets tossed into a moat from what seems to be the highest point in the castle (whilst on FIRE). Subverted when he later throws a boss down it.
• Stock Video Game Puzzle: Among these are a Block Puzzle (to save Simon from a death trap), a Light and Mirrors Puzzle (to save Simon from his second death trap), a Simon Says Minigame, and Timed Switch puzzles.
• Stranger Behind the Mask: The Lost Soul. You've been wondering who he is the whole time... and he's nobody. He's just a personification of Fate. They don't even tell you this in the game — it's in a bestiary entry unlocked when you win.
• Succubi and Incubi: Simon's Final Boss is a Succubus.
• Summoning Ritual: Instead of Dracula (who's usually the target for these things in Castlevania games), it's the Daemon Lord in Trevor's path.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes
• The Swarm: One of Alucard's subweapons. It's bats.
• Sympathy for the Devil: In his final moments, Trevor pities Dracula after the Mirror of Fate shows him why he turned evil.
• Tag Team: Simon and Alucard team up against Dracula.
• Take Your Time: Both Simon's and Alucard's campaigns run simultaneously, but you can take all the time in the world before you go to the throne room, and fight the Final Boss.
  • Particulary egregious is when playing as Alucard, and you have to solve puzzles with blocks or mirrors whilst Simon is fighting for his life.
• Talk to the Fist: Trevor blows out part of the Lost Soul's mask when it talks about how his family will suffer for his failures.
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: None of the three playable characters run into any of the obstacles that the others must get past, aside from the grappling hooks Simon can't use with his leather whip.
• Time Stands Still: One of Alucard's subweapons.
• Title Drop: Nobody says it out loud, but the Mirror of Fate is a location within the castle, where Trevor battles Dracula and where Alucard is buried.
• Trailers Always Spoil: Trailers and promotional material make it clear from the start that Trevor fails to stop Dracula, leaving Simon to finish the job years later. Not that Dracula returning to menace a new generation is a surprise.
• Underground Monkey: Some. Most notably the Electric Merman.
• The Unfought:
  • Dracula in Simon's chapter. Dracula is the last boss faced in Trevor and Alucard's chapters, but he only appears in Simon's chapter in the ending cutscene, the Succubus being Simon's final boss.
  • The Toy Maker is a pretty huge presence throughout the game. His backstory is built up through various item and bestiary descriptions, as well as Brotherhood knight scrolls during the course of the game. Alucard even has to navigate through areas named after him, and all 3 characters must fight his creations. Yet, he goes not only unfought, but unseen until the very end of the game.
• Upgrade Artifact
• Video Game Remake: Retells the events of Castlevania (1986) and Dracula's Curse in the Lords of Shadow continuity. Sort of.
• Videogame Dashing: Trevor acquires a pair of boots which allow him to perform these, and gives him a Long Jump.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Alucard can shift into both mist form, and wolf form.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Dracula only wears his Badass Longcoat and trousers, exposing his glorious man-abs.
• We Can Rebuild Him: The Daemon Lord has this happen to him at the hands of the Toy Maker after Trevor killed him.
• We Can Rule Together: Dracula offers this to Alucard.
• Wham Line: Alucard's reveal.
  Alucard: It seems fate has given me a second chance... Father.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Alucard is a subversion of this. He looks fairly menacing but, while he is, by his own admission, a blood-thirsty monster, he's still very clearly on the side of good.
• You Have No Chance to Survive: Dracula to Simon.
  Dracula: You cannot kill me. You will die in vain, just as your father did!
  Simon: We'll see about that, now, won't we?!
• You Killed My Father: Trevor Belmont sets out to destroy Dracula for killing his mother. Simon Belmont also sets out to destroy Dracula years later for killing Simon's mother and his father.