History YMMV / CastlevaniaLordsOfShadow2

* GoodBadBugs: The oh-so-helpful “infinite Blizzard glitch” that, as its name suggests, cloaks Dracula in a continuous aura identical to his Void Sword's “ultimate” Blizzard ''without incurring a penalty to his energy reserves''. The gist of this glitch is that anything – and we mean ''anything'' – that enters your periphery is instantly frozen – yes, including bosses with the exception of Raisa – and continue to take minor damage until Dracula moves away. Yes, you can pummel your enemies without ''any retaliation'', or you can just sit back and watch as everything drops dead in around thirty seconds. And how do you activate it? By triggering an “enemy's finishing move cutscene” (the one that plays at their deaths) with a Blizzard. Because of it, this glitch can only be duplicated in story mode. Freeroam won't work.
** However, of course, there's a downside to this bug; in sequences where you should not engage the enemy (e.g. stealth missions) or where you must deal with neutral/friendly [=NPCs=] (e.g. Marie and the disguised Carmilla) this glitch can, and will, crash your game. Or at least force you to reload from a checkpoint. Ice damage to a Golgoth Guard will immediately alert it to your presence, and the game reads injuring Marie as feeding from her, causing her to become incapacitated. This is why it is recommended to replicate this glitch and then go do some side missions or grind mastery.

* EightPointEight: ''Lords of Shadow 2'' got mixed reviews from critics, but one of the most infamous was Edge's review that'd given it the score of 4.0 / 10. And the worst part is that they score Rambo: The Video Game with a 5.0/10.[[labelnote:Explanation]] The latter being a three-hour low-budget rail shooter with poor optimization, non-existent storyline and tons of bugs. To put it in [[WebVideo/TheAngryJoeShow layman's terms]], "take a serious look at all the ratings outlets give this game. If it's a fraction higher than three, then they are babbling morons! It's not an average game, it's a piece of shit!"[[/labelnote]]

** The indefinite nature of the castle spawned a few hypotheses as well. Some suspect it is a MentalWorld [[JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind into which Dracula needs to plunge]] in order to recover his relics, others that it is an elaborate PocketDimension fueled by the power/blood of its resident [[GeniusLoci demon-possessed structure]].

* FridgeBrilliance: Dracula's dialog at times implies that he still thinks of himself as a sort of hero. Even when he's massacring villages he still acts like he's doing good, saying that he's sending them all to a better place. So, if Dracula isn't a monster, then why are there all these scrolls and memorials around describing him horrifically torturing people for fun? Simple. In the case of the memorials you find around the city in the present day those are all propaganda written by Satan's acolytes, intended to make Dracula out to be worse than he actually was. In the case of the Brotherhood's scrolls that litter the castle, almost all of them describe tortures being inflicted not by Dracula but by his minions who (as this game repeatedly shows) are all only barely controlled by Dracula if at all. While Dracula was definitely a villain prior to the events of this game, he was never as bad as people thought.

* FriendlyFandoms: Expect a great deal of overlapping with the ''Manga/{{Hellsing}}'' fandom on social media. The fact that Dracula shares a visibly comparable design with ''Hellsing''[='=]s [[spoiler: Dracula!Alucard]] does not help.
** Due to a lot of similarities between Dracula and Kain, ''VideoGame/{{LegacyofKain}}'' fandom also overlaps quite a bit.

* GoodBadBugs: The oh-so-helpful “infinite Blizzard glitch” that, as its name suggests, cloaks Dracula in a continuous aura identical to his Void Sword's “ultimate” Blizzard ''without incurring a penalty to his energy reserves''. The gist of this glitch is that anything hostile that enters your periphery is instantly frozen – yes, including bosses with the exception of Raisa – and continue to take minor damage until Dracula moves away. Yes, you can pummel your enemies without ''any retaliation'', or you can just sit back and watch as everything drops dead in around thirty seconds. And how do you activate it? By triggering an “enemy's finishing move cutscene” (the one that plays at their deaths) with a Blizzard. Because of it, this glitch can only be duplicated in story mode. Freeroam won't work.

** "Dracool." [[labelnote:Explanation]] Gabriel's [[AcCENTUponTheWrongSylLABle peculiar]] way of pronouncing his assumed name has led people to replacing the 'u' in 'Dracul' to a double 'o', resulting in an admittedly humorous 'Dra''cool'''. [[http://36.media.tumblr.com/10504f418e1a930ae8cb221ac2d23f42/tumblr_mwbfwmVqNT1rym2uyo1_500.png An image of him in shutter shades frequently accompany said gag.]][[/labelnote]]

** “Shirt Allergy.” [[labelnote:Explanation]] Evidently, ''[[AbsoluteCleavage all]]'' [[NoShirtLongJacket vampires]] in the ''Lords of Shadow'' universe are ''duty-bound'' to dispose of everything that involves covering their upper bodies. Laura from the first game is the only exception. [[/labelnote]]
** The [[http://41.media.tumblr.com/540d80bdd95461a9a1413d7526c73f52/tumblr_n1tohpur531qhso87o2_500.png “Satan]] [[http://38.media.tumblr.com/1e466d555aa715cd83ac06f5f0f6aa8d/tumblr_inline_n1vpuremVi1r44gxs.jpg Expression.”]] [[labelnote:Explanation]] A.k.a. the {{slasher smile}}s both Dracula and [[spoiler: Satan in the possession of Alucard]] make.[[/labelnote]]
** “The Old Gentleman.” [[labelnote:Explanation]] Named after the fact that Google Romanian-English Translate reads the word “Dracul” as ''“the old gentleman”''. [[https://translate.google.com/#ro/en/Dracul Go ahead, try it.]][[/labelnote]]

** Dracula's over the top RoaringRampageOfRevenge speech from the second trailer.

*** Amusingly enough, none of his LargeHam moments were included into the final game.

** Due to a lot of similarities between Dracula and Kain, ''VideoGame/{{LegacyOfKain}}'' fandom also overlaps quite a bit.

** After Carmilla is speared through the face, it looks like she's giving the spear a blow job. [[FreudWasRight This was probably intentional]], if not a reference to the original {{Dracula}}.

* EightPointEight: Castlevania Lords of Shadow 2 got mixed reviews by critics, but one of the most infamous was Edge's review that score of 4.0 / 10. And the worst part is that they score Rambo: The Video Game with a 5.0/10.

* ScrappyMechanic: If you try to avoid encounters with enemies by finding a ledge to parkour to, the enemies (every enemy in the game) has some form of ranged attack that's super fast, incredibly accurate, and always knocks you down. This mechanic stays even well past the point in the game where the only reason you'd be going through there in the first place is backtracking for collectables, when you can easily stomp flat every enemy that tries.

** Dracula's use of the memetic "[[MythologyGag What is a man...]] [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight but a miserable pile of secrets!]]" during the tutorial may seem like PanderingToTheBase without context at first glance. However, when you look at Roland and the army of Brotherhood knights from his perspective, Dracula could be musing at how the upper echelons of the Brotherhood had most likely created a cover story for [[spoiler:Gabriel's "death"]] after the defeat of the Lords of Shadows. Even if Roland is a high-ranking commander, he might not had been privy to the truth on Dracula [[spoiler: still being {{God}}'s [[TheChosenOne chosen one]], given his [[OhCrap reaction]] when Dracula grabs the cross with no ill-effect, or the prophecy that Gabriel becomes Dracula]]. Given that official chronology places the tutorial stage in the year AD 1547, 500 years after the first game, and the low life-expectancy back then, the Brotherhood would've had ample time to create and hide their new "pile of secrets" - they ''are'' mortal men.

** Dracula's use of the memetic "[[MythologyGag What is a man...]] [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight but a miserable pile of secrets!]]" during the tutorial may seem like PanderingToTheBase without context at first glance. However, when you look at Roland and the army of Brotherhood knights from his perspective, Dracula could be musing at how the upper echelons of the Brotherhood had most likely created a cover story for [[spoiler:Gabriel's "death"]] after the defeat of the Lords of Shadows. Even if Roland is a high-ranking commander, he might not had been privy to the truth on Dracula [[spoiler: still being {{God}}'s [[TheChosenOne chosen one]], given his [[OhCrap reaction]] when Dracula grabs the cross with no ill-effect, or the prophecy that Gabriel becomes Dracula]]. Given that official chronology places the tutorial stage in the year AD 1102, about 55 years after the first game (56, if starting with Gabriel's prologue from ''[=MoF=]'', which happens in 1046), and the low life-expectancy back then, the Brotherhood would've had ample time to create and hide their new "pile of secrets" - they ''are'' mortal men.

** Dracula's use of the memetic "[[MythologyGag What is a man... but a miserable pile of secrets!]]" during the tutorial may seem like PanderingToTheBase without context at first glance. However, when you look at Roland and the army of Brotherhood knights from his perspective, Dracula could be musing at how the upper echelons of the Brotherhood had most likely created a cover story for [[spoiler:Gabriel's "death"]] after the defeat of the Lords of Shadows. Even if Roland is a high-ranking commander, he might not had been privy to the truth on Dracula [[spoiler: still being {{God}}'s [[TheChosenOne chosen one]], given his [[OhCrap reaction]] when Dracula grabs the cross with no ill-effect, or the prophecy that Gabriel becomes Dracula]]. Given that official chronology places the tutorial stage in the year 1102 AD, about 55 years after the first game (56, if starting with Gabriel's prologue from ''[=MoF=]'', which happens in 1046), and the low life-expectancy back then, the Brotherhood would've had ample time to create and hide their new "pile of secrets" - they ''are'' mortal men.

** Dracula's use of the memetic "[[MythologyGag What is a man... but a miserable pile of secrets!]]" during the tutorial may seem like PanderingToTheBase without context at first glance. However, when you look at Roland and the army of Brotherhood knights from his perspective, Dracula could be musing at how the upper echelons of the Brotherhood had most likely created a cover story for [[spoiler:Gabriel's "death"]] after the defeat of the Lords of Shadows. Even if Roland is a high-ranking commander, he might not had been privy to the truth on Dracula [[spoiler: still being {{God}}'s [[TheChosenOne chosen one]], given his [[OhCrap reaction]] when Dracula grabs the cross no ill-effect, or the prophecy that Gabriel becomes Dracula]]. Given that official chronology places the tutorial stage in the year 1102 AD, about 55 years after the first game, and the low life-expectancy back then, the Brotherhood would've had ample time to create and hide their new "pile of secrets" - they ''are'' mortal men.

* CultClassic: Didn't do really well in sales, and got mixed reviews by critics, but got very positive user reviews, spawned a small, yet devoted fanbase, and is generally considered an improvement over the first game by Castlevania fans. Gabriel, and his portrayal of Dracula, as a character, is also very endearing to people who played the game.

** And Dracula himself has a fair share of fangirls.

* NarmCharm / SoBadItsGood: Well, they're certainly upholding this series tradition. See above.

* SignatureScene: [[spoiler: The reunion between [[MyGreatestSecondChance Alucard]] and [[GoodParents Dracula]] is fondly remembered by being a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming and being a great case of ILoveYouVampireSon]]

* MagnificentBastard: This incarnation of Alucard. [[spoiler: He manipulated the events of the entire second game, and succeeded in all of his plans.]]

* AwesomeButImpractical: The Flame Claws skill. Sure, it's the most damaging move in-game (rivaled only by Counterstrike Punch, but, well, the former requires blocking a normal attack before it could be performed), but putting it to good use is impossible due to its unclear aiming, plus one such occurrence drains a ''quarter'' of your maxed-out, non-overcharged Chaos meter. You are better off spending that energy differently.

** Gabriel's [[AcCENTUponTheWrongSylLABle peculiar]] way of pronouncing his assumed name has led people to replacing the 'u' in 'Dracul' to a double 'o', resulting in a admittedly humorous 'Dra''cool'''. [[http://36.media.tumblr.com/10504f418e1a930ae8cb221ac2d23f42/tumblr_mwbfwmVqNT1rym2uyo1_500.png An image of him in shutter shades frequently accompany said gag.]]

** The [[http://41.media.tumblr.com/540d80bdd95461a9a1413d7526c73f52/tumblr_n1tohpur531qhso87o2_500.png “Satan]] [[http://38.media.tumblr.com/1e466d555aa715cd83ac06f5f0f6aa8d/tumblr_inline_n1vpuremVi1r44gxs.jpg Expression.”]] [[labelnote:Explanation]] A.k.a. the SlasherSmile[=s=] both Dracula and [[spoiler: Satan in the possession of Alucard]] make.[[/labelnote]]

** The Toy Maker. In his backstory, he was offered a home by the owner of Bernhard Castle, who ended up summoning a demon to curse him, forcing him to make deathtraps and such until the curse is broken by a child. Once he's reawakened, he suffers from temporary memory loss, and the blood of the castle transforms him into a demon, attacking Dracula. After he turns back to normal, he seems genuinely confused and concerned, and once he remembers who Dracula is (and presumably, what he's done), he breaks down crying.
** Dracula himself. It's quite clear poor Gabriel still retains what made him human, even if his humanity is ''long'' gone. And he's ''utterly miserable'' whenever his attempts [[CardCarryingVillain at enjoying being evil]] fall flat.

* BreatherBoss: Whilst trying to evade him in the garden maze is incredibly frustrating, the actual boss fight against Agreus is considered to be one of the easiest battles in the game due to his predictable attack pattern.

* BestBossEver: Although most of the bosses are awesome (The bosses are a highly praised feature of the game), special mentions goes to [[spoiler: Victor Belmont, for being an epic MirrorBoss, and, Inner Dracula for sheer Nightmare Fuel ]]

* CultClassic: Didn't do really well in sales, and got mixed reviews by critics, but got very positive user reviews, spawned a small, yet devoted fanbase, and is generally considered an improvement over the first game by Castlevania fans. Gabriel, and the portrayal of Dracula, as a character, is also very endearing to people who played the game.

* CriticalDissonance: While it has mid sixties in critic reviews, it's done much better with an average of 80 (XBOX360), 79 (PS3), and 90 (Steam) from users.
* CrossoverShip: Folks at the ''Series/OnceUponATime'' fandom adore shipping Gabriel and Belle [[Creator/RobertCarlyle for some unusual reason]].
* DemonicSpiders: Dark Cultists. Cultists show up just before the game's finale for good reason; they always come in packs and all attack at once, all but one of their attacks is unblockable, they have standard health but can teleport away if they're not locked in a combo for more than three seconds in inclusion to already being able to fly, they can summon a demon portal that if you fail to close quickly will flood you with infected, and if five or more of them are present at once, they can fuse together to become a chaos demon that's hard to kill by normal means, and killing it just makes them turn back into the cultists. And during the endgame and post-game, these are just about the ''only'' enemies you'll fight in the City. Thankfully, the draw-in moves for the void sword and chaos claws (L2+Triangle or LT+Y) utterly destroys them.

* EvilIsCool: Dracula. Highly badass? Check. Highly philosophical?. Check. Highly sympathetic backstory? Check. Monster? Check. Voiced by Creator/RobertCarlyle? CHECK. It's like this trope was made for him. [[spoiler:Then again, [[GoodAllAlong "Evil" is not quite the right term for him]].]]
* EvilIsSexy: Carmilla.

* FoeYayShipping: The Carmilla/Dracula ship started out strong, spawning several of one-shot fanfics, but with time lost most of its influence.

* GameBreaker: The Void Sword's Whirlwind move (Block [LT/L2] + Direct Attack [X/Square] + Move [Left Stick]). Ridiculously quick, costs a pint-sized amount of magic, easy to execute, can stunlock bigger opponents, is devastating to the majority of bosses at higher mastery levels, '''and''' cheesegrates multiple foes if they're stacked into a row. Because of the latter, it is laughably easy to recover ''your whole health bar'' in one single swipe as compared to other, less-effective moves from the same repertoire. Once you discover/master this move it is ''guaranteed'' you will not use anything else to regain health. One drawback? It is ground-based. Meaning any air (harpies, though you can force them to the ground), or otherwise armored foes (Abaddon) cannot be exploited. A must-have skill on [[HarderThanHard Prince of Darkness difficulty.]]

* MemeticMutation: Gabriel's [[AcCENTUponTheWrongSylLABle peculiar]] way of pronouncing his assumed name has led people to replacing the 'u' in 'Dracul' to a double 'o', resulting in a admittedly humorous 'Dra''cool'''. [[http://36.media.tumblr.com/10504f418e1a930ae8cb221ac2d23f42/tumblr_mwbfwmVqNT1rym2uyo1_500.png An image of him in shutter shades frequently accompany said gag.]]

** Satan's curiously placed wings – they jut out from his lower back – has earned him the nickname of “Buttwings”.
** The [[http://41.media.tumblr.com/540d80bdd95461a9a1413d7526c73f52/tumblr_n1tohpur531qhso87o2_500.png “Satan]] [[http://38.media.tumblr.com/1e466d555aa715cd83ac06f5f0f6aa8d/tumblr_inline_n1vpuremVi1r44gxs.jpg Expression”]], aka the SlasherSmile[=s=] both Dracula and [[spoiler: Satan in the possession of Alucard]] make.
** The fact that Google Romanian-English Translate reads the word “Dracul” as ''“the old gentleman”''. [[https://translate.google.com/#ro/en/Dracul Go ahead, try it.]]

--->'''Golden Knight:''' God is with me, monster!

* ThatOneBoss: The Hooded Man, [[spoiler: aka: Victor Belmont]]. He frequently parries your attacks, throws a flurry of projectiles that inflict a lot of damage if you get caught in the barrage, and rarely stays still long enough to hit him with a combo. If you try to jump up to evade his attacks, he will leap up and continue to strike you in mid-air, where you cannot escape his blows. However, parrying ''his'' blows and counterattacking makes him considerably easier.
** The Riders of the Storm are three separate opponents who aren't too challenging to deal with one on one. However, they will not hesitate to strike from behind whilst you are attacking one of the three warriors and they will constantly bombard you with projectiles if you try to create some distance between them. You WILL be slaughtered if you allow all three statues to mob you at the same time.

* TheWoobie: The Toy Maker. In his backstory, he was offered a home by the owner of Bernhard Castle, who ended up summoning a demon to curse him, forcing him to make deathtraps and such until the curse is broken by a child. Once he's reawakened, he suffers from temporary memory loss, and the blood of the castle transforms him into a demon, attacking Dracula. After he turns back to normal, he seems genuinely confused and concerned, and once he remembers who Dracula is (and presumably, what he's done), he breaks down crying.

* FridgeBrilliance: Dracula's dialog at times implies that he still thinks of himself as a sort of hero. Even when he's massacring villages he still acts like he's doing good, saying that he's sending them all to a better place. So, if Dracula isn't a monster, then why are there all these scrolls and memorials around describing him horrifically torturing people for fun? Simple. In the case of the memorials you find around the city in the present day those are all propaganda written by Satan's acolytes, intended to make Dracula out to be worse than he actually was. In the case of the Brotherhood's scrolls that litter the castle, almost all of them describe tortures being inflicted not by Dracula but by his minions who (as this game repeatedly shows) are all only barely controlled by Dracula if at all. While Dracula was definitely a villain prior to the events of this game, he was never as bad as people thought.

* GameBreaker: The Void Sword's Whirlwind move (Block [LT/L2] + Direct Attack [X/Square] + Move [Left Stick]). Ridiculously quick, costs a pint-sized amount of magic, easy to execute, can stunlock bigger opponents, is devastating to the majority of bosses at higher mastery levels, '''and''' cheesegrates multiple foes if they're stacked into a row. Because of the latter, it is laughably easy to recover ''your whole health bar'' in one single swipe as compared to other, less-effective moves from the same repertoire. Once you discover/master this move it is ''guaranteed'' you will not use anything else to regain health. One drawback? It is ground-based. Meaning any air (harpies), or otherwise armored foes (Abaddon) cannot be exploited. A must-have skill on [[HarderThanHard Prince of Darkness difficulty.]]

* EvilIsCool: Dracula. Highly BadAss? Check. Highly philosophical?. Check. Highly sympathetic backstory? Check. Monster? Check. Voiced by Robert Caryle? CHECK. It's like this Trope was made for him. [[spoiler:Then again, [[GoodAllAlong "Evil" is not quite the right term for him]].]]

* GameBreaker: The Void Sword's Whirlwind move (Block [LT/L2]+ Direct Attack [X/Square] + Move [Left Stick]). Ridiculously quick, costs a pint-sized amount of magic, easy to execute, can stunlock bigger opponents, is devastating to the majority of bosses at higher mastery levels, '''and''' cheesegrates multiple foes if they're stacked into a row. Because of the latter, it is laughably easy to recover ''your whole health bar'' in one single swipe as compared to other, less-effective moves from the same repertoire. Once you discover/master this move it is ''guaranteed'' you will not use anything else to regain health. One drawback? It is ground-based. Meaning any air (harpies), or otherwise armored foes (Abaddon) cannot be exploited. A must-have skill on [[HarderThanHard Prince of Darkness difficulty.]]

* CultClassic: Didn't do really well in sales, and got mixed reviews by critics, but got very positive user reviews, and is generally considered an improvement over the first game by Castlevania fans. Gabriel, and the portrayal of Drcaula, as a character, is also very endearing to people who played the game

* CriticalDissonance: While it has mid sixties in critic reviews, it's done much better with an average of 82 and 84 from users.