At the recent Eurogamer Expo, amid the gloomy gun-metal grey environ­ments (in-game and out) and the shoot-em-ups in space, a little square of light on the floor – where several large plasma screens stood – revealed itself, illuminated by a gorgeous green forest, shot through with golden shafts of sunlight as Gabriel Belmont, foll­ower of the Brotherhood of Light, dispatched one goblin after another with a whiplash strike of his pyro­kinetic Combat Cross, the ugly varmints splattering against the inside of the screen in tasty gloops of raspberry-jam blood. Sold.

Stretching right back to the heady days of 1986 and those wondrous new worlds of pixel-thick platformers, Konami’s vampire-hunting Castlevania (in its many incarnations) is a title remembered with much affection by older gamers. That ominously fashionable word ‘reboot’ applies here, as Gabriel takes a circuitous route through fabulous ruins festooned with forest vegetation and swamps where beasties lurk, waiting to drag him down into the slime… and there’s seemingly not a vampire in sight. But, ah, patience – Carmilla will come!

The game is set in a mediæval Europe of Hammer Horror vill­ages and ruined cities to make Ozymandias proud and where the ‘end of days’ looms over humanity. The Lords of Shadow have cast darkness across the land, threatening Heaven’s alliance with Earth, preventing the souls of the dead from resting in peace, and disseminating evil creatures to menace the living. One of those souls trapped in limbo just happ­ens to be Gabriel’s slain wife, Marie. Gabriel quests forth, like any self-respecting fantasy hero should, to defeat the forces of evil and bring back his love from the darkness. The quest involves Gabriel’s search for God and Devil masks that, when combined, harness awesome power, and he pursues them through a frenetic, combat-heavy storyline containing lashings of cutaways.

Gabriel is voiced by Robert Carlyle, and his mentor Zobek by Sir Patrick Stewart, who also narr­ates the game; just two among an impressive roster handl­ing the voice acting duties and an indicat­ion of the sort of class that Castle­vania: Lords of Shadow just oozes.

The gameplay is great fun. While not necessarily bringing anything new to the digital sandbox, the core commands on the keypad and the combo moves available are addictively entertaining. The same goes for the boss battles, where God of War and Shadow of the Colossus are never far away, as Gabriel fights against impossibly massive opponents for all his warrior life is worth. To defeat them, Gabriel will have to employ strategies utilising a variety of skills and magical attainments, whether it’s the Combat Cross grapple hook, or various elixirs and spells, unlocked and hopefully mastered along the way.

While there isn’t really one major innovation here that future games will imitate, and while perhaps one of its greatest achievements is the illusion of a free-roaming environment, Castlevania does look bloody gorgeous.

Yes, there are some annoying puzzles and ledge leaps of the finicky, high-maintenance, just-so kind that recall the early outings of Lara Croft; but any caveats and carping about an air of familiarity are quickly magicked away by one of the most stunning pieces of gaming eye-candy and hack ’n’ slash immers­ion seen this year.