Departing from the classic and well established formula, Konami showed off its new look for the Castlevania franchise at E3 with Castlevania Lords of Shadow. Our hands-on impressions of the game were positive, and there is still a lot we're hoping to see and hear about the game before it comes out later this year. As we saw in the other Castlevania games on display from Konami at E3, Konami isn't giving up at all on the style of game that has built such an awesome reputation for this franchise over the years. Instead of robbing from Peter to pay Paul, Konami seems to be doing a damn good job of pleasing everybody, at least in the Castlevania world.

The gameplay segment we jumped in on was a barn-burner. The playable character is Gabriel, a death-dealing fury of a man that is every bit of what you would expect from a Castlevania game. Set on a dark forest road, Castlevania Lords of Shadow quickly dials up the tension with a slew of monsters that slink from out of the woods. Imagine fast-moving creatures that look a lot like the beast from American Werewolf in London, but in packs of three and four. You'll take them out with a combination of slashing distance attacks, and devastating close combat techniques. Powered-up attacks capable of knocking down a group of enemies make things easier, and we got a good general sense of the lead character's agile combat style. After taking out a group of enemies, we jumped on horseback and sped down the road, pursued by werewolves mounted on what looked a bit like killer Banthas...

The combination of ground combat and mounted action made Castlevania Lords of Shadow damned exciting, and everything from the perspective of control felt on target, if in need of some slight tuning. The difference between this being a truly memorable title and one we play more out of deference to the license will be in how tightly the controls are refined before launch. The visual design, music, and storytelling we saw displayed in our demo convinced us that Castlevania Lords of Shadow is well on its way to defining what we imagined Castlevania would look like with a third dimension.