I'm currently in Chapter 11 of Castlevania: Lords of Shadows, it's basically a God of War clone with some elements of Shadow of the Colossus mixed in in both the story and gameplay. I used to think I didn't really like GoW gameplay, but now I'm thinking I just hated Kratos and the Greek setting and the gameplay was it's saving grace.

It's a nice reboot entry with plenty of series in-jokes spread throughout the game, and while I already had the ending spoiled for me (though this twist is what actually made me finally buy it) but the story isn't half bad and having Patrick Stewart play a large role in the games story as a prominent character and as the narrator, really makes me excited to see the start of new chapters. The game play is pretty good, though the platforming segments suffer from the bad camera changes due to pre-rendered backgrounds. It wasn't so bad in the starting chapters but some of the later chapters become really frustrating because either the controls reverse when the camera changes in mid movement onto a new screen, or sometimes the controls get stuck when you are trying to activate levers. Button placement is also a mess as the R2 and L3 buttons have too many abilities attached to them and the circumstances that change the activation of one ability over another is very slim. I'm pretty bad about mashing in the analog sticks when I'm moving so having them actually use them as buttons for absorbing magic (which keeps you stationary) as well as movement can be frustrating.

Overall, it's flawed but pretty fun.