Topic: Castlevania AOS Genya Arikado Hack [RELEASED]

[DarkPrinceAlucard]

Hello, after completing one of my personal dream hacks with my Hugh Baldwin hack release I decided to go to another dream hack that I have always wanted made but until now lacked the means to do it, and that is to make Genya Arikado (Alucard alter ego) a playable character within Aria of Sorrow!

Special thanks to the very talented sprite artist Julian Ordonez Paz for making me a Genya Arikado sprite sheet to match up with Soma.
 
EDIT

This topic is now a release hack topic so I decided to edit the second half of my initial post,

Here are some images and video of the final product


Images

(click to show/hide)

Video





There are a number of other changes as well such as elements from symphony of the night being carried over such as,
The Alastor Soul has been replaced with the fully leveled Sword Familiar
The Imp Soul has been replaced with the Demonl Familiar
The Flying Armor Soul has been replaced with the Faerie Familiar
The Devil Soul has been replaced with the stone Gargoyle/Demon Alucard form from SOTN
The Final Guard Soul has been replaced with the Alucard Shield
And
The Balmung sword has been replaced with a weaponized version of the Sword Familiar fully leveled

This hack works with the Castlevania Aria of Sorrow US version of the game, it also requires a IPS patcher


Enjoy

Download

http://www.mediafire.com/download/6e8088eawr83vn9/Castlevania+AOS+Genya+Arikado+Hack+1.1+.rar

[zangetsu468]

Third pic looks okay.

What happened to his right shoulder in the second pic? #straightouttatetris

[Shiroi Koumori]

Oh! I'm looking forward to this.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

What happened to his right shoulder in the second pic? #straightouttatetris

Never mind the shoulder, what the hell happened to his LEG in the third pic? That is clearly not healthy for any man, dhampir or otherwise. It looks like someone carved a tetris block out of his thigh!

I love the concept though and I always wondered how Arikado would have played as opposed to Alucard.

[VladCT]

Can we see screenshots that don't have the filter on?

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Why do you have the HD filter on?
If you're gonna showcase graphical hacks of GBA titles, please use the original resolution, at maybe 2x the size.

These filtered shots are gonna give people the wrong idea about the art quality, etc.

[DarkPrinceAlucard]

To answer your questions about the sprite quality these are all works in progress, the artist Julian merely released these as tests to show and is still currently working on polishing them up and I only showcased this hack to give you a bit of a preview of the type of hack I am working on, this is NOT the final version, and as far as the graphics filter, I left it on because thats how I play the game, I'll take some screenshots without the filter in a bit with the emulator capture shot.

Post has been updated at to top, no filters and shot in original gba resolution.

[Claimh Solais]

Think it's possible at all to place Hikaru Midorikawa's voice clips with Ryotaro Okiayu's to make it really feel like playing as Arikado?

Just kidding. That'd probably be REALLY hard to do. And in all seriousness, while the concept is cool, the sprites themselves look a bit wonky. The lack of a right arm in the first pic, but still seeing his shoulder, kinda makes it look like his arm is behind him and he's doing something like scratch his butt or pulling out a wedgie. The second screen just seems kinda strange, though it is mid-animation, and I'd rather see it in motion before really commenting on it.

The third one, though, is probably the strangest, being that it clearly looks like a custom sprite, and doesn't really mesh well with AoS' sprite quality. He's standing up to straight, and is lacking in any real power behind his attack. Also, he's got a bit of a duck-butt/pigeon-chest stance going on, similar to Johnny Bravo. I feel like maybe moving his upper chest to the right a pixel or two might help it a little.

Granted, these are test sprites, as you said. Still thought I'd give some feedback on it. That being said, it'd be cool to see some of it in motion whenever you progress that far.

[DarkPrinceAlucard]

Just kidding. That'd probably be REALLY hard to do. And in all seriousness, while the concept is cool, the sprites themselves look a bit wonky. The lack of a right arm in the first pic, but still seeing his shoulder, kinda makes it look like his arm is behind him and he's doing something like scratch his butt or pulling out a wedgie. The second screen just seems kinda strange, though it is mid-animation, and I'd rather see it in motion before really commenting on it.

The first sprite you mention is the same Arikado stance from the real AOS game, did you dislike Arikado's stance from the orginal AOS game?

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Yeah those are the original sprites, mostly.
His stance in AoS is very weird.  Sort of something you'd see in KoF or Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.

Like this, but with a hand in the pocket or a hand obscured from the camera's view.

[Claimh Solais]

The first sprite you mention is the same Arikado stance from the real AOS game, did you dislike Arikado's stance from the orginal AOS game?

It's been a very long time since I've played any of the GBA Castlevania games, so you'll have to forgive me on that. But yes, I thought his original sprites were pretty bad, like most, if not all, of the NPCs in the GBAvanias (aside from CotM, since as far as I remember, pretty much everyone was on par with Nathan's sprites).

That being said, that doesn't mean the sprite can't be polished.

[zangetsu468]

The first sprite you mention is the same Arikado stance from the real AOS game, did you dislike Arikado's stance from the orginal AOS game?

I actually like that stance.

The reason I didn't previously comment on it is because I was on a mobile device, I couldn't see the whole image if I scrolled across.

[DarkPrinceAlucard]

That being said, that doesn't mean the sprite can't be polished.

It could be polished but I like the stance as is, its as Jorge said earlier, his stance is something akin to the "to cool for school" type of stance popular in japanese culture like in King of Fighters.

His arm/hand is simply obscured and probably just in his pocket or out of view, its not all that weird once you think about it, I never considered it a problem at all.

[Claimh Solais]

I know that it's the typical cool-guy pose, and his hand is definitely in his pocket. All I'm doing is simply just offering my opinion, and if you don't wanna change it and think it looks fine as is, that's understandable and I respect that. I'm just saying that I think it's always looked awkward and looks like he has his hand inside the back of his pants rather than the side pocket.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

Yeah those are the original sprites, mostly.
His stance in AoS is very weird.  Sort of something you'd see in KoF or Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.

Well, remember that Iga is a flaming JoJo fanboy -- it's very likely an intentional homage.