Topic: Castlevania: Symphony of the night HACKED! I bet you thought I had quit? ;)

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

I'm sure that a well-crafted 'reimagining' of those stages wouldn't be impossible to implement.  Plus it's nice to have a connector between the caverns and the gallery.

[Esco]

Everyone discussing the concept of new and re-imagined stages

............ on that note, if anyone feels like touching up some tiles from Harmony of despair's skull cave let me know. I have an extreme shortage of tiles for "new" areas.  So the more help I can get with touching up tiles, the more new areas I can put into the game.

I could also use cemetery tiles and forest tiles. Fair warning: if anyone points to a tile set from super ghouls n ghosts or demon's crest they instantly go on my blocked list for spewing such blasphemy in my presence! LOL 

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

There are some graveyard background tiles in DraculaXX (SNES). 
Castlevania: Dracula X - Stage 4′
Check at 3:39 on the Boss Stage.

I can remove the stalactite/stalagmite parts and just have the graveyard parts.
There's also some nice dark graveyard tiles, believe it or not, in Circle of the Moon.  Again, they would need to be retooled/retrofitted, but they're pretty good for an underground cemetery:
Castlevania - Circle of the Moon - Stage 1 - Catacombs . Part 2
(right at the beginning of the video)

And, no one has shown you the one in Oblivion Ridge (Ecclesia)?  That one is on a nice sunset autumn-ish background
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia #37- Boss- Gravedorcus and Oblivion Ridge 2
(around 4:13)

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin Walkthrough (Deep Within the Forest Pt. 16)

Portrait of Ruin also comes through with some more nice graveyard tiles.  They even put a foreground graveyard part, enemy tombstones, and background tiles.
(check around 4:29)

[Esco]

Excellent work Jorge; funny how you notice these little things that even after YEARS of playing all these games I did not recall in the least.  Those will all do great, however while the circle of the moon ones look really good and I know where to find them,the million dollar question now is where can I find rips of the POR and OOE backgrounds?

I know where to find Drac X ones, but they suck, lol.

P.S. For the moment, the graveyard I am going to setup is actually going to be outside, lead to a bridge, then the bridge will lead to a forest area. 

[Inccubus]

That's a great idea! Having a bit of an outdoor area will definitely flesh out the world of SotN nicely.

I always wondered how bad-ass the DXX swamp cave background would have looked like with multiple layers instead of the flat crap we got.

[Las]

I somewhat agree incubus. I liked the haunted prison,plus the depressing music fits the mood for that level. The garden would be better imo but the enemies are cartoonish looking imo. Especially flying dolphins?? Can anyone justify that in a castlevania game? THe samurai boss,though a challenge, does not act like a ninja or samurai imo. He's way to slow and seems to have this silly celebration after attacking you(shakes his head),leaving him vulnerable. Which makes him easy to beat. Purple and yellow did not go imo(Oakland raiders grey and silver color would be better). He needed to be way more baddass than that. I do agree the haunted prison should be larger and have a boss? why not? But i have to say the creature in general wasn't the most impressivbe boss imo. I'd rather have seen a true frankenstein's monster like in PoR. That one kicked total ass. Even though they never had the idea then, someone like the forgotten one from LoI would be good too, just downsized so he's doable and in 16-bit. Even though SOTN/Nitm are right up their at the top imo. I think in general letting go of bosses that appear as regular enemies later would be better too. Like karasmen, possibly slogra and gaibon. And implementing bosses that show up once throughout the game. I had the same issues with bosses in castelvania 3. Why do they show up again in later stages if you beat them? just food for thought!

[DarkPrinceAlucard]

IIRC, again, Esco has stated that he doesn't plan to include the Saturn stages'cause they suck ass.

I disagree.

But it is his hack and his work so my opinion would mean less than nothing lol.

I do however hope that there is some new areas to the castle in this hack.

Maybe something that replaces the areas used in the saturn version with something thought up by Esco.

[X]

I personally agree that the two saturn stages of NitM should be brought back for this hack. They added more to the castle even if the enemies were a joke. I was always disappointing upon playing SotN in DXC only to find that those two areas weren't in the game  And I also agree that they should be made larger. And Esco I did a little scouting for you and found that The Spriter's Resource has the background tiles and sprites you're looking for 

[Esco]

I personally agree that the two saturn stages of NitM should be brought back for this hack. They added more to the castle even if the enemies were a joke. I was always disappointing upon playing SotN in DXC only to find that those two areas weren't in the game  And I also agree that they should be made larger. And Esco I did a little scouting for you and found that The Spriter's Resource has the background tiles and sprites you're looking for 

Unless it is somewhere else besides the pages for POR and OOE, no they do not. 

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Esco,

I can edit these backgrounds.  I personally do not think the DraculaXX ones suck, but I will concede that, on their own, they would not hold water, and require some editing.  However, this is the case for all backgrounds taken from other games.  The DraculaXX ones suffer in that they're in the same layer as the stalactites, so they need to be edited out, as well as having their color palette re-examined.

I encourage you to let me know what direction you are taking with regards to this, as I can probably help with the editing so that they do not look out of place and match the general style.

Also, would you be willing to compromise and create the NitM Saturn stages if there were new backgrounds and artwork for them?  It seems like you have a bias against the NitM stages because 'they're ugly'... but if you're the game designer, you can reimagine these stages in a way that would improve upon them vastly.  In this way you're both catering to the fans of the stages (many concede that the graphics for them would need to be improved) and would be adding some new content to the game.

New content is always good.

I have seen those backgrounds online before.  I'm sure our CV Fans here can find them.  If not, I can probably rip them.

EDIT:
The Spriters' Resource actually has the entire CotM Catacombs map, and has the separate layer for the tombstones highlighted.
They probably don't like if I hotlink, so here's a link to the page itself:
Spriters' Resource CotM Catacomb Map

EDIT:
They also have tombstones in Harmony of Dissonance's "Approach of Deplore" (Wailing Way):
Spriters' Resource HoD Approach of Deplore

[Esco]

Sorry Jorge, but at this time discussing further stage development is out of the question. I have too many other things that must be done first. At this point there are 4 stages I would really like to include: a cemetery/forest (the only CONFIRMED one), a skeleton cave, a ghostship, and a torture chamber/cursed prison. Anything else is not even being considered right now and won't be for a long time.

I can however say this with utmost certainty: I will NEVER reproduce the saturn exclusive prison and garden.... EVER! And no, the "community's" opinion will not affect my decision. These areas are god awful as a whole and 90% of their enemies are pure cartoony trash. If made a garden or a cursed prison, they would be totally different layout, enemy, and gfx wise (though I may use most of the cursed prison tiles themselves since they look good)

As for the links, thanks but I have the stuff from Spriters-resource already; I actually spend a LOT of time looking thru that place.  I am however still in need of a site with more DOS, POR or OOE tiles primarily. At this time I am primarily trying to gather up EVERYTHING that I can, so I can then figure out from there what I can and cannot create.

I am not sure what you mean by what "direction" I am taking, but I did send you a U2U about it. And if you want to assist it would definitely be very helpful to me as my artistic skills are GOD AWFUL! 

[Inccubus]

...THe samurai boss,though a challenge, does not act like a ninja or samurai imo.

That's because he's not. The bosses name is Skeleton Leader, and he's basically a beefed up Skeleton Knight somewhat similar to the Skull Knight from CV3.

Cartoony NitM enemies are shit.

Agreed. I'd say the only worthwhile enemy in the entire bunch is the will'o'wisp and a couple of the new skeleton enemies.

[X]

That's because he's not. The bosses name is Skeleton Leader, and he's basically a beefed up Skeleton Knight somewhat similar to the Skull Knight from CV3.

Isn't the Skeleton Leader a reuse of the Skeleton Knight from Rondo of Blood? The sprites look as such to me.

[Inccubus]

Not even remotely dude.

This is Skeleton Leader:

This is the Rondo Skeleton Knight:

http://youtu.be/X0UKWDsoStM