Topic: Harmony of Despair (The next Castlevania game?)

[Sonic_Reaper]

Maybe it's just me, but it bothers me, a lot, that Kojima didn't create new art for Fuma and Simon.  All the recycling apart, one of the worst acts of laziness on their part.

[affinity]

Maybe it's just me, but it bothers me, a lot, that Kojima didn't create new art for Fuma and Simon.  All the recycling apart, one of the worst acts of laziness on their part.

it's easy to call anyone lazy without understanding their decisions.    Did you ever consider it was a design decision to use what they chosen as their art?   Fuma's for extra retro flavor, and Simon's because they felt that art already best fits?   

[Sonic_Reaper]

No, sorry, you can't justify this one.  Too bad.  She created created original art for characters that she's already redesigned, and didn't have art before.  Richter, Maria, Jonathan, Charlotte, and so on.  Simon's was the redesign artwork, yet, his character is his original 8-bit sprite.  Why would they use 8-bit artwork for Fuma then and not Simon?  Or why not use Simon's new sprite from Chronicles then instead?  It's ridiculously inconsistent and anyone that doesn't see that is in heavy denial.

[crisis]

It's ridiculously inconsistent and anyone that doesn't see that is in heavy denial.

well that's just your opinion ^.^;

[affinity]

She created created original art for characters that she's already redesigned, and didn't have art before.  Richter, Maria, Jonathan, Charlotte, and so on.  Simon's was the redesign artwork, yet, his character is his original 8-bit sprite.  Why would they use 8-bit artwork for Fuma then and not Simon?  Or why not use Simon's new sprite from Chronicles then instead?  It's ridiculously inconsistent and anyone that doesn't see that is in heavy denial.

without knowing their complete reasons, it's unnecessary to assume they were simply lazy about it.   Also Fuma's art must have been chosen to make them stand out apart from the rest of the characters, since they didn't get any sequels and their game/title remains a 8-bit relic, so their artwork would reflect that. 

And it doesn't need to be consistent in this case because HD is a combination of classic and modern 2-D CV art.   

Look at Chapter 10 and 11, they are 8-bit instead of the graphics style of the other chapters, but instead of labeling it as inconsistent, just see it as art as whole because no matter the differences in art, art is still one whole and they still share consistency in being 2-D and composed of dots.

also Chapter 10 already answers the 8-bit Simon question. it's the original 8-bit castle, and 8-bit Simon would represent that chapter better than Chronicles Simon.  As for their status art, it could have been chosen to keep Simon artwork-wise consistent with the other characters status/menu artwork, it has nothing to do whether it's from Chronicles or not.  That is Simon's current official Konami appearance, so that's what they used. 

As for why didn't Simon get new updated art like the others, they were either content with that particular artwork of Simon, or Kojima only redrew the ones she agreed to make new artwork for and new Simon art was not part of the deal at the time.

[Sonic_Reaper]

That sounds like a typical developer response.

Here's what really happened.  Kojima signed a contract to design new artwork for X number of characters.  She did.  The DLC content was released, one after the other.  The success of the DLC was more than was anticipated.  They decided to start working on 8-bit characters and levels.  Kojima had already completed what was asked of her in her contract, and she was currently busy, so could not come on to complete Fuma and Simon.  Konami said "meh", so they used pre-existing artwork.  Not very complicated, but it makes the character select/preparatory screen seem a little inconsistent.

[affinity]

That sounds like a typical developer response.

Here's what really happened.  Kojima signed a contract to design new artwork for X number of characters.  She did.  The DLC content was released, one after the other.  The success of the DLC was more than was anticipated.  They decided to start working on 8-bit characters and levels.  Kojima had already completed what was asked of her in her contract, and she was currently busy, so could not come on to complete Fuma and Simon.  Konami said "meh", so they used pre-existing artwork.  Not very complicated, but it makes the character select/preparatory screen seem a little inconsistent.

it may only appear inconsistent in Simon's case, but most people don't care because they still get what they wanted from 8-bit Simon.   

[Puwexil]

Even aside from Kojima's Simon design not falling in line with the CV1 sprite's appearance, it's jarring when a piece of art she did over a decade ago is put next to her current work. That's a long time for anyone's art style to change and evolve.

heh debate about visual consistency and integrity of presentation in hodespair

[KaZudra]

on the contrary, Simon's Sprite looks nothing like him even in the original
He's A Short-haired dude with a hooded tunic.

Even Richter has Design Flaws, even after all these years he still has that silly Blue Mullet.
and don't vevn get me started on how lazy SoTN was with Richter, Give him new sprites only for cutscenes and then shamelessly recycle the blue mullet.

[Kusanagi]

That inconsistency has bothered me a little, but then again most of the game's stuff was cut and pasted from the previous titles but with a bit of a touch up. I won't say Konami was lazy; perhaps they went with this to use nostalgia factors with fans (and went overboard for some people's tastes). Or perhaps there was time issues/programming issues, we can only speculate as to what happened but we cannot be definite. Though the past track record shows that they reused stuff like sprites before, I don't think they saw the need to redo them if they looked already pretty good. There is what Sonic_Reaper said about the artist being busy at that point in time, but they could have just used the original sprite image as a nostalgia tactic again. Or even if they got another artist to attempt to work on Simon and Fuma's character image, their style will still be notably different than the original artist. So "better to play with nostalgia than say we couldn't get the original artist back to work on them", is a possible conclusion Konami had. Granted it might have ended better if another artist redrew Simon and Fuma, but we can't say for sure that Konami was being lazy.

The monster sprites in particular were consistent throughout Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin, while OoE threw in new monsters but the sprite quality was pretty similar from what I've seen. So even if they had redone the monster and character sprites, would the gameplay really change much? I'd much rather play a game that's fun in my opinion, vs playing something that's made to look pretty but isn't fun at all. Granted not everything in Harmony of Despair was done perfectly, but it still had the fun factor for a good number of players, and its the first multiplayer castlevania to my knowledge.

Not to go off on a tangent, but Affinity makes a good point that Harmony of Despair is better than nothing for the anniversary. The game is there for those who want it, not everyone is a fan of the game but you can't deny that some clocked in lots of hours into the 360 version. PS3 users deserve their chance to play the game and decide for themselves if the game is to their taste or not.

on the contrary, Simon's Sprite looks nothing like him even in the original
He's A Short-haired dude with a hooded tunic.

Even Richter has Design Flaws, even after all these years he still has that silly Blue Mullet.
and don't vevn get me started on how lazy SoTN was with Richter, Give him new sprites only for cutscenes and then shamelessly recycle the blue mullet.

The Saturn version was more complete to my understanding, as they used Richter in his new costume vs what they did in the PSX version. Even some areas were cut off and the Alucard spear was no where to be found in the PSX version. Perhaps laziness, or perhaps limitations, speculation again is the best we can do. Besides that, SotN and Rondo of blood were more than good enough to leave those details as just nit picks at best xD Bet the same can be said of our classic Simon; for as long as the original gameplay to a degree is the same, not many will complain.

Going back to Harmony of Despair, my only nit pick is Simon and Fuma as a sprite size and their respective stages. Makes Simon and Fuma look realistic and the others look like overgrown characters in their specific chapters, but in the normal chapters they look dwarf/fun sized in comparison to everyone else.