Topic: Castlevania: Umbra of Sorrow (1999 Fan Project)

[VladCT]

The soundtrack is awesome. People are just lazy in writing comments.

Honestly, I would say something if I could figure out what "A Soldier With a Grudge" is a remix of aside from Sorrow's Distortion. The DCW partition of my mind is currently completely preoccupied with that.

[theplottwist]

Honestly, I would say something if I could figure out what "A Soldier With a Grudge" is a remix of aside from Sorrow's Distortion. The DCW partition of my mind is currently completely preoccupied with that.

To be honest, the most important part you have figured out. I'll give it a while longer to say what the other track is. It is relevant to Tim's character but not to his ultimate fate. It's more of a spin on an idea established before with another character from the series. Chernabogue made it quite complicated to figure it out, which is actually a strong point.

I'll say that the track's name couldn't have been chosen better

[VladCT]

It's more of a spin on an idea established before with another character from the series.

Wait, I think I have a clue on who you're talking about.

[Lelygax]

"A Soldier With a Grudge" is

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Hammer's Theme

, wow, nice one.

Also its nothing serious but I should let Chernabogue know that Soldier is written wrong in the cover image (Solider).

[Dracula9]

But the soldier is Solider Snaker and the reason he's holding a grudge is because his CO keeps confusing him with that bandanna-loving dude from Alaska.

[Shiroi Koumori]

But the soldier is Solider Snaker and the reason he's holding a grudge is because his CO keeps confusing him with that bandanna-loving dude from Alaska.

This is one of the best things I read today! Thanks man! 

[Lelygax]

But the soldier is Solider Snaker and the reason he's holding a grudge is because his CO keeps confusing him with that bandanna-loving dude from Alaska.

It seems that you didn't lose your bone for good jokes.

[theplottwist]

CLICK ME!

Hello, people. It's time for an update! First of all:

As I have introduced before, this is Father Ermingild. Except that now you know what he looks like, thanks to Junki Sakuraba. As it's been long since I last introduced him, I'll jug your memory:

Ermingild is a Catholic exorcist working with the Church staff since 1997, when the town where he preached was attacked by Angolmois and had its inhabitants infected by a sudden outbreak of insanity. Recognizing the threat as the work of a supernatural force, he helped the team end the cult's plans.

From then onwards, Ermingild has become a spy infiltrated amongst the ranks of a mysterious religion in order to find a connection between its leader and Angolmois, the cult planning the lord of darkness's resurrection.

Among the deeds of the priest is the imprisonment of a group of demons responsible for the mass possession of several people during the 90s.

------

As you know, the people on this team are working a lot to bring the project to life. On the last update I talked about how there were game-design concepts being laid down and some of the ideas for it, and today I can already say that I've already seen Julius walk around. Between then and now, also, some ideas changed as we debated them, and now we know how the character-switching will work, for instance, or even item and enemy names. We also know now more or less how the game's flow will go, changing the perspective of the player every so often so the game and the story can work together to benefit each other. This sounds a bit cryptic now, but will make sense in the future.

Anyway, to illustrate this story-game interaction idea right now, I'll talk a little about something we've introduced that Lords of Shadow also did, but that we feel wasn't done very well -- mid-game dialogue. Like in LoS, the plan is to have certain dialogues play simultaneous to the gameplay. Yet, different from LoS, our mid-game dialogue will not repeat and will almost always seek to add something of relevance to the story or to the character development, aiming to enrich the gameplay and diminish the idle time imposed to the player by lightening the weight of the scripted cutscenes.

We have four characters walking around inside a demon-infested castle, sometimes together, sometimes alone. So we thought that it'd be nice to develop the "Talk" function from Portrait of Ruin into something more useful and natural, having the characters converse with each other without interrupting the gameplay while expressing their feelings or further developing their backgrounds. These will also be present during boss battles, for instance, but remember how Zobek constantly gloats the same lines over and over at Gabriel? Yeah we're not having that. Whatever short lines the character speaks, they'll play only once and will have a definite objective to them.

And, since we're talking dialogue...

"The coming of the King of Terror enshrouds the land in black blanked. But I can see it, a glimmer amidst the night. I can see the darkness wrestling with this flame that won't vanish... It's a quarrel which I'm unable to predict the outcome from, but that can spell the end for the entire humanity..."

Chernabogue has joined us as a voice actor too, and will be playing Nostradamus!

Chernabogue is french and Nostradamus was french. We needed Nostradamus to display his roots in a somewhat stereotypical manner but still be respectful to the language, so Chernabogue KNOWS what a frenchman sounds like more than anyone on the team. He was the go-to guy to incarnate the prophet and has shown that he will pull it through with flying colors. There is a reason why he's sounding so far away... Maybe you can already tell what it is.

Chernabogue, however, isn't the only one joining the voice-acting ranks. I've previously revealed Dracula9 as the Count but wasn't able to fully demonstrate what he's capable of. So, today, I'm (re)introducing Dracula9 as the Count and adding Belmontoya as Julius Belmont! Check this out!

Belmontoya has done an EXCELLENT job at voicing young Julius and has cemented himself very early on. As I heard him talk I knew he was Julius just as I knew Dracula9 was Alucard.

Julius has spoken very little yet, but if you have any further doubts, let me demolish them for you with this one short snippet. And yes, this is Belmontoya acting exactly what you think he is probably.

There is so much I want to talk about right now but I can't just yet. So I'll be saying that yes, you can now have more hope for a fangame, and that the story is almost completelly defined from start to finish. What I must tell in advance is that the next update may take quite a while because, when it comes, it'll contain what everyone is waiting to see. Also, check the front page as it has been slightly tweaked to contain the relevant info about this "fangame" stuff.

To end this post, I'll leave you with two more tracks by Chernabogue:
Words of Wisdom (Charlotte's Theme)
Sanguine Moonblossom (Alucard's Theme)

...And, on top of the previous work, a little something by Aensland, whom I can't show everything yet, but that has also pulled an outstanding job on this project, flying much higher than I had antecipated and dropping the team's jaw every time:

Hesitant Night (The Count's Theme)
? ? ? ?

[VladCT]

holy shit wavs lol

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Also, Chaconne in C Moll? Interesting.

[theplottwist]

holy shit wavs lol

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Also, Chaconne in C Moll? Interesting.

Amongst other tiny surprises yet to appear

[Belmontoya]

It's an honor to voice Julius!

The artwork is looking nice too!

I gotta give props to Plottwist. He's putting a high level of care and attention to detail into this project and it shows!

I'm excited to be a part of the cast!

[aensland]

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Also, Chaconne in C Moll? Interesting.

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It will be when I manage to complete it...

It's an honor to voice Julius!

So, you're the one who voiced Julius.
I was impressed with your performance, hopefully my bgm will make justice to your acting.

flying much higher than I had antecipated

╭( ･ㅂ･)و～♪ !

[BLOOD MONKEY]

h y p e h y p e h y p e h y p e h y p e h y p e h y p e h y p e h y p e

[Shiroi Koumori]

Ahhhh!! Boarding the hype train~

[theplottwist]

Hey dudes, I'm happy that you're showing interest. On the wake of the update I decided to make one more track available, featuring the work of Dracula9. I've shown nothing from him yet because the dude did some of the tracks appearing only at the end of the project, and I can't spoil those.

...That said, here is one somewhat early-project track. Me sharing this could mean spoiling the others I fought not to, but then again, I cannot hold back the artist's work:

The Beginning

Yes you know the name, but Dracula9 turned the concept completelly on its head at my request. There is a good explanation for that, but I cannot provide it just now. This track is to be enjoyed by what it is and not by what you expect it to be.