No, please not more recycling...
There's almost no other way for low budget games to survive these days. IGA specifically said in an interview recently what everyone already knows: the recycling done on the CV titles was to cut down on the budgets of the games to keep the games above the unprofitable line, i.e. the death line. Huge, high selling franchises are what can afford all new assets every game, and even they probably reuse a lot of stuff people wouldn't notice or that feels natural to carry over. For example, CoD probably reuses gun meshes and textures because why remodel the same model of gun for each game? Also generally games like that only have a tiny enemy variety because they're limited to humans by the setting, so that helps them in a way something like CV couldn't take advantage of. In CV we expected a huge enemy variety and the only way to keep the budget low and still have it was the plumb the depths of past games for assets.
Aaand this is what I was thinking about a more Shanoa-like design for the main character. 100% less jpop-star looking. Opinions? (Artwork's from a close friend, btw).
http://iga-bloodstained.tumblr.com/post/119565183196/miriam
Wow, I like that more than the official art. I'm still "okay" with the official art though, although I do wish it was darker, but maybe it won't make too much of a difference for what the model looks like in-game, which is what matters. In-game models will often look a bit different than the concept art (although less so in 2.5D).