Topic: Alec's crazy gameplay idea

[Bad Wolf]

So, I was playing Dawn of Sorrow, and I saved my game. For me, the save animation of that game is just kind of... hypnotizing.

But, instead of just blindly watching Soma absorb the little sparkles, this time I got to thinking: what if the save rooms had a role in gameplay?

For those of you who may be thinking: "WHAT THE HELL IS HE TALKING ABOUT?!", I will clarify. In the course of my thinking, I developed the whole system in my head for a third (and, by God I hope, final) Sorrow game; throughout the castle, there would be save rooms (of course). But, the little orbs from DoS would be little bits and pieces of the castle's power, and the more Soma uses the save rooms, the closer to becoming the Dark Lord he would become. If he used the save rooms too many times, then he would become Dracula at the end of the game.

That would be a feature of Hard Difficulty mode.

On Normal, there would be both good and evil save rooms; good save rooms (denoted with the statue of an angel, with white, silver, or gold orbs) help purify Soma, while the evil save rooms (denoted by a statue of Dracula, Lucifer, or some other archdemon, denoted by black, red, or purple orbs) corrupt him further. If you beat the game without ever using an evil Save Room, you unlock a special ending to the game, where Dracula's Power is completely purified, and Soma becomes an angel-ish character. If you use both kinds of save rooms, then Soma would get a normal ending, and if you used more evil save rooms (or use them more often than you used) the good, as well as finsih the game with a predominantly evil corruption bar, you get the bad ending, where Soma becomes Dracula.

There would be a corruption bar on the status screen denoting how corrupted Soma has become, so that you could keep track of what endings you'll likely be able to get. Keep in mind that if the player used an evil save room even ONCE, it throws the whole possiblity of getting the best ending out the window; even if Soma has been completely purified, the good ending would no longer be accessible.

In addition, various choices you make throughout the game would influence your corruption bar, weapons you used would also influence it, and maybe even some locations in the castle would add evil to the corruption bar steadily (areas like the various underworld stages; i.e, the Abyss), but as long as you only used good save points and were purified by the end of the final boss fight, you could still get the good ending.

My idea for the title of this game Castlevania: Darkness of Sorrow (in keeping with the glorious DS in the name that seems required for a DS game. See: Full Metal Alchemist: Dual Sympathy, Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword, and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow).

Discuss, revise, post your own ideas along this vein of thinking.

[Reinhart77]

I like the concept.  It might lead to some frustrating gameplay to the average gamer that might try to stretch themselves too far to avoid using a "bad" save.  But it's great for us hard-corers.  But if someone gets frustrated, they can always just face the facts that they're gonna need those bad saves and resign themselves to getting a bad ending.

I wish there was a mode where you turn off the "heal" ability when you save a game.  Then it'd be more like the save crystals in Curse of Darkness, and you would be more compelled to try not getting hit, even during a relatively easy stretch.  I try to handicap myself sometimes to go far without saving, which I find is a more enjoyable handicap than increasing the games difficulty level.  But it's not acceptable to start at the beginning of a game if you slip up, so you have to save at some point.  But the dang save points always heal you up.  So, to counter that effect, I make a rule that before I use a save room, I have to be at 100% health, so I need to use potions or whatever prior to saving.  Oh, and try to live off the food and potions you find, don't just buy them from a shop in this mode.