Topic: Konami is considering making games for the Switch, namedrops Castlevania

[Chernabogue]

Ugh, the Switch. I'm not interested at all in that console, make that potential CV game a crossplatform one, please.

But it's nice to see CV is still considered! Is Konami afraid of Bloodstained's potential success?

[theplottwist]

2 D linear platformers are so out of date at this point... The gaming medium has evolved, embrace that.  Doesn't have to be metroidvania, but evolve the style.  Something like DMC could work (In terms of gameplay) but I'd rather see an amalgam of the new Zelda and dark souls.

"It's old, therefore it's crap"

No.

Appealing to novelty or "evolution" is completelly disregarding that ACTUAL DEV SKILL is what makes a game good. The game can be a "2D with evolved style, something like DMC or an amalgam of Zelda and Dark Souls" and be great, or still be utter shit. It can be a classic sidescrolling and be great, or still be utter shit. "The gaming medium has evolved, embrace that" embrace what? The subjective "NO LINEAR PROGRESSION ALLOWED BECAUSE NOBODY DOES IT ANYMORE" rule?

Case in point: Mirror of Fate. Tried to "embrace the medium" and mash 3D concepts into a 2D game, failing miserably, making it a boring ordeal to slog though. Damage sponges abound (What, it works in Dark Souls but not in Castlevania? Who could imagine!), interruptions on my progression at every 2 minutes for arena battles, clunky movement focused on evading while contraditorily forcing me to rely on continuous combos to deal significant damage, etc etc. Doesn't know if it wants to be an exploration game or an arena game. So much for "evolution".

Sure, you want to make your game sell? Add there all this newfangled stuff so they can appear on bullet points on the game's Steam page. But you wanna make the game be GOOD? Then you measure what exactly the game needs, be it old or new. There are designing philosophies being used 30 years after they were conceived, because they are good before being "too old".

I'm a firm believer any idea can be done right on the right hands. So, keep in mind I'm not against they trying something completelly unexpected with a new 'Vania game, gameplay-wise. It just needs to be done right. What I'm saying is that this "old is shit" mentality is the cancer on video game development forcing everything to look either like an "Souls like game" or a "quirky FPS shooter on the future ("gritty FPS shooter in WWII" not many years ago)".

If you prefer novelty for novelty's sake, of course you're allowed. That's your taste, and nobody has the right to take it from you! But don't try and imply old things are bad "because they're old". This is objectively incorrect.

[Dracula9]

MM9/10 sucked because they were dumbed down, not because of their genre.

"Oh but gaming has evolved so don't do X" is a worthless sentiment. Skill and vision determine quality, not platform or genre.

See people all the time declaring that gaming has "evolved" and people using "outdated" ideas should get with the times and catch up. Not only is this mindset complete cancer, it also misses a very important element of evolution--you can't force it.

It happens on its own time on its own terms, sometimes able to be guided but certainly never forced. That what makes it evolution. Forcing it to happen before its time makes it just that--some schmuck forcing his ideas onto a larger platform and others. Or in simpler terms, gaming eugenics.

And we all know by now how well that tends to go.

You think the people behind, say, DOOM and Wolfenstein 3D and Quake had it in their heads of "yeah, we're gonna MAKE the industry change completely into something NEW and BETTER and everyone'll follow in OUR footsteps because the OLD stuff STINKS and is DUMB and OUR stuff is GREAT and INNOVATIVE and PERFECT and AWESOME?"

lol of course they didn't

They had ideas that expanded upon the medium and genre in question, they had the skill to make those ideas happen and the vision to see it all through to the end. That the FPS genre came into being as we know it today from those three titles is merely the byproduct of skill and vision trailblazing new ideas that subtly worked their way into the hearts and minds of the industry and playerbase at large, and thus allowed others to follow those new trails and expand upon them even further.

Id wasn't going around holding guns to everyone else's heads (heh) and demanding they stop with the BAD OLD stuff and get with the times or be left in the dust. They had good ideas, they ran with them, and enough others flocked to those ideas to cause the industry and genre to evolve.

That's how this stuff works.

[Belmontoya]

2 D linear platformers are so out of date at this point... I really don't want to see Castlevania go the way of mega man 9/10.  It would be like if the next star wars was in black and white.  The gaming medium has evolved, embrace that.

I and many fans I know happen to love 2D platformers.

Being an old format doesn't make it out of date. There are so many examples of how you are wrong... Just look at the success of Shovel Knight.

What I don't want is another failed attempt at 3D CV.

What I also don't think we need is another metroidvania from official CV. Why? Because Iga has that base covered with Bloodstained. Fan projects like Umbra of Sorrow and LC2 as well as many new metroidvania games have been coming out. I would rather see CV as a new version of something like classicvania.

I think the best way for Bloodstained and CV to co-exist will be for them to be different formats.

[EstebanT]

Being an old format doesn't make it out of date. There are so many examples of how you are wrong I'm not going to bother listing them.

Please go ahead and list them. I actually agreed 100% with you until I couldn't come up with recent successful linear platformers.
Again, I'm not saying you're wrong. I just can't think of that many.
Of the top of my head I can think of Rayman, super meat boy and Trine.
I don't think Cinematic Platfomers count. But if they do I guess Unravel, Inside, and Little Nightmares.
Did the 2D Nintendo stuff for the Wii U sell well? I don't really keep up with Nintendo stuff.

[AlexCalvo]

 
Here comes the "disagree with my opinion and I'll freak out on a multi-paragraph essay about why you're wrong and I'm right" gang.  Shouting down others, simplifying their arguments into straw man quotes. You guys make it really hard to keep posting.

I was not saying 2D platformers can't be fun. Hell I am thrilled for bloodstained, I said that 2d LINEAR platformers are outdated. I still love the classic games in the series, I can still enjoy a new old-school indie game every now and then.  But to see Castlevania backpeddle to its 8/16 bit days after so much progress to me would be horribly disappointing.  I'm fine with a one off game or two from time to time.  But I  want evolution in this series.  Move it forward or leave it alone.  I never said old equals shit,  I never said it couldn't be fun. I just said I want a modern game, that takes advantage of the progress made in gaming over the last 20 years.  If I want 2D linear Castlevania, I've already great library of such games. I want something new.

And MoF  (HD at least, never played the 3DS version) was awesome. Deal with it.

[EstebanT]

We agree on something for once? What has this world come to? 

[Belmontoya]

Please go ahead and list them. I actually agreed 100% with you until I couldn't come up with recent successful linear platformers.
Again, I'm not saying you're wrong. I just can't think of that many.
Of the top of my head I can think of Rayman, super meat boy and Trine.
I don't think Cinematic Platfomers count. But if they do I guess Unravel, Inside, and Little Nightmares.
Did the 2D Nintendo stuff for the Wii U sell well? I don't really keep up with Nintendo stuff.

Sorry I revised that post.

But yeah, Shovel Knight, Shantae, Axiom Verge, Wayforward and Vanillia have successful 2D games, you could even cite the success of the NES classic. And a cinematic platformer could be awesome too!

These types of games were fun 30 years ago and they are still fun today and there is clearly a demand in the market.

But I may have been hastey with that post. I agree with Plot that a surprise format would be nice too. All that matters in the end is that it's a good game.

I want something with the classic feel, but that's just me. But I disagree with someone saying 2D platformers are obsolete. They may not be the top sellers, but they can be very successful still and worthwhile.

And Alex I just think you're mistaken in assuming that a 2D platformer can't take advantage of new technologies and do something fresh. All a game needs is an inspired, hardworking team.

This is purely my opinion here. I think Mirror of Fate was dissapointing. The controls were utter shit and the music had no back bone. There was an effort there to bring CV home to its roots and I appreciated that, but they missed the essence of CV with that game. They missed what makes it fun. It wasn't just bad as a CV game. It was bad in general. Basic mechanics like jumping and attacking felt unresponsive and awkward.

Sorry if it sounded like I was disrespecting your opinion. I didn't mean to come off that way.

It's ok for us to disagree! It would be a boring forum if we all agreed with each other all the time. But we can disagree without being jerks.

Sorry!

[EstebanT]

That was a very respectful response. You seem like a cool person.
Keep it up.

[Dracula9]

Here comes the "disagree with my opinion and I'll freak out on a multi-paragraph essay about why you're wrong and I'm right" gang.  Shouting down others, simplifying their arguments into straw man quotes. You guys make it really hard to keep posting.

I was not saying 2D platformers can't be fun. Hell I am thrilled for bloodstained, I said that 2d LINEAR platformers are outdated. I still love the classic games in the series, I can still enjoy a new old-school indie game every now and then.  But to see Castlevania backpeddle to its 8/16 bit days after so much progress to me would be horribly disappointing.  I'm fine with a one off game or two from time to time.  But I  want evolution in this series.  Move it forward or leave it alone.  I never said old equals shit,  I never said it couldn't be fun. I just said I want a modern game, that takes advantage of the progress made in gaming over the last 20 years.  If I want 2D linear Castlevania, I've already great library of such games. I want something new.

And MoF  (HD at least, never played the 3DS version) was awesome. Deal with it.

So because some of us would rather meticulously explain our perspectives rather than paraphrase them (either for argument's sake or to ensure clarity), we're suddenly wrong because our posts are longer than yours?

Get over yourself.

Strawman means someone is ignoring your argument and attacking you as a person. So far all I've seen the "gang" (cute, btw) do is attack the seeming mindset behind your opinions. Nobody here said AlexCalvo is a terrible bad person, just that a few of us think AlexCalvo holds some opinions and mindsets we find terrible. And that we find them such is perfectly fine, just as the inverse is true as well.

You're right, you didn't outright say "old = bad" or anything like that. You said "2D linear platformers are out of date."

"Out of date" means a shitload of things. In regards to gaming, it generally tends to mean that the relevant format/genre/style/platform/etc. is obsolete, or has aged very poorly over the years, or something within that ballpark.

Considering that ballpark, and combining with how many combined years between all of us here have as far as seeing gaming trends rise and fall, people rally for good causes and bad or just plain stupid ones, controversy after controversy, is it seriously that difficult to see how easily the connection of:

-really vague one-line statement declaring a large subgroup of gaming out of date and everything that can be presumed by what common use of the phrase means
-personal histories of dealing with and seeing X and Y groups being full of themselves and toting that and similar phrases around like war cries

can give the impression of "oh geez here's THIS spiel again?"

You're getting all uppity because holy shit a few people disagreed with you in more words than you gave. Nobody (to the best of my knowledge) has gone and attacked your character here, just this particular facet of your opinions and the potential mindsets behind it. That's not attacking you, dude.

But did you ever consider that maybe some of us produce mountains of detailed text for the exact reason of trying to ensure opinions aren't relegated vaguely and too easily misinterpreted? Or perhaps because some of our opinions can't feasibly be reduced to the smallest common denominator?

Of course, it would also seem that even efforts of that nature still managed to fail, since you still took three whole people disagreeing with you with a higher wordcount as some sort of personal vendetta attack by a sketchy back-alley gang.

It ain't. Three of us happen to share similar opinions on the matter. All three of us happened to weigh in around roughly the same timeframe. That's it.

Don't sit there and tell us that us writing longer posts than you somehow makes it actually more difficult for you to type words and click "Post." Not one person in this supposed "gang" you're imagining went after you directly. We went after your relevant opinion by expressing our own counters to it, and elaborated a bit on potential scenarios and experiences which correlated to those points. Hardly the equivalent of a gun to your head like you're seeming (keyword SEEMING) to treat it.

I dunno. Kinda hard to think up a way to retort to such blatant contradictions and/or misnomers as:

-y'all gang up on everyone and now you're ganging up on me because I don't agree with you on X
-y'all oversimplify everything with personal attacks
-y'all write essays despite also oversimplifying like I said
-you're ganging up on me because my opinion's different and I don't like that
-oh by the way here's my opinion on [thing], deal with it

Like, what do I say that pleases (or at least addresses properly) all of those things without violating another one? Not giving much to work with here, and without much to work with then yeah I can see how and why it comes off like a ganging-up. I at least can't run on guesswork.

You want the series to evolve? Great! I do too! Maybe not in quite the same way as you, but hey, we both have seats in the same stadium and that's cool! I don't believe evolution of anything is something that can be forced or done on a whim. It takes time and patience. You may think differently and that's fine. All it means is that your seat is across the field and you just have a different view of the ballgame than my own seat provides me.

You think Point-A-to-Point-B-to-Boss-repeat-to-Endgame games of the 2D platformer variety are outdated or losing their place in the ever-growing and changing industry? Great! I don't agree with this in the slightest due to my reliance on skill and vision defining quality rather than inherent traits, but it's alright that we don't share one opinion out of many.

What's not great is treating a few people with similar opinions posting at similar times countering your own opinions like a vendetta-driven personal gang-up curbstomping.

That isn't fair to anybody.

[theplottwist]

Here comes the "disagree with my opinion and I'll freak out on a multi-paragraph essay about why you're wrong and I'm right"

Just because you like to make your arguments in 2 lines, doesn't mean we should explain ours in 2. Or, in other words: Sorry we like to make our points as concisely and detailed as possible. Maybe this is why a lot of us don't buy your points: They're too shallow.

I'm sounding a lot like Dracula9 here, but there is no other way to say it. You have already used this "too many paragraphs" bullshit to attack me before when I was making my own point about a subject instead of attacking someone else, and I'm tired of this shit. Not my fault you cannot withstand the terrible power of lines on a screen.

EDIT: I will ALSO remind you my "five paragraph essay" was 100% right, and your "of course it's not final because teaser" response was not. You yourself agreed the poster looked mediocre and lo and behold: That was the final castle all along and my paragraphs were validated.

Shouting down others, simplifying their arguments into straw man quotes. You guys make it really hard to keep posting

Here's what you said:

"2 D linear platformers"

Here's what I said:

""The gaming medium has evolved, embrace that" embrace what? The subjective "NO LINEAR PROGRESSION ALLOWED BECAUSE NOBODY DOES IT ANYMORE" rule?"

Your exact point was attacked, and was not misrepresented. You also specified "out of date" as the exact reason why it's bad, and our entire points were tailored around why "out of date" is objectively incorrect to use to judge quality standard.

There's no strawman on our part, but there IS on yours:

"disagree with my opinion and I'll freak out on a multi-paragraph essay about why you're wrong and I'm right"

1. You made an statement, not an opinion. And your statement is clear: "The gaming medium has evolved, embrace that". You're not saying YOU embraced it or that YOU prefer that way. No, you're shooting down everyone who doesn't have a problem with the old formulas because "the gaming medium has evolved", and saying we should "embrace that".

2. Will I have to screenshot the parts where I'm actually saying there is a difference between personal taste and "being wrong", and where I say you having a personal taste is OK? You're only wrong on "old is bad", which can be easily proved to be incorrect (as Belmontoya already did). On the rest, that's just your opinion and OK to have.

And MoF  (HD at least, never played the 3DS version) was awesome. Deal with it.

As you have already shown by yourself, you'll like it because it is new, not because it is good. Deal with it.

[Dremn]

Give me more Classicvanias, especially if they take notes from Dracula's Curse, Rondo, Bloodlines, and Rebirth.

Gimme alternate routes and multiple characters to play as, the linear 2d format can still work if spiced up with enough of the right stuff.

Whoever in this thread said they wanted it to evolve into something like DMC, isn't that kind of what happened with Mirror of Fate, except it was God of War in 2D? Yeah nah, no thanks.

Since this news came from Konami of Europe then I guess it's all just a pipedream anyway.

[aensland]

But to see Castlevania backpeddle to its 8/16 bit days after so much progress to me would be horribly disappointing

The 8/16 bit days were far better than the current "progress" that the series had, that's a fact.

Also: "European Brand Manager", lol, it's nothing.

[EstebanT]

The 8/16 bit days were far better than the current "progress" that the series had, that's a fact.

Also: "European Brand Manager", lol, it's nothing.

I agree completely. Bloodlines is probably my favorite game of all time.

But I would never expect Bloodlines to compete against current AAA. Games or even indie stuff.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

My two cents on this is simple: do exactly what Circle of the Moon did, and do it even better. Circle of the Moon is entirely its own thing, technically unconnected to any of the other timelines or games (except in my heart) but even the briefest and most cursory glance at it reveals something that SCREAMS "I AM CASTLEVANIA HEAR ME ROAR". Graphics, music, and gameplay were all a sort of "Castlevania's Greatest Hits", and it was obvious. If there had been no name on the label and no title screen, you'd STILL know you were playing a Castlevania game because Circle was just such a lovingly done distillation of everything Castlevania had been up to that point, rough around a few edges though it was.

If Konami were planning to do this, if someone were serious about it and if they were to ask my opinion on how they ought to proceed, I'd say another, COTM-like extracanonical greatest-hits style game would be exactly what the fandom needed to restore the faith.

But that's just me.