Castlevania Dungeon Forums
The Castlevania Dungeon Forums => General Castlevania Discussion => Topic started by: JooohnShaft on September 16, 2011, 05:03:20 PM
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Right, im back with another rant about castlevania gameplay.
This time, it's about the bosses in c.v2 they SUCK! allright maby it's for the best because you wouldn't have egoraptor's sequilitis and avgn wouldn't have came till much later, but still, the bosses suck!
Anyway... on with the rant. One of the first things i noticed is the bosses movements are very basic, the old bosses had walking and hitting animations but these are just stiffly floating, which comes to my next point:
the bosses just float in a circular motion which was very un-creative on konamis part. so get prepared to rant with me because these bosses suck!
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It's easy to look back nowadays n say "so & so sucks," but the game was made way back in the 80's, so of course it's gonna look stupid to those that didn't exist in the 80's/90's babies. But if you were one of the first buyers (i.e. Castlevania veterans) of the game then you'll probably appreciate it a lil bit more. I was born in 85 so I kinda don't mind since I grew up with it, but at the same time I understand how you feel/
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well see, castlevania one had awesome bosses at the end of every stage and they made you look for an effective way to beat them. the bosses in c.v1 were so hard and memorable but castlevania 2's bosses were lifeless and forgettable, so i hope you see what i mean. btw thx for being to they point and not afraid to say what you feel when it comes to commenting :)
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Simple, Cv2 was Rushed.
they tried something new, took thier time, and when the clock came near end-time, the crunched like a mofo.
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I think you'd need to find out who was in the positions of power developing CV2 to understand what they were thinking. If it was nearly the same crew that did CV1 at least in the important positions (and somehow I find that implausible) then perhaps they were just going for something new and it didn't work out on the boss end. Or it could be a rush job as others have noted, explaining why there are so few bosses.
However, if it was a different team or significantly different leadership then it makes sense from a different angle. They were just doing their own thing and perhaps boss fights weren't their thing. Maybe they actively disliked putting too much emphasis and importance on them and didn't like the challenge presented by at least the later bosses in CV1. They wanted to make it so players who weren't so great at the physical end of play and quick button movements weren't too frustrated, and even let the clever player skip the bosses by just walking past them if they so wished. Perhaps they explicitly set out to emphasize exploration difficulty and puzzle solving rather than physical difficulty.
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@Charlotte: I shalt consider thy advice :)
@Kamui: yes that was the word for them, rushed thx :)
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Perhaps they explicitly set out to emphasize exploration difficulty and puzzle solving rather than physical difficulty.
My thoughts exactly. They wanted an adventure game instead of a more dedicated action platformer.
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Who knows; maybe there was actually some kind of canon reason for the crappiness of the bosses in SQ? I mean, most of you know that Simon's back was injured in his first duel against Dracula (which certainly explains his terrible posture). Drac was just a weak ghost in CV2, so maybe Death was in a similar state. But then they went kind of overboard with that idea.
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@a-yty: good point
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Right, im back with another rant about castlevania gameplay.
This time, it's about the bosses in c.v2 they SUCK! allright maby it's for the best because you wouldn't have egoraptor's sequilitis and avgn wouldn't have came till much later, but still, the bosses suck!
Anyway... on with the rant. One of the first things i noticed is the bosses movements are very basic, the old bosses had walking and hitting animations but these are just stiffly floating, which comes to my next point:
the bosses just float in a circular motion which was very un-creative on konamis part. so get prepared to rant with me because these bosses suck!
Please, go back to your God of Wars and Left 4 Deads and leave our 8-bit games alone. Of course they're gonna be suck, its the 20th century, that had been the 80s.
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@jester colony: I'm basically comparing Simon's quest's bosses to castlevania 1's bosses
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Why are you comparing bosses from two different game play types is my curiosity. Castlevania II was suppose to have a lot more than what is known to us. The reason to this is due to a fire that happened at their office some time in that era of gaming - a lot of the artwork...etc. got destroyed. So its more than likely assumed the game was suppose to be a lot bigger and had more bosses. Castlevania II is honestly considered imo an unfinished project, but due to the accident that took place - it was pretty much released as it was.
The original Castlevania had been based towards more action and linear game play elements. Which basically focused on Point A - B - C (Boss) then repeat. As for Simon's Quest, it had led itself more towards the introduction of RPG elements (example: if you level up you will be granted a defense bonus against attackers.) Basically the original Vampire Killer and Simon's quest game types gave birth to the "Castleroids" we see today.
Two completely different game types bro.
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Why are you comparing bosses from two different game play types is my curiosity. Castlevania II was suppose to have a lot more than what is known to us. The reason to this is due to a fire that happened at their office some time in that era of gaming - a lot of the artwork...etc. got destroyed. So its more than likely assumed the game was suppose to be a lot bigger and had more bosses. Castlevania II is honestly considered imo an unfinished project, but due to the accident that took place - it was pretty much released as it was.
Never before have I been more angry about a fire.
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What's the source for this fire story? Or Kamui Zero's crunch-time story? They can't both be true.
Why are you comparing bosses from two different game play types is my curiosity.
Whether the rest of the game is a linear challenge-based platformer or an exploration-based one doesn't change the gameplay of boss fights. They fulfill the same design function and work the same way: the boss goes through its pattern trying to kill you while you try and kill it first. No one plays through an exploration-based game while saying to himself "I hope it has lame bosses!"
Basically the original Vampire Killer and Simon's quest game types gave birth to the "Castleroids" we see today.
Symphony of the Night and its successors are primarily based on Super Metroid. I don't think the fact that the series had dicked around with exploration elements a decade earlier is much more than a coincidence.
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Coincidence? No, it's not a coincidence. SQ had non-linear gameplay and RPG elements. VK was a kind of combination of exploration and basic stage system. They weren't obviously full-blown Metroidvanias, but definitely the Metroidvanias' spiritual grand daddies. I'm pretty sure the SotN team did think of those two games when they were making the game; what might work and what definitely to avoid.
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@jestercolony: I suppose.....
@a-yty: I thought so too when I played the castlevanias since S.Q
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Personally, I think they were just experimenting. Game design was still somewhat in it's infancy back then. Developers had yet to really utilize controls in creative ways. That, and the amount of buttons were severely limited.
Oddly enough, when people think of each generation of consoles, they always think of the graphical boost. But one of the most important additions to each new console generation was the addition of extra buttons on the controller, allowing developers more freedom in designing control schemes.
Still, I believe a designer of today could, if given the limitations of the NES controller, design a more intricate and ergonomic control scheme than what was seen in the vast majority of NES titles.
Some games stand the test of time. CVII is not one of them. Even so, I still play through it once every 5 years or so.