Topic: Playfulness in Castlevania, and why it left

[Lumi Kløvstad]

I am on a topic making roll, apparently. Score one for general forum traffic, I guess.

As I continue my run into the festering heart of the Lords of Shadow saga, I notice something which has slowly happened to the later games in the series: the tongue-firmly-in-cheek humor kind of disappears. It actually triggered a twinge of sadness in my heart. I mean, Order of Ecclesia is one of the best games of the series, and one of the best stories, but it's a very joyless affair. Now, the tale is admittedly a grim one, but that's not something which has stopped Castlevania in the past.

I can't help but speculate as to why. For roughly the first half of the franchise's history, things weren't all that grim and serious. It was definitely present (the subjects of vampires and the undead in general kind of have a grimness inherent to them) but you also had a sense of parody: the first game had 1930's era Universal Studios inspired designs and the mudmen of Rondo looked more like they were crafted out of delicious toffee than killer animated mud. Granted, Super Castlevania 4 was a VERY dark gothic presentation, so clearly there's room for that needle to wiggle around the gauge. Symphony of the Night definitely marked a turning point towards more serious stuff, but to call it the CAUSE of the darker tone is it once shortsighted and inappropriate. These darker entries take place all around the timeline as well (where they occur on the timeline at all. RIP Legacy of Darkness, where it was all in the freaking title), so it's not as though the in-series history was getting progressively grimmer either.

I think it falls to a meta explanation, and we are probably best served by looking at the circumstances under which these later, darker games were written. Konami was itself becoming a less joyful, more serious company around the time of the later games. Iga and his team were probably feeling quite a lot of pressure from higher up to meet increasingly ridiculous sales quotas; victims of their own prior successes. In time, Konami began to warp and pervert itself into the bloated slimy undead creature we love to hate today and routinely flog in Facebook and Youtube comments. Maybe this is why the humor in Dawn and Portrait feels so forced -- surely we can't blame all of it on a (well meaning but misguided) attempt to market Castlevania to tweens and pre-teens. I think it's symptomatic of something which I suspect was going around the office: a lot of forced cheer, invocations of "smile and the world smiles with you". But that false good cheer, that forced smile, filtered through to the games being developed just as the more morose attitudes it was meant to cover up did.
By Order of Ecclesia, it feels like they stopped trying the fake smile altogether. Maybe it was for the best at the time -- forced humor is often inherently unfunny unless it's gallows humor, and that's not something I think anyone wants to see in Castlevania.

Hopefully, Ellis and Shankar can find it in their hearts to return just a little of the silliness to the franchise. I don't need a Castlevania sitcom, but maybe some leaning on the fourth wall as Trevor misses a strike a pot roast falls out of the wall unnoticed by all but the audience.

A fan can dream.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

At one point it stopped being about making great games, but it started about making sales figures.
I mean, it was always about sales, but it became blatant later on. 

Say what you will about Nintendo, but that's a company that tries to keep the joy with its game development.  You feel the love and care that goes into each game.

[suomynona]

I do agree with it. See how serious Bloodlines is and why its so good. Castlevania is supposed to be serious and dark. Like the good old days without forced humor and Sexualization like Classic Castlevanias until RoB and GBA CVs. Look how SC4 is so grim and dark but has better mood then DS games or Judgment.

I think DS games are ruined opportunity and a good example of how not to make sequels. DoS turned something as good as AoS and mocked it up (Kojima art, graphic quality and quality original music). Also PoR fixed graphic and music, but keeping cheap anime art (at least have CV64 art)and its light mood is not like Castlevania, more like a mediocre anime game. Well, I like them, but it's not what I wanted from Castlevania.

[SecretWeapon]

"Order of Ecclesia is too serious"

Most of the villagers/quests are played for laughs: Marcel photos, Irina's insomnia, Daniela's alzeheimer, Monica's crush, George ARSTISTRY!, Abram lack of trust, Aeon cooking "skills", Anna playing the exorcist girl and Eugene dead-seriousness.

You chase and talk with cats, play hide and seek and take pics of the yeti. So no, OoE is not-not as cheeky as the others CV

[Dracula9]

Like the good old days without forced humor and Sexualization like Classic Castlevanias until RoB and GBA CVs.

[suomynona]

Been through, done that. Don't start anything more. Otherwise we would ruin another thread.
Besides, it's my damn opinion. Why make so much fuss about it?

[zangetsu468]

"Order of Ecclesia is too serious"

Most of the villagers/quests are played for laughs: Marcel photos, Irina's insomnia, Daniela's alzeheimer, Monica's crush, George ARSTISTRY!, Abram lack of trust, Aeon cooking "skills", Anna playing the exorcist girl and Eugene dead-seriousness.

You chase and talk with cats, play hide and seek and take pics of the yeti. So no, OoE is not-not as cheeky as the others CV

Not to mention the side quest "Tom & Jewelry".
Also, Marcel has a #breastedinterest in Laura the Jeweler.

Right amount of serious for me. POR was slightly too jokey at times, DOS was serious but I couldn't take the character art as seriously as AOS.

[SecretWeapon]

Been through, done that. Don't start anything more. Otherwise we would ruin another thread.
Besides, it's my damn opinion. Why make so much fuss about it?

Because it's a shitty opinion and posting it in this forum means we can (respectfully) drag it through the mud, as the OP experienced first hand regarding his opinions about canon

[suomynona]

Because it's a shitty opinion and posting it in this forum means we can (respectfully) drag it through the mud, as the OP experienced first hand regarding his opinions about canon

Just why? Why even bother if you think it is a pointless argument?
Also I said I don't what to end another thread as a mudfight of irrelevant topic.

[Shinobi]

I do agree with it. See how serious Bloodlines is and why its so good. Castlevania is supposed to be serious and dark. Like the good old days without forced humor and Sexualization like Classic Castlevanias until RoB and GBA CVs. Look how SC4 is so grim and dark but has better mood then DS games or Judgment.

In case you missed Bloodlines also has some sort of sexualization, Elizabeth Bartley says hello and for girls was Eric Lecarde more specifically in japanese version.

[suomynona]

In case you missed Bloodlines also has some sort of sexualization, Elizabeth Bartley says hello and for girls was Eric Lecarde more specifically in japanese version.

You call that sexualization? No, no. Something much as Elizabeth Bartley would be fine. My mean of sexualization would be like Succubus. A deliberate sexualization just existing for the mean of sexualization, not just an character A (Bartley is important character, but classic Castlevania characters would be no more then a character A or B, except for Belmont and Dracula). Don't get me wrong.

[Crying Freeman]

I think it was Shanker who said the CV show would be "satirical". When I read that I thought of the first game and it's parody credit names. Sure CV started "playflul" but every other game is serious with some humor, besides Rondo and Judgement which are both full of humor. If you wanna count Kid Dracula its obviously the complete opposite of serious lol

[Flame]

I think you can have your cake and eat it too. you can have games be serious like Bloodlines, or cheesy like Cv1-4.

It all boils down to what you are going for.

The original 3 were basically classic universal horror pastiches, complete with a protagonist right out of a Frazetta poster.

then with 4, they made it more serious and atmospheric, but it was still campy. Bloodlines is serious, but there's no denying there's a certain element of camp to it. Best way to describe that camp would be to point to Hammer Horror. Hammer Horror isn't scary, but they are horror movies. They play everything about themselves completely straight without a hint of irony or anything, but the audience themselves is "in on it". it is a tribute to the classic monster movies, and the movies treat themselves with the same seriousness the originals did, while being super stylized (neon red blood, for example)

I would say the issue is that later vanias started trying to be more like anime. SotN does start this trend- but SotN was itself more about paying tribute to classicvanias. And in general, it's also campy in an unintentional way due to the voice acting, so it fits.

but later vanias tried too hard to be like animes, (the sorrow games particularly) which meant they no longer had that camp of the post NES games, nor the parody of the originals, they were just sort of... well, SotN clones.

As for Lords of Shadow, well. That's another story all together. i'd say LoS2 had the potential for good self parody and camp, and there is some present, but the development was such a mess that it just falls through.

[EstebanT]

I think you can have your cake and eat it too. you can have games be serious like Bloodlines, or cheesy like Cv1-4.

It all boils down to what you are going for.

The original 3 were basically classic universal horror pastiches, complete with a protagonist right out of a Frazetta poster.

then with 4, they made it more serious and atmospheric, but it was still campy. Bloodlines is serious, but there's no denying there's a certain element of camp to it. Best way to describe that camp would be to point to Hammer Horror. Hammer Horror isn't scary, but they are horror movies. They play everything about themselves completely straight without a hint of irony or anything, but the audience themselves is "in on it". it is a tribute to the classic monster movies, and the movies treat themselves with the same seriousness the originals did, while being super stylized (neon red blood, for example)

I would say the issue is that later vanias started trying to be more like anime. SotN does start this trend- but SotN was itself more about paying tribute to classicvanias. And in general, it's also campy in an unintentional way due to the voice acting, so it fits.

but later vanias tried too hard to be like animes, (the sorrow games particularly) which meant they no longer had that camp of the post NES games, nor the parody of the originals, they were just sort of... well, SotN clones.

As for Lords of Shadow, well. That's another story all together. i'd say LoS2 had the potential for good self parody and camp, and there is some present, but the development was such a mess that it just falls through.

This sums it up perfectly. I love Castlevania and all that... but I've never taken it seriously.
That might just be my biggest problem with Lords of Shadow games. They tried so hard to be serious. And the attempt at comic relief (Chupacabras) just fell flat.

Mirror of Fate's Toymaker and Hunchbacks were great though.

[Dracula9]

Toymaker was one of the few things about Lords 2 I actually really enjoyed. I like his theming and development, as far as a side character goes. Plus nothing tugs at the emotions quite like an old man crying. 

Chubacabras, though...I thought they were cute the first time in Lords 1, thought it was a neat little gimmick that I could buy into--plenty of stories and legends about mischievous but ultimately harmless prankster demons screwing with travellers, so for the lore of the world it felt like a nice little gimmick.

Then they cropped up in areas that didn't make as much sense to me (such as Malphas' tower entrance--if Pan won't even go near there, why would a non-combative lesser monster be dicking around right at the gate?), and the gimmick wore out its welcome. The Chupacabra in 2 just felt shoehorned in, and to me at least was just as annoying to listen to as Navi and Phi were.

I also think a major element of CV playfulness that phased its original form out over time was wallmeat--the idea of fully-cooked wall shank was goofy and fun, and over time it just became a standard consumable. Enemies could hang onto them now, rather than smacking a brick and suddenly finding dinner.

BRING BACK MAH BRICK CHICKEN (BRICKEN?) KONAMI!