as for the classic canon, unless IGA, (if he ever gets back to CV that is,) gets a bigger budget with the success of LoS, it wont go very far.
That's one of the reasons I personally hope this trilogy will remain a transition phase, a chance for "Akumajou" to get back on the saddle, improved and rejuvenated. Konami is not going to throw the big bucks on both takes on CV - at least not at the same time.
I would also prefer if there was another producer involved besides IGA, to balance his bad habits.
Agreed. And not just bad habits, also not having him responsible for every damn thing, working on a way too short production schedule.
The story is more or less concluded for the Classic canon, all thats left is possibly some games between LoI and CV3, but they would be "lolnodracula" so they probably wont happen. And the 1999 game is too hyped up and there is just too much personal opinion and too much shit surrounding it for it to actually please anyone, even if it did come out.
There is still details of Dracula accumulating his power, what Galamoth actually is and why he is seemingly a bigger threat than Dracula, why Belmonts had to give up the whip etc. Personally, I disagree on 1999 battle not being able to live up to the hype - especially now that LoS has the spotlight. I think the best way to start building that game would be keeping low profile during its development.
But if you think both continuities in the sense of what was and how it ends, there isn't much to explore in LoS's story either. You know he is gonna air-joust Satan into submission eventually. But you're still interested in the things that happen between and why.
It would take Konami realizing that even though Dracula is pretty much the main character, it doesn't mean he has to be in every game and every story. If they took that perspective, they could do interesting things with the original continuity.
That creates a pons asinorum to what pisses me off about how CV has been handled for so many years. Of course lots of LoS's things look better compared to the classic universe: it's got things like Judgment, bishounen mania and regurgitated sprites. It's not necessarily (just) that they did wrong things, it's (also) the way they did them.
Honestly? id rather different studios get to take their shot at Castlevania games. See which of them do it well. That would be interesting. Give them a 1 or 2 game contract or something.
Agreed (except maybe on letting them have contracts beforehand). Or maybe they could assemble a "Team Vania" to handle things. Constantly getting completely different development groups for the sake of diversity is not something I think is necessary. On the contrary - teams work better when they have cohesion. They should just check out and evaluate their games to determine when it's clearly time to rearrange and think of a different strategy (in order to thwart the "Burton/Depp effect").