Topic: "The Dragon Returns" - Castlevania Lords of Shadow Sequel (HERE BE SPOILER INFO)

[Maedhros]

I never said IGA had a vendetta against anyone. All I said was that he struck every game that was developed without him post SOTN from the storyline. He would have been better off calling all of his titles for example: Castlevania: Symphony of The Night: Harmony of Dissonace. He should have taken the same route as MS and made his own proprietary timeline.

I reject the idea of his storyline being the official canon. I love many of his games, but I don't think he handled the story well at all. It was a jumbled mess.

Hate on me all you want. That's my opinion. 

HE made a timeline because someone asked him to make one, not because he actually wanted. I don't think he wanted to be the guy who only makes Castlevania too.

Castlevania history sucks in the first place, I don't think it was made to be a giant history, they simply wanted to make one. It doesn't make games better or worse at all, if a game isn't on the timeline.

[DarkPrinceAlucard]

I never said IGA had a vendetta against anyone. All I said was that he struck every game that was developed without him post SOTN from the storyline.

Hate on me all you want. That's my opinion. 

See thats what your not getting, its not anything he had against those guys, if you would actually READ beingthehero's post you will see that he was asked by the developers of those game to NOT put them in his timeline and they told him it was their own vision and it was self contained.

What was he supposed to do?

Ignore them and put them in his timeline anyway?

So your holding it against the guy because he respected his fellow colleagues wishes?

Come one dude, stop raging without reason man.

And fyi, no one is hating on you here, just disagreeing, clear difference their buddy.

[Belmontoya]

See thats what your not getting, its not anything he had against those guys, if you would actually READ beingthehero's post you will see that he was asked by the developers of those game to NOT put them in his timeline and they told him it was their own vision and it was self contained.

I read his post, and I understood everything. That is why my response said that I never claimed he had a vendetta. I find it irritating that every game post SOTN that was not developed by IGA was stricken, or humored with the "side story" label. I don't really care what his logic was for it or who was involved in it or ok with it. I don't like it.

I own the special edition POR that included the stylus and timeline. It's a cool little package. I remember being bothered by that timeline when I read it.

Not really sure how or why you would accuse me of raging DarkPrince. I see people griping on here about LOS's score or some trivial comment Cox makes all the time. Is it "raging" for me to mention something that irritates me?

I agree with Maedrhos that the Castlevania timeline sucks. That's why I like to think of each different developer's games as their own universe. I don't like the idea of a "main cannon". That's all.

I actually wouldn't mind if they just remade Castlevania 1 every 5 years. Hahaha. I'm kinda bummed MS didn't go that route.

But anyways... If it has Dracula and a Belmont, it's Castlevania.

[Lelygax]

But anyways... If it has Dracula and a Belmont, it's Castlevania.

Maybe that why he retconned these titles, CotM doesnt have a Belmont, 64/LoD doesnt have a Belmont too, so by following this logic, they arent Castlevania and therefore are self-contained   

[Belmontoya]

lol. I guess you got me on that one!

[Lelygax]

Thanks for not taking that last post seriously, it was supposed to poke some fun here XD

[Dracul_Belmont]

Nowadays, games are being developed to seem like movies. Gaming industry is becoming into another form of artistic expression. The current take on Castlevania is adding up to this artistic approach. The fact that there is people really thinking of ways to give the Castlevania franchise a breath of new life is worth to fans to appreciatte it. Impressive visuals and gameplay, deep story, voice acting in these and many other games come from artists. This is the new way of making videogames. There is no true Castlevania. Like somebody else wrote earlier: It has Dracula and Belmonts, that and the name Konami, make a Castlevania game wheter we like it or not. LOS was great because it was critically acclaimed and sold a lot of copies. All of that puts a game in the category of ''good'' if not ''great''. Mercurysteam paid tribute to older CV games by including many names of past games. I personally think that LOS saga is what Nolan did with Batman in the last three Dark Knight movies

[crisis]

Nowadays, games are being developed to seem like movies.

That's what many of us here at the CVD dislike. We want our CV games to stay CV games, not conform to Hollywood stereotypes and what's "in" at the moment just because that's what everyone else is doing (every movie being converted to the 3D craze nowadays, comes to mind). The series began as a tongue-in-cheek tribute to classic horror films, with it's own unique atmosphere that was perceived through a Japanese viewpoint. That was the series' charm. It never took itself too seriously.

LoS is definitely the result if a Hollywood studio were to acquire the rights and make it into a film. All the drastic changes are comparable to how studio executives would approach this property, especially in this day and age (I believe a 90s-era movie would've been entirely different, a lot more cheese-factor). Which is why the game has been unofficially dubbed "The Game of the Movie" by some. Which isn't terrible, in fact most of us appreciate & enjoy the LoS saga for the added exposure it gave the Castlevania brand. However, if that's at the expense of the classic themes many of us grew up with, certain themes that the LoS developers admittedly dropped in favor of a much more generalized style, then that's a problem. I realize some people are fine with that, but there CAN be a happy medium where both sides of the fence are happy. Whether or not Konami acknowledges this medium remains to be seen.



And honestly, if people somehow find the CV timeline cumbersome (it's pretty straight-forward if you ask me), then they must REALLY hate the Zelda "timeline," lol

[DragonSlayr81]

Nowadays, games are being developed to seem like movies. Gaming industry is becoming into another form of artistic expression. The current take on Castlevania is adding up to this artistic approach. The fact that there is people really thinking of ways to give the Castlevania franchise a breath of new life is worth to fans to appreciatte it. Impressive visuals and gameplay, deep story, voice acting in these and many other games come from artists. This is the new way of making videogames. There is no true Castlevania. Like somebody else wrote earlier: It has Dracula and Belmonts, that and the name Konami, make a Castlevania game wheter we like it or not. LOS was great because it was critically acclaimed and sold a lot of copies. All of that puts a game in the category of ''good'' if not ''great''. Mercurysteam paid tribute to older CV games by including many names of past games. I personally think that LOS saga is what Nolan did with Batman in the last three Dark Knight movies

Meh, I think Christopher Nolan's overrated. Quoting that on IMDb is like sacrilege. I don't care, Nolanites can come at me!

Besides, it's not the "new way of making video games" rather one of many ways of making video games. If you are going to compare them to movies, compare the fact that movies can be anything from being epic, dramatic, comedic, artsy, horror, sci-fi, short, long, ambient, noisy, obscure or to the point. There is variety in movies, as is in video games. To say video games SHOULD all head in this one direction is to be close minded. It's kinda like David Cage, who believes the gameplay "fun" games are a thing of the past, a relic that should not be continued on into the new generation. That all games, from now one, should strive to be as deep and thought provoking as possible. I don't wanna get into the majority of reasons why the load of that is a crock of shit(Frankly, I'm not in the mood). Just search up some Jim Sterling Jimquisition vids. He hits the nail on the head to why this sort of thinking is flawed.

[Dracul_Belmont]

I agree with most of the people :p but, like it or not, times are changing and may bring new cv games that may not look like nothing from the past. The visuals and music of past games, are still there in those same games, but sometimes changes are needed and are unavoidable. I think that if more games like LOS are made, personally, I would be very happy. I still and will always enjoy the old cv titles, but new developers are coming. Iga did well in many of his cv games, but became repetitive, trying to reformulate sotn and that is not cool.

Zelda timeline is extremely confusing lol

[The Puritan]

I personally think that LOS saga is what Nolan did with Batman in the last three Dark Knight movies

This is exactly what Cox thinks too. 

Regardless, that'd put both film!Batman and Castlevania in the same spot: both of their futures are up in the air because their reboot trilogies are over/about to end.

[Pfil]

Everyone is completely (COMPLETELY) missing my original point.
With all respect. I'll try to make it short and clear.

Bare in mind that this "canon" you speak of was pieced together by IGA who picked and chose what games were included, conveintly leaving out every game that he had no part of post SOTN.
I hardly consider IGA's idea of the canon to be the true story because it is completely unfair to the hard work that other developers contributed to Castlevania.
I prefer to give every game in the series the credit of being a "real" Castlevania. Even those games that I don't care for.
I don't really care if the stories don't line up. If you want to know the only true story of Dracula, then you must read Bram Stoker's novel.
CV has always been reinventing itself, it's best to embrace that IMO. The one thing that stays consistent is that CV is a game that re-tells the story of Dracula in new and various ways. That's what I always look forward to.

I don't care about Iga (though I loved his games) and I don't care about the story.
I want a Castlevania game that looks and sounds like ANYTHING from 1986-2008. I don't care if it's canon or not, that would be a stupid position, and I couldn't care less about it.
I read the book, I watched the movie, and I really don't give a damn about that or about story, why would I care about Bram Stoker's Dracula when I want to play a Castlevania game that looks and sounds like always have?
I just want Castlevania to sound and look like any game from the franchise I love. I don't care if it's Legacy, Circle of the Moon or Legends, I like those game as much as I love the rest, some of them even more.
It's as simple as that. It can't get more simple than that.

I am enjoying very much the LOS universe, and this is the way Castlevania games should be made from now on IMO.

So, you want Castlevania music to die. Never again to have something like Wood Carving Partita, Prayer for Tragic Queen, Leon Belmont's Theme, Mad Forest and dozens upon dozens of themes that created a unique sound.

Nowadays, games are being developed to seem like movies. Gaming industry is becoming into another form of artistic expression.

Abysmal mistake. With all respect. Games were always a form of art. They are not becoming that now.
And I have plenty of games that I can enjoy if I want to feel I'm into a movie. I'm loving The Last Of Us. I loved al 3 Bioshock games. I really liked recent DmC and Tomb Raider games. I really like Skyrim.
But Castlevania is not that. Castlevania isn't something you can insert into some trend or compare to other games. Castlevania is, in aesthetics, in soundtrack, in the soul and feeling of the games, something unique.
If you transform it into something else, it's not CV anymore.

And one more thing, to all new fans. You are being selfish if you just want the new tendency to be made and don't care about the legacy of the franchise. It's like if when SotN came out and catched me I would go saying: this is the way Castlevania should be made from now on, ClassicVania is obsolete.
And everyone knows how much I love MetroidVanias, but they also know I also love ClassicVanias, and old 3DVanias even.
Why? Because they all look and sound the same.

And I can't believe that it turned into this discussion again when all I was talking about in the beginning was the mediocre state of Hollywood soundtracks and when I didn't even mentioned Lords of Shadow this time.

[Dracul_Belmont]

I've been playing cv games since 1992, so I understand the importance of Castlevania and I have played almost every game. As I said before, those emblematic themes, will still be there. Yes the games look more like hollywood productions, no, we will not forget any cv game. But nobody controls how konami will release cv games. We gotta play and create a judgement of the games. LOS is not in the grace of many just because it isn't sotn, don't have classic tunes and those arguments are extremely invalid and we as fans are being selfish to just expect games that only we can like. I believe we must give a rational judgement on the games and not just dislike it because it didn't contain ''vampire killer'' or ''bloody tears'' (I think that LoI and CoD have a very cool soundtracks) and I'm sure that CoD and LoI would receive the same reaction as LOS because it too did not have vampire killer and bloody tears. I think that there were remixes in those ost anyway

[Trevorcard]

I leave for couple of days XD I find this in the thread. It seems any Lord of Shadows thread always circle around the argument on its merits of being a proper castlevania. I am glad at least that trilogy is ending and hopefully a castlevania game will come that will bring new fans and bring the current fan base closer together.

I been wondering where is castle located anyway in LOS2? If large part of game connects to Modern era in which the city surrounds the castle then how do you access it? I have theory that castle is in another dimension which Gabriel has to travel between and it's location as shattered remains in physical plane of the modern era.

[Nagumo]

I read his post, and I understood everything. That is why my response said that I never claimed he had a vendetta. I find it irritating that every game post SOTN that was not developed by IGA was stricken, or humored with the "side story" label. I don't really care what his logic was for it or who was involved in it or ok with it. I don't like it.

Canon in Castlevania only has to do with continuity. It's not like a literary canon or something like that. Games like Circle of the Moon are not less of a Castlevania game because they take place in their own world. It has nothing to do with IGA's vision. Symphony was considered a spin-off at the time, so it makes no sense that games that come after need to adhere to his vision. I'm assuming that's how you think things are (otherwise I don't really understand why you are upset by it), and if that's the case you're looking into things too deeply.