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

[KaZudra]

Here comes the time travel rumors!

As long as it has nothing to do with Bioshock infinite, time travel is okay

[crisis]

chrono trigger

x-men: days of future past

[Slit_Zurifa]

Traveling between present and past via portals basically means that you're going to be able to teleport to Dracula's Castle at any time. If you miss items in the Castle you just take a portal from the City to the Castle. I guess there will also be some kind of teleport systems for areas within the Castle itself like for House of Lords or Underground Gardens so that you don't need to walk the entire way to the area you want to search for items. 

Also about buying items. Dracula can buy regular items... What would be regular items? Health potions and Magic potions that fill up your Void or Chaos bars? Maybe ammunition for your secondary weapons if there will be any? Energy for the Stopwatch and the Cloak? I am really interested in that.

Also that huge Puppetmaster Boss that we saw in a screenshot is indeed controled by the Toy Maker and is mentioned as a Titan fight.

[Dracul_Belmont]

Kinda funny, or weird

http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/329/8/d/castlevania_lords_of_shadow_2_clan_belmont_meme_by_rubens77belmont-d6vmk5z.png

[Nagumo]

Just a pointless musing I had: how would you have felt about LoS if they had left out the arbitrary references to the rest of the series? And by that I mean it still would be an actual Castlevania game, but Gabriel would just Gabriel, no name dropping, no Belmonts, no Vampire Killer, etc. The story would still be the same, but those things would just be left out.

Personally, I couldn't care less if the villain is called Dracula or Count Count, or if you play with Simon Belmont or some guy called Nathan Graves. I noticed some people have oddly specific requirements for a Castlevania game. I always find it amusing when somebody says it's not Castlevania unless Dracula or the Belmonts are in it. That's fine on it's own, but often times people just leave it at that, without going into things that seem more essential, like the game's structure. For example, LoS1 is an oddball in that regard since the main focus isn't the castle, unlike the rest of the series (yes, Simon's Quest and Bloodlines also adhere to that concept).

It probably would have been an interesting situation. I suppose just like how Gargoyle's Quest and Maximo did their own thing separate from Ghosts 'n Goblins, without feeling the need to shoe-horn reimagined versions of Arthur and Prin-Prin into the plot. The story would probably have felt more natural that way. Not that would have suddenly liked the games better, but I prefer a Castlevania game without the obligatory "story checklist" but nails everything else, than the other way around.

[EstebanT]

Kinda funny, or weird

http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/329/8/d/castlevania_lords_of_shadow_2_clan_belmont_meme_by_rubens77belmont-d6vmk5z.png

*cringe*

[crisis]

i believe that without all the Castlevania references and namedrops, ironically, most people would've argued how much the game in fact still resembles a Castlevania game (albeit superficially). It could've even been dubbed an "honorary Castlevania" by some. People are weird like that, lol

But if Gabriel had a sword instead of a chain whip, however, and they didn't include the middle chapters of the game with the castle (hell, even if they left those parts in), then not so much. There would be no discussion on how LoS could be a Castlevania. Then again, what if Curse of Darkness didn't have "Castlevania" in the title, no references, etc.? I guess that would've been the same scenario 

[e105beta]

It could also be a case of gradual change vs non-gradual change.

In the case of LoS, if Gabriel had a sword and wasn't a Belmont, but had the same gameplay and level structure only with Kojima as the lead artist and Yamane as the composer, people wouldn't have made the same arguments because they're used to Castlevania games having that consistent aesthetic. I feel like any gameplay changes would have been looked at as a change to the formula rather than a "this isn't Castlevania!"

Likewise, in LoI, if Leon had a sword and wasn't a Belmont, and they had changed the music and artstyle but left the gameplay untouched, I'd argue a lot of people would be making a lot of the same arguments about it that people have made about LoS.

Because honestly, if you compare LoI, for example, to CV1-3, and the LoS to CV1-3, pretending in each case that those are the only games in the series, neither LoI or LoS is particularly MORE original trilogy than the other. IMO, LoS gets a lot of flak because it doesn't borrow a lot from it's more immediate predecessors, but there's nothing in it that says that, in an alternate reality, Castlevania couldn't have become this "naturally".

FYI, this isn't a "LoS is just like Classicvania!" argument, because I don't think that's true.

[EstebanT]

Nobody can give a specific recipe for a castlevania game. Castlevania games are all different. With that being said.... LoS didn't do anything that hasn't been done before, anyone who says it isn't castlevania is in denial. The music is the only thing that glued all castlevanias together. And then lords of shadow fucked it up. I mean, CoD had like no remixes, but they still felt castlevania-esque. Even pre-michiru games had that sound that can only be described as a castlevania sound. A sound LoS lacked.

[Dracul_Belmont]

The music of Castlevania, adequate music, or characteristic music is only established by the ''age'' of the game. When we were children, we played the games regardless of the music, and it grew on us. Tunes such as the nes and snes games ''defined'' castlevania music. If the music such as that remained, and SOTN got released in this time, there would be complains on some tracks that are orchestated in the game and lack the dynamics of older tunes. It's just a matter of musical taste. I like the musical approach in LOS saga. The music in old games are great, don't think I don't like it, I love it!. But it had to evolve. After LOS, Castlevania could get more budget and we could get more games, with better production and gameplay. The only thing I don't like of games before LOS, was the story. The games were great, they still are. But (and this is only my opinion), the previous team were getting Castlevania a little bit ''too japanese''. Castlevania is european in esence, so let europe people handle them. They have been doing it and it appears to be working good for the franchise. I have said this before, and will do it again, I just want IGA to make the 1999 game, and that's it. Konami must let other people manage the franchise. I think its for the best

[e105beta]

Even "Castlevania sound" is pretty vague. I mean:
Lost Painting
Dance of Pales

Dance of Pales, when done in a similar sound format as the older games, sounds like something from Mickey and the World of Illusion. That's not a diss, though. The music in that game was awesome.

It's probably an oversimplification, but the biggest change, IMO, that LoS applied to the established Castlevania music standard was a focus on slow buildups, big crescendos, and longer, less repeatable sequences.

[Shiroi Koumori]

Even "Castlevania sound" is pretty vague. I mean:
Dance of Pales, when done in a similar sound format as the older games, sounds like something from Mickey and the World of Illusion. That's not a diss, though. The music in that game was awesome.

SotN's 2D sprites fit the repetitive sounds well. Also, for that era it is hard to put in lots of musical elements when the disc capacity is limited and you have to share it with coding, graphics, etc.
So yeah, some sounds might sound like those of another game. I am not an expert on game bgm but there might have been some copying involved.

It's probably an oversimplification, but the biggest change, IMO, that LoS applied to the established Castlevania music standard was a focus on slow buildups, big crescendos, and longer, less repeatable sequences.

In other words, it became Hollywood. Some like it (cool, new change), some don't (boo, I'd rather listen to a movie soundtrack). Period.

[Nagumo]

Just to be clear, I was not critiqueing Lords in my previous post. And I actually think changing the names would have been inrelevant, since they're just labels.

e105beta, I don't feel like debating this for very long, but I see your point about non-gradual change. However, I think it's also fair to say Lords sometimes stepped out the "parameters" established by the series. For example, the music doesn't particularly support a gothic-horror game most of the time regardless of quality, and the atmosphere of gothic-horror is completely abscent in the Land of the Lycans, while the Land of the Dead may conceive a sense of horror, but not particularly gothic (except Baba Yaga's domain, which is great). Last not but not least, the point I made earlier about the game's structure not being focused on a castle. I would like to emphasise these are completely fair points to make.

I don't think there is anything wrong with the castle section, nor do I think the game betrays the series in every conceivable way, it's just a few major decisions that spoil the experience. For example, MoF already fixed most of those issues, therefore I can recognise the game from being of a related branch of the Castlevania series. The game still falls flat in other areas, but those have to with overall quality and personal taste.

However, my conclusion is that both views can be true at the same time. I'm sure there are people bone-headed enough to fixate on very trivial details like soley on Kojima art, or like I mentioned before, on specific story details. It's as they say: the truth is in the middle somewhere.

Edit: regarding the "glue" that holds the series together, that's obviously the castle itself and the fact that it's gothic horror.

[Foffy]

In that shop picture, you can clearly see the Chupacabra.

[Ahasverus]

As long as we get gothic horror one way or another, I'm fine with exploring other kinds of it, or even getting astray from the conventions (sunny green gardens etc). The state of "darkness" has more impact when you've seen the world before it's takeover. I'd love to ivist a dark twisted version of Pan's garden with blood instead of water and so on, the impact would've been diminished if we hadn't seen the beautiful pre dracula time one.