Topic: was IGA robbed?

[Belmontoya]

I never played Odin Sphere, but I have to disagree with your complaint about Muramasa. Sure a few more more enemy sprites would have been cool, but I never thought for a second that it didn't have enough. I found plenty of depth and attention to detail in Muramasa.

I just picked up Dragon's Crown recently, and I have been very impressed with it.

I think Wayforward makes great games too, but my vote would go to Vanillaware. I think they have what it takes to bring the right vibe back to Castlevania along with really solid, and tight gameplay. I would trust them to hit every mark graphically, musically, and mechanically. I also love their style of story telling.

I think Vanillaware's style of high quality 2d is exactly what CV needs.

[Zetheraxza]

I respect your opinion, mayne... But NO! 

[kaiwai]

I think it's a bit late now for Iga.
I'm not even sure if his dev'team still exist.
So, to me, he was never robbed by anyone. Cox even said that he doesn't want to use Julius in Lords of Shadow 2 because he wants to respect the fact that it was a character created by Iga, who never conculed his own story.

I really think Vanillaware has the potential to make the greatest CV game of all time.

It's nice to think that the best cv game could be yet to come.

I think the subject is super interesting and I wanted to open a new thread about it:
http://castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/index.php/topic,6992.0.html

 

[notkev]

he has repeatedly stated in interviews that his favorite game is CVIII: Dracula's Curse. he has said numerous times that he would love to remake it, similar to The Dracula X Chronicles.

I hadn't heard of this until now. This would be amazing and I think it could revitalize the old style Castlevania. I don't like the modern 3D ones.

[zangetsu468]

He more or less said there was no way the end result would live up to anyone's expectations.

I still believe he should have made it as a 2d game, even if it was for the DS. The main gripe I have with Iga being off Castlevania isn't that I don't like LOS, but we've had 1 extremely average handheld entry since MS began their reign. Handheld imo is where Castlevania can truly shine by sticking to its 2d roots. And I felt that prior to LOS the 2d entries did more to advance the series than LOI or COD. 

[Ahasverus]

I still believe he should have made it as a 2d game, even if it was for the DS. The main gripe I have with Iga being off Castlevania isn't that I don't like LOS, but we've had 1 extremely average handheld entry since MS began their reign. Handheld imo is where Castlevania can truly shine by sticking to its 2d roots. And I felt that prior to LOS the 2d entries did more to advance the series than LOI or COD.

Blame Konami. Nothing is stopping them for giving the IGA team a shot with the LoS series in handheld. That team probably doesn't exist anymore.

[thernz]

dev teams don't really stay the same anyway. the difference between aos and hod alone was pretty stark iirc. and by then, the sotn team was basically gone too lol.

[zangetsu468]

Blame Konami. Nothing is stopping them for giving the IGA team a shot with the LoS series in handheld. That team probably doesn't exist anymore.

I do, not that I'm soured. However I think at the same time that LOS was having its glory, the original canon could have still continued which would have created an avenue for new fans to be interested in the original series.

Also, whether people liked Metroidvanias or not, the handhelds were arguably solid titles on their own accord.
I didn't mind MOF, but seriously as a Castlevania game it wasn't 'good' and it really did nothing for the LOS franchise. The original LOS was a solid title, whether people consider it a proper CV or not.

[beingthehero]

Given the critical acclaim for all the handheld titles, I'd say they were a tad more than just solid. I do agree that I wish he'd have continued making handheld or digital titles for the main series and let MercurySteam do the 3D titles.

[zangetsu468]

Given the critical acclaim for all the handheld titles, I'd say they were a tad more than just solid. I do agree that I wish he'd have continued making handheld or digital titles for the main series and let MercurySteam do the 3D titles.

The handhelds were actually my favourite out of the entire series, particularly the DS titles and AOS, which is where I felt the handhelds' identity really started to pick up. For myself AOS surpassed SOTN, particularly to do with storytelling and atmosphere. Sotn for it's time was so groundbreaking, but I felt AOS was the first metroidvania to innovate even upon SOTN in certain aspects. Although OOE is my preferred game, I feel AOS started the ball rolling (souls evolving into glyphs).

That's exactly what I mean, Handhelds belong to the original canon and should remain in 2d sprite based format imo.

[Charlotte-nyo:3]

People seem to be ignoring the fact that for the 1999 game to even have a hope of living up to fan expectations, IGA would have needed a larger budget than usual--sort of a FF7 remake situation for Square Enix only in microcosm. Such a budget was something Konami was likely unwilling to give him since his games were not insane sellers, but were more niche products.

[X]

Long-time, no-see Charlotte-nyo:3. 

You don't necessarily need a big budget to get a real great game out. The history of gaming has proven this before. There were some amazing games that came out for very little cost. All the creator needs is to be inventive. It's only partially true that the more money you have that greater the chances of developing a great game. But there is also the case where you have such a large budget and yet the product you make tanks right from the get-go. We've all seen that before as well. IGA could have made the 1999 game and make it work with the amount that Konami had given him. But instead he kept on passing it up and by then it was too late to even try. Rather then making LoI or CoD for that matter, the budget for either of those two titles could have been used for the 1999 game. And now it's too late for him. 1999 is just too big in everyone's minds.

[zangetsu468]

People seem to be ignoring the fact that for the 1999 game to even have a hope of living up to fan expectations, IGA would have needed a larger budget than usual--sort of a FF7 remake situation for Square Enix only in microcosm. Such a budget was something Konami was likely unwilling to give him since his games were not insane sellers, but were more niche products.

I don't see why the 1999 game couldn't have been on the DS or 3DS. The Sorrow games were handheld entries, and rather than not make the game at all it would have been better to make it for them as a 2d entry which would have well suited a young Julius' style of gameplay. In any event Iga's next 3d title would have been based on Alucard (going by the trailers at the time) which means 1999 would not have been made.

I think people who have previously commented are correct, he simply passed up too many opportunities in the past.

[Flame]

Am I one of the few people who doesnt want a 1999 game?

And not just because of the expectations thing, The way I see it, Julius was designed as a middle aged man, and that's his purpose. The demon castle war of 199 is just background. It's supposed to be this big event in the past that influences the events of the game. And that it was never conceived with the intention of making a game about it.

I'd much rather see older beard of power Julius do his job in the present day rather than see his younger self. I'd be curious to see how they'd design him, sure, but no more than as a novelty.

It's like the Elf Wars in the Mega Man Zero series. A giant series bridging event that influences the games, but was never written with a game in mind. Just that, as backstory.

I'd rather for example, see the 1999 war if anything- explored in other media. Anime, manga, etc. but not necessarily as a game. I think people just expected too much out of a simple backstory element.

[zangetsu468]

Am I one of the few people who doesnt want a 1999 game?

And not just because of the expectations thing, The way I see it, Julius was designed as a middle aged man, and that's his purpose. The demon castle war of 199 is just background. It's supposed to be this big event in the past that influences the events of the game. And that it was never conceived with the intention of making a game about it.

Except that Iga did mention he at least had ideas and some intention of eventually creating that game.

Secondly, if the event was only privy to Julius' backstory it's very strange that Curse of Darkness' ending features Saint Germain discussing the final showdown between Dracula and Humanity.
Of course given ample opportunity it could very well could have been a game (and would have judging by that ending) people forget that the main character or constant in every CV game of old (inclusive of Soma) was actually Dracula; it's a different Belmont every game but it's the same Castle and the same Prince of Darkness.