Castlevania Dungeon Forums
The Castlevania Dungeon Forums => General Castlevania Discussion => Topic started by: DingusBelmondo on May 14, 2010, 03:24:09 AM
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Clearly the people behind recent Castlevanias (IGA) are indeed talented. They understand gameplay, theme, and have great art design. But never have I seen a series with such consistent laziness. Sprites are reused (what other notable series does this?!) translations are silly (the enemy Kali becomes curly in aria of sorrow) and little thought is put into storyline or events. If the effort put into three Castlevanias, I have no doubt IGA would be producing masterpieces, rather than just "good games". Don't get me wrong, I've had a blast with all the recent CVs, but clearly we aren't getting our best effort.
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I think part of the blame goes to Konami for giving IGA's team low budgets, whereas every Metal Gear game gets all the funding they need
Also I think we as fans are way too harsh towards the series we love. Maybe it's cuz we're spoiled like that.
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Yeah, the size of the budget is often misinterpreted as laziness. Most recent Castlevanias have been on handhelds, so of course they are going be lower budget than a console release. Besides Judgement (which was just a bad idea in the first place) there hasn't been a console Castlevania in the past 6-7 years.
Also, Kojima is the prince of Konami, not IGA. Especially after Judgement. Why? Can you name the last Metal Gear game that bombed?
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Metal Gear Solid Ac1d came close to bombing, but just barely pulled through. But yes, IGA isn't a head huncho in Konami he's had a tough time filling in the shoes of his predecessor.
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I strongly believe IGA puts as much effort into the storyline as he's capable of, but he's just not that good at it. Some people aren't meant to write stories. However, I think the storyline of Castlevania gets the job done, with little plottwists here and there. The Metroidvanias in particular had somewhat effective storytelling, albeit nothing we haven't seen before. And IGA tends to repeat himself quite a bit with the "good guy is actually bad", or "bad guy is actually good". To tell you the truth, it's only marginally more sophisticated than Mega Man (which is meant to be silly, which I doubt Castlevania is)
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Metal Gear Solid Ac1d came close to bombing, but just barely pulled through. But yes, IGA isn't a head huncho in Konami he's had a tough time filling in the shoes of his predecessor.
I doubt MGSA came close to bombing considering it had a sequel.
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It was vastly different from the sequal. The sequal had more traditional gameplay, the first Ac1d Game was a cardgame with 3D MGS graphics and plot. It was strange and lots of fans were turned off, but the hardcore ones just had to get it... and believe me there are way more hardcore MGS fans then CV fans to support oddballed franchise games. But this is detracting from the topic at hand, no?
I personally like IGA, but the CV franchise is like a vampire, it always needs a new intake of fresh blood, either it be in the form of design or gameplay. IGA has contributed some awesome concepts, but just hasn't done enough intuitive or radical enough works.
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Clearly the people behind recent Castlevanias (IGA) are indeed talented. They understand gameplay, theme, and have great art design. But never have I seen a series with such consistent laziness. Sprites are reused (what other notable series does this?!) translations are silly (the enemy Kali becomes curly in aria of sorrow) and little thought is put into storyline or events. If the effort put into three Castlevanias, I have no doubt IGA would be producing masterpieces, rather than just "good games". Don't get me wrong, I've had a blast with all the recent CVs, but clearly we aren't getting our best effort.
i totally agree...hire someone that can actually write something, i mean, look at cv3, that's the only decent cv with a good plot...SotN was only a masterpiece bc it had to be it was extremelly well made...
girl kidnapped, hero goes save....maaannnn....sounds like a movie pg-8.
how the fuck was richter controlled????how come there are no others devil forgemasters???wtf is St. Germain???How come death doesn't get involved in the plot(except CoD)???heck even Drac isn't in the plot you only see him at the end!!!!wtf is the crinsom stone???can it be stealed???so no more drac???why the "other playable" character doesn't even get a story???
so, so many other questions...
ps: don't get me wrong i love cv, but only the one that loves cares to complain. "Emily Dickinson"
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i totally agree...hire someone that can actually write something, i mean, look at cv3, that's the only decent cv with a good plot...SotN was only a masterpiece bc it had to be it was extremelly well made...
girl kidnapped, hero goes save....maaannnn....sounds like a movie pg-8.
how the fuck was richter controlled????how come there are no others devil forgemasters???wtf is St. Germain???How come death doesn't get involved in the plot(except CoD)???heck even Drac isn't in the plot you only see him at the end!!!!wtf is the crinsom stone???can it be stealed???so no more drac???why the "other playable" character doesn't even get a story???
so, so many other questions...
ps: don't get me wrong i love cv, but only the one that loves cares to complain. "Emily Dickinson"
I think you guys are trying to extract story from a franchise which obviously doesn't focus on story. It's all about the gameplay. If you want a story, go play final fantasy.
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If you want a story, go play final fantasy.
and next you give me N'Sync concert tickets...
sorry dude i lose a friend but i don't lose a joke! :-X
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To be honest I never took the story for Castlevania seriously, but I can't complain about anything Iga writes either. I just look for the enjoyment and addictive gameplay more than anything, but I prefer the traditional types of Castlevania more than Metroidvania anyway.
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I don't think the Castlevania team is entirely lazy bums. Just some of them. Specifically the level designers. The forest area in OoE speaks heavily to this.
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Dunno if the level designers are lazy, or if they're told to re-use as much as possible to save time and money. They probably have LOTS of visions and ideas (why else work in the industry?), but in the end they need to do as they're told, sort of. That's what I think, anyway.
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Yeah, the programers likely have a lot of skill. The problem is that IGA method for coming up with a story is completely wrong when dealing with a continuing series like CV. Plus, with the exception of OoE and SotN, IGA can't tell a story to save his life. Also, handhelds likely have lower budgets (probably why sprites are reused).
If IGA was actually good (or whoever is in charge of story) is was actually good and the budget wasn't low, I think the series would be a lot better. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE CV. However, it could be better.
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Mmm, a funny thing with the 3D 'Vanias is that they have pretty horrible jumping physics. The programmers probably weren't used to 3D. The few sequences in CoD were just so clunky. So maybe that's why the level design was so dumbed down? Nanobreaker apparently had much more platforming and it got slammed in reviews and sales. With the little budget they had, I guess IGA and team thought it only manageable to scrap platforming all together than code a new decent engine because of lack of budget.
But they also seemed to have a lot of staff dedicated to just the CG cutscenes so maybe it's mismanagement on the team's part too.
Though I pretty much doubt a better written story would help Castlevania much. Story doesn't really factor into copied and pasted hallways and enemy shelves. And it's rather irksome seeing sprites reused in the DS titles so much when the GBA titles didn't.
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I think IGA's concepts behind plot and characters are great, it's just the execution that's not. If anything, with each concept IGA brings up, the potential is there to do the most with it, and come out with a real kickass story, but, by the end of each game, it leaves you unsatisfied. I really love the concepts behind CoD, PoR, HoD, LoI and such, but the potential seems to have been lost for IGA's simplistic storytelling. His stories are extremely simple. He never really does anything that ISN'T expected, like throwing a curveball or something. How much I would've loved, at the end of CoD, when Hector transmutes the curse's dark energy, if he actually turned it into a monster(you actually have to KILL the curse, which was devil forged into a physical form), then THAT was the real final boss, THAT would've been interesting. I mean, I liked the concept behind Devil Forging, but IGA didn't really do anything MORE with it other than it being a gimick system excuse to run around the countryside and collect your different monsters so you have all the required types by the end of the game. I would've also loved to see appearances from the CV3 cast besides Trevor. There was great potential, storywise, for that game, but IGA never even met it halfway.
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I think IGA's concepts behind plot and characters are great, it's just the execution that's not. If anything, with each concept IGA brings up, the potential is there to do most with it, and come out with a real kickass story, but, by the end of each game, it leaves you unsatisfied. I mean, love the concepts behind CoD, PoR, HoD, LoI and such, but the potential seems to have been lost for IGA's simplistic storytelling. His stories extremely simple. He never really does anything that ISN'T expected, like throwing a curveball or something. How much I would've loved, at the end of CoD, when Hector transmutes the curse's dark energy, if he actually turned it into a monster(you actually have to KILL the curse, which was devil forged into a physical form), then THAT was the real final boss, THAT would've been interesting. I mean, I liked the concept behind Devil Forging, but IGA didn't really do anything MORE with it other than it being a gimick system excuse to run around the countryside and collect your different monsters so you have all the required types by the end of the game. I would've also loved to see appearances from the CV3 cast besides Trevor. There was great potential, storywise, for that game, but IGA never even met it halfway.
I totally agree with this. Concepts like the portraits in POR and others are so underplayed, great concepts, poor execution. I just find it strange, because so many japenese game series go so completely over the top with the plot twists and story and bosses, Iga just seems to lack some of those ideas. Im not saying I wish CV was like a crazy Jrpg, it's just that there are people out there who have limitless wells of inspired ideas, but they don't really make it to CV.
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Dunno if the level designers are lazy, or if they're told to re-use as much as possible to save time and money. They probably have LOTS of visions and ideas (why else work in the industry?), but in the end they need to do as they're told, sort of. That's what I think, anyway.
Reusing things like backgrounds and sprites I can understand. They're hard to draw. But copying and pasting entire room layouts is unacceptable. Adventure Rebirth was a budgety 10 dollar game, and its level design was better and more varied than pretty much every DS Castlevania. (In this case, though, I guess the relative lengths of the games should be taken into account, but still, something's gotta give.)
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Reusing things like backgrounds and sprites I can understand. They're hard to draw. But copying and pasting entire room layouts is unacceptable. Adventure Rebirth was a budgety 10 dollar game, and its level design was better and more varied than pretty much every DS Castlevania. (In this case, though, I guess the relative lengths of the games should be taken into account, but still, something's gotta give.)
Everything in game production is "hard" to do, not just artwork. That being said, it's easier to notice reused art than say, reused code. But code reuse is something that is generally a good practice. Even so, programmers are generally the most overworked people on the team.
I agree with copied room layouts being lazy. Design, relative to programming, art, and sound engineering, is the easiest thing to do in production. Sure you have to be creative, but as far as the actual amount of work that needs to be done in each discipline, design is the easiest. I'm sure they have a level editor where it is easy to move things around.
One strange thing I have noticed is that in almost all of the 2D CV games, the designers double as artists. If you look in the credits, you won't see a separate section for art. The designers do the sprite work. I don't know if that is common practice for Japan, but you'd almost never see that in the US unless we're talking about a dinky mobile game.
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I think IGA's concepts behind plot and characters are great, it's just the execution that's not.
Couldn't have said it better. I think this is my gripe with the story in IGA's games. Great initial ideas that become muddled by the end of the game.
As far as the topic goes, I don't think IGA's team is lazy; just unfortunately on a small budget. I really do believe that this has been a greater factor than laziness or incompetence.
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If u give a lot of $$$ to Iga, what's the result?: Pokevania - Curse of Darkness ::)
Also, i dunno how did Iga accepted the idea of Order of Shadows
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He is just a producer man, give him a break.
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If u give a lot of $$$ to Iga, what's the result?: Pokevania - Curse of Darkness ::)
Also, i dunno how did Iga accepted the idea of Order of Shadows
Iga had little to nothing to do with Order of Shadows. I don't know why people mention him as producer of that game. If you look in the real credits, he's only under Special Thanks.
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Hmm... what to say when I've pretty much said it all.................IGa needs to think outside "HIS" box.
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