Castlevania Dungeon Forums
The Castlevania Dungeon Forums => General Castlevania Discussion => Topic started by: olrox2 on August 11, 2014, 11:20:39 AM
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Everyone agrees that Castlevania sales are decent but never topped, at least not enough to make people from Marketting department wave their arms.
What is the thing that missed to sell millions or basillions of copies? Metroidvania games are not that hard, is it the concept itself that didnt look appealing to ordinary players?
The theme of the game that is not mainstream enough(yet vampires are popular)?
The lack of a decent marketting strategy(these games never had big advertisings on tv)?
Basically, what would prevent a metroidvania game from reaching 3-5 millions sales?
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Restricted gaming systems, "old school" look that don't appeal the "mainstream" audience, no real promotion.
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After Symphony, the two N64 stinkers hit and bombed. Following that Circle of the Moon sold a bazillion copies, so they kept following that.
At some point they were reluctant to give any budget to Castlevania. They kept trying to repeat the success of Circle of the Moon by releasing non stop handhelds.
Lament and Curse did little to nothing to further the main stream appeal.Curse especially regressed on what Lament laid out, and sunk the Castlevania console market. Later Judgement came to put the nail in the coffin.
In doing this they kept marginalizing the mainstream appeal on the consoles, and segregating the franchise into the handheld market until lords of Shadow came along.
It's no secret that Lords of Shadow has so many advantages as a game above Lament, Curse, and the N64 titles for sure. They had a nice budget, which lead to a long game with great graphics, more solid gameplay than it's 3D predecessors, and a lot of marketing behind it.
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Short answer- Mismanagement from Konami. And non-viability of 2D games as mainstream console titles from about 1998 to 2012 or so.
Long answer-
Castlevania was a big name IP for a little while in the late 1980s/early 1990s. But then when the 16bit era hit Konami decided to hedge their bets and put a game out on each of the major 16bit systems, fraying consumer loyalty. Then when the 32bit era came around they failed to capitalize on the unexpected smash success of Symphony of the Night to instead jump on the "Everything has to be in 3D now!" bandwagon. A fad which was already starting to slow down by the time they did it. I like the N64 games but after SOTN they weren't what most people were looking for in the Castlevania brand (neither was Legends on the Gameboy) so they got an infamous reputation as disappointments.
In the early 00s, before digital distribution really existed, popular industry wisdom held that 2D games only sold on handhelds. So after two more non-starter 3D console games the money men at Konami decided that the series was going to be 2D only, which meant handheld only. (Disregarding the strange spinoff that was "Judgement") I think they kept chasing the success of Circle of the Moon, not really considering it owed its success in large part to being one of the few "must have" launch titles for the GBA. Konami kept pushing IGA and his team to pump out handheld MetroidVanias faster and cheaper, which lead to lots of sprite re-use and arguably an overall decline in level design quality.
All of which contributed to a disintegration in the prestige of the once-venerated series.
After that Konami apparently took competing proposals from IGA and makers of "Clive Barker's Jericho" MercurySteam. IGA made a proposal trailer for a 3D Alucard game, MercurySteam proposed the "Lords of Shadow" reboot. MercurySteam won and IGA was unceremoniously moved onto shovelware duty until he recently left Konami.
Considering their handling of Silent Hill it's anybody's guess what Konami will do next with the IP since MercurySteam has moved on. But it will most likely be a continuation of Lords of Shadow in some way. They don't seem to have been satisfied with the success of the previous digitally distributed titles in the series though.
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I admit that Circle of The Moon owed a lot to being a game available at launch, its the game that made me buy a gba basically.
When i played Harmony of Dissonance, i quickly finished it and forgot it, because i had a feeling of déjà vu.Then came Aria of Sorrow, which i enjoyed mainly because of the hunt for souls and powers.
It is a bit sad to see hw management mistakes have sunk the ip.
I havent tried the DS generation castlevana games, but i should get them this week or next since i bought a 2DS and those games on amazon.
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Lack of good marketing also did not help.
Back in the 80's and 90's, there would be TV commercials for the more popular games.
The last commercial for Castlevania that I remember seeing in the USA was for Lament of Innocence (awesome commercial):
CASTLEVANIA: LAMENT of INNOCENCE- 2003 Television Commercial #1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBpON5Mv87o#)
On TV, on Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon, I still see Rated E commercials, such as Pokemon, etc.
Late at night, on Comedy Central, I still see commercials for games, but it's mostly for XBOX crap.
Having a commercial for a game that shows in late-night would give the brand a little more exposure...
...but it would also help if the game is good. The LoS games are OK at best, but not super-great.
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I think peeps are forgetting that Dawn of Sorrow was considered by Konami to be a great success. Like CotM, it was the 'killer app' that you had to get in 2005.
Anyways Castlevania wasn't all that low-key from the early 2000's to the late 00's. They always sold enough for them to make another one in one to two years, unlike Konami's other titles like Snatcher or Contra. Just about every 'list of GBA/DS games you must have' always included some or all of the Castlevania games. But by 2009 it seemed everyone had to have ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD for anything to be considered remotely successful.
Anyways marketing isn't everything, since LoS2 was just as heavily marketed as LoS1, and it flopped.
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castlevania was, and arguably still is, going thru an identity crisis. journey back to 2008, and the mystical countryside of Japan. boardheads & execs were scrambling with random ideas, which produced Ecclesia, Akumajo Dracula: The Arcade, Encore of the Night, Judgment, Pachislot, Lords of Shadow, among others. now what do these all have in common? theyre vastly different from one another. so what sparked this sudden change? we all know how influential Hideo Kojima is at Konami, maybe his meddling went a lil beyond LoS? perhaps he told the suits "you guys have a legendary ip, perhaps you should throw stuff at the wall & see what sticks" or something like that, they misinterpretted his words, etc. who knows
the fact of the matter is, if konami put as much effort into castlevania as much as t hey do Metal Gear back in like 2000, then the course of the series would be very different than it is today. weather it wouldve be good or bad is anyones guess
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holy crap i just realised beingthehero's signature is breathing
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Castlevania lacked guns, first-person mode, lacked a mandatory-badass eyepatch, lacked "World War II's" themes, lacked a silent, emotionless character that attacks people with a crowbar, lacked an assassin wannabe that travels through time to replay other assassin wannabes that must undergo a 2-hour tutorial to learn how to walk, lacked ZOMG PUBLICITY, lacked ZOMG 3D 60FPS 1080p, lacked repetitive candy-dragging puzzles and fly-through-pipe birds...
All in all, it lacked everything that is terrible and/or extremelly mainstream, and was actually a good game. The people are the ones with a problem. Too many kids playing shitty games are killing Castlevania.
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What was "good sales" for a Platform like DS? I checked numbers on vg chartz, apparently Circle of the moon sold around 890 k copies, and Dawn of Sorrow 400 k.
Compared to that, pokemon main game always go beyond 6 millions sales. Mario games do much better than Castlevania too.
Thinking about it, maybe that Castlevania has bad sales because its doesnt loook "Nintendoish" enough for players?
I got a look at Nintendo ds most sold games:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_DS_video_games
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That's kinda what I was thinking...seems like the main thing anyone wants on consoles nowadays are that style of game...Halo, Modern Warfare, Call of Duty, etc.. At least, that's what I always hear my few gamer friends talking about. :-/
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What was "good sales" for a Platform like DS? I checked numbers on vg chartz, apparently Circle of the moon sold around 890 k copies, and Dawn of Sorrow 400 k.
Compared to that, pokemon main game always go beyond 6 millions sales. Mario games do much better than Castlevania too.
Thinking about it, maybe that Castlevania has bad sales because its doesnt loook "Nintendoish" enough for players?
I got a look at Nintendo ds most sold games:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_DS_video_games
VG Chartz isn't exactly a good source, from what I remember they've admitted that their numbers are pure guesswork.
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Aside from Konami's mismanagement as what Ratty said, I think the gaming demographic has changed. The games they want now are vastly different from the games we wanted then. And as far as I know people tend to crowd on certain games more than others, so developers just decide to make copy pasta games which are tiring/boring to the veterans but are still capable of luring newbies and people who don't care.
If Castlevania changed to suit the new demographic, it loses its aesthetic and its identity. It slowly dies from the churning of the industry.... unless, someone steps up and breathes new life to it but not all things given new life will remain mainstream for long. Take for instance Prince of Persia, a successful reboot for the PS2 era, but sadly put on hold because the assassins took over.
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Take for instance Prince of Persia, a successful reboot for the PS2 era, but sadly put on hold because the assassins took over.
And then Prince of Persia was rebooted AGAIN in 2008 to suit the new demographics of the time, and it just didn't even feel like Prince of Persia. T'was a good game in its own right (despite being mind-numbingly repetitive), but didn't feel like PoP to me. And then they went back to the Sands storyline again, and that was a good game at best.
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If we're talking about the metroidvanias, why not talk about the classic games as well? Why did they lack mainstream appeal? The most influenceal and the only one which probably had an impact on gaming in general was the original.
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All in all, it lacked everything that is terrible and/or extremelly mainstream, and was actually a good game. The people are the ones with a problem. Too many kids playing shitty games are killing Castlevania.
Thank you. Quoted for ultimate truth. Although the descriptions about what has been going on at Konami with the series seem very accurate as well. Video games altogether have gotten so unbelievable mainstream. I actually took a good 9 year break from video games except for a few rare times. Messing with them again now after such a break I see a really stark difference from what I remember. Practically everyone and their grandmother plays games now, great grandmothers probably too. Unfortunately the mainstream is dumb as a stump. Everything is dumbed down, from education to video games. Years ago I remember hearing that TV meteorologists have to talk as if their audience is 12 years old or 6th graders. Now it's probably lower than that. Plus 12 year olds aren't as smart as they used to be and are rarely capable of what we were at that age.
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@EisaKrieger: AMEN.
@Nagumo: The action horror genre will never be mainstream maybe except when it involves zombies and stupid protagonists.
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One thing that still astonishes me is how fairly well Ghosts N Goblins outsold Castlevania for the NES. I could see how a typical consumer would find the two games similar at first glance. But then you'd think that people would quickly realize that Ghosts N Goblins is like 10X harder (at least for me). Maybe its sales were bolstered by people already being familiar with the original arcade version?? I don't know.
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If we're talking about the metroidvanias, why not talk about the classic games as well? Why did they lack mainstream appeal? The most influenceal and the only one which probably had an impact on gaming in general was the original.
Well, this is all conjecture on my part. But I think it was a couple things probably.
First was that they followed up Castlevania with such a drastic change. For comparison we can use the Zelda series here. People were surprised and hated Link's Adventure in a reaction similar to Simon's Quest. But while Nintendo followed that up by going back to and refining their original formula on the Gameboy and one console game (Link to the Past) Konami came out with the very problematic "Castlevania the Adventure" and the amazing but late-in-the-NES-lifecycle Castlevania 3.
When the time came around to put the series on the next console generation instead of giving the fanbase 1 system to follow they split the series across three consoles. Just as we see today a series that hops across multiple consoles with different titles for each (as opposed to just porting the same title to multiple platforms) means most fans won't be able to play all of them, which hurts fan enthusiasm and probably discourages new players to a degree. Also by not being an exclusive series to a particular console they lost any prominence/slavish Sega-or-Nintendo-fanboy devotion they might have gotten by being "ammunition" in that console war. Also by the 16bit era most people were getting used to a different style of jumping mechanics than ClassicVanias use, which I think was the final nail in the coffin for any chance the ClassicVanias had of regaining Castlevania 1 popularity and influence.
You can see there were attempts to negate these problems. Castlevania 4 is significantly easier to have wider appeal, Bloodlines was originally intended to be a Gaiden and iirc possibly the start of a SEGA specific spinoff series, Rondo of Blood was remade for the Super Famicom. It's just that these attempts didn't really work unfortunately.
One thing that still astonishes me is how fairly well Ghosts N Goblins outsold Castlevania for the NES. I could see how a typical consumer would find the two games similar at first glance. But then you'd think that people would quickly realize that Ghosts N Goblins is like 10X harder (at least for me). Maybe its sales were bolstered by people already being familiar with the original arcade version?? I don't know.
That would be my guess. Because NES Ghosts N Goblins is not a better (or even a better looking) game by any stretch of the imagination.
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To take it one step further, I really believe if the series had CONTINUED to evolve based on the changes made in SCVIV, that the games would be more widely played and diverse.
However the concession is that it's very possible the exploration style may not have returned as a result. At least not in the same way we know it today.
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It'd be great if people who played the new stuff were inspired to check out the older stuff and became CV fans who'd buy into the series and create reason to make more games. It worked that way with my sister -- she saw me playing SotN -- except she doesn't yet have a job and steady income to buy all the games she wants. It also kinda worked that way for me. I loved the original CV and CV3 as a kid, but I was terrible enough at games that I couldn't even make it past level 1 without my dad's help. I kinda forgot about the games until I saw SotN and CV64 at a friend's house. I borrowed his SNES and SCV4, and also went back and replayed the original, did much better at it, and became a huge fan of the series.
It also seems like the NES/SNES "retro" style is making somewhat of a comeback. It'd be nice if that too can help revive the series a little. Perhaps with well timed re-releases or something, people getting into those retro themed games can find their way to the retro CV games, and eventually the series.
I guess that's hoping for a lot though. :-\ :rollseyes:
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When the time came around to put the series on the next console generation instead of giving the fanbase 1 system to follow they split the series across three consoles. Just as we see today a series that hops across multiple consoles with different titles for each (as opposed to just porting the same title to multiple platforms) means most fans won't be able to play all of them, which hurts fan enthusiasm and probably discourages new players to a degree. Also by not being an exclusive series to a particular console they lost any prominence/slavish Sega-or-Nintendo-fanboy devotion they might have gotten by being "ammunition" in that console war. Also by the 16bit era most people were getting used to a different style of jumping mechanics than ClassicVanias use, which I think was the final nail in the coffin for any chance the ClassicVanias had of regaining Castlevania 1 popularity and influence.
This is what really bothered me back in the day. Didn't have a Genesis though we could rent one, and we especially did not have the TG-16 turbo duo due to the system being somewhat recluse. And there's also fact that I had never heard about Rondo until 2 years after I had gotten it's watered down SNES counterpart (didn't get the internet till 1997 and SNES Dracula X came out in 95'). As a Nintendo fan I was hoping the CV series would stay with Nintendo as that's how I remembered and experienced it, considering that all the CV games from SCV4 going back to CV 1 were all playable on Nintendo consoles.
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To be honest i tried almost all old castlevanias a few years ago(from the first one to rondo of blood), and while i enjoyed the artistic design, i feel i couldnt struggle long nowadays with such a difficulty level, unless i have quicksaves.
I also tried simon quest, but couldnt get into it, and i found that idea of countdown quite stressing.
I think there could be castlevanias platform games, but with a tweaked difficulty and a bunch of checkpoints.
I had never heard about Castlevania until 2000, when i bought a magazine about playstation tta listed best old games. Symphony of the Night was in the list, and i got it for Christmas. I was wondering what was the mysterious game that ended at the prologue, and only found out about it years later, in a time where unlimited Internet became the norm.
I think yes we can have a castlevania Platform, but with a strong condition tough: a good artistic design, an identity.
Super meat Boy is both a challenging game and a well artistically designed one.
Some new content is needed. I just played Portrait of Ruins today, and i found out most of monsters i have met are picked from SotN, literally.Fithfulness to the myth is good, but at the same time, new stuff must come.
I remember that a bunch of monsters from Circle of the Moon really looked new and really nice, but then, in following games, it goes back to a SotN design.
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Back in the 90s, speaking of myself, I consider Castlevania unique in his type. A hero with a whip, fighting monsters from horror movies and mithology, and Dracula as the main enemy. I can´t remember another game that has that. In terms of gameplay, there was some "similar" games: Ninja Gaiden and Vice Project Doom are coming to my mind right now. And then we have the great music and its graphics in the NES and SNES games. The Genesis game was great in that terms, too. So, in that years Castlevania was easy recognized, almost for me. Then, with the "SoTN era" (Metroidvanias), we have another style. Same great music, and lore (monsters, mithology, Dracula).
So, in the present era of gaming, we have a lot of games with similar settings and styles. DmC, Bayonetta, Dark Souls, among others. Yes, they don´t have Dracula in his story (at least in the games I know), so if we have a modern Castlevania game, it will rivalize directly with those types of game, as an IP. That was the situation with the LoS trilogy, most importantly the first and third one, in my opinion.
In few words, to make a Castlevania a mainstream in the present its needs to have a distinct element, different from the other ones, to attract more gamers and give them more interest enough to prefer Castlevania among the others.
The story, gameplay, graphics and music works for me in the past...
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..Yes, they don´t have Dracula in his story (at least in the games I know), so if we have a modern Castlevania game, it will rivalize directly with those types of game, as an IP. That was the situation with the LoS trilogy, most importantly the first and third one, in my opinion....
You see, I've though of that before. Dracula is public domain, so why don't other games use him more? That must be mostly because Dracula is already too recognized as "that villain from Castlevania games". I think IGA should start his own "Dracula" franchise. He's already "IGA". If he had a Dracula, he'd pretty much steal Konami, without actually "stealing" Konami. He should do it u.u
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You see, I've though of that before. Dracula is public domain, so why don't other games use him more? That must be mostly because Dracula is already too recognized as "that villain from Castlevania games". I think IGA should start his own "Dracula" franchise. He's already "IGA". If he had a Dracula, he'd pretty much steal Konami, without actually "stealing" Konami. He should do it u.u
Yes, that were my thoughs and expectatives when I know that IGA will work alone, without Konami. The company owns the name Castlevania, but IGA (or another developer or company) could make a game called Castle of Dracula, or The Curse of Dracula with Dracula as the main enemy...
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At some point they were reluctant to give any budget to Castlevania. They kept trying to repeat the success of Circle of the Moon by releasing non stop handhelds.
Didn't IGA once say his CV games always got above average budgets or something?
Other than that i agree. Konami simply followed the money from the start, without thinking about the future, and therefore alienated the franchise from mainstream consumers. The early handhelds, like HoD or AoS, CoM, those were still relatively mainstream, because until the PSP came, Nintendo had a monopoly on the handheld market. if you had a handheld, it was a GBA. It was nintendo. With the advent of the PSP though, it suddenly became the "cool" "adult gamer" console, with THREE DEE games. shit like God of War and whatnot, so it was for matuuure gamers, while the GBA and the DS were for "little kids". that mindset that got into the popular gamer culture of nintendo consoles being kiddy consoles with the 360 and PS3 being the mature ones, really hurt castlevania, since all the handhelds mostly stuck to Nintendo, with DxC being the exception. So the handheldvanias sunk lower because of it, alienated even MORE from the common consumer.
like Uzo said also, the PS2 games were nothing ground breaking. And they got piss poor marketing. The one American commercial for lament is pretty nice, but it's just that one, and the Japanese one is totally weird and doesnt do much to sell the game or concept at all.
so since try #2 at Consolevania failed, they once again relegated it to handhelds that noone but fans bought. Especially when they became sequels and prequels.
and then try #3 with Judgement failed and i have NO idea what the target audience was for that or why they thought it would generate any kind of appeal, and we wound up with them deciding to push the financial burden onto an outside team for "fresh perspective", which worked well enough for the first game, but quickly unraveled into a mess that Konami probably should have kept a tighter leash on.
Also Marketing Marketing Marketing. Videogame magazines no longer really exist. you can't just dump a one page ad into a couple and call it a day. you have to use the interweb. release footage to gaming websites, make interviews, commercials, etc.
TLDR seems like mismanagement and very poor foresight.
Not too different from Capcom and Megaman, actually. Only difference being Konami still actually cares about Castlevania as a prized franchise that they want to make work, while Capcom stopped Caring about Mega Man (and most of their franchises) as anything other than a cash cow long ago and just can't be bothered to try and make it work again.
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I don't actually know but my guess is probably doing the same formula over and over again. I'm cool with it but I'm not everyone.
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and we wound up with them deciding to push the financial burden onto an outside team for "fresh perspective"
If you're referring to Mercury Steam, then I don't believe thats true. Konami is a publisher. Typical publisher relations involve the publisher giving the budget for the game to the studio, and the studio receiving a small profit share off of it's sales. Typically 70% to publisher, 30% to studio.
Unless you have an article or interview where they stated otherwise. Publishers not fronting the budget is a very unlikely course of action. Studios rarely have the budget to make, let alone market, their own game.
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You forget the unfamous point and lcick series of Dracula games on PC.
I think the main reason there is no Dracula Game is it seems hard to make something consistant around Dracula, you cant just throw him like this in a random shooter ip.
Castlevania used Dracula when games didnt have complex and long stories. Nowadays to make a good Dracula game you would need talented people. and Castlevanias is already using the romantic backgroundof Dracula, no Publisher is gonna risk money like this.
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Seeing how we have talked about what CV has lacked preventing it from being mainstream, how about discussing what could make it mainstream?
I'm no game developer, but I do have an idea for a new CV game separate from all the others. Basically, you play as Dracula trying to reclaim his castle which has been taken over by a new species of vampire who aren't hurt by the sun. They only sparkle and are so emo.
As far as gameplay would go, you have your chose between two versions of Dracula: Classic Mage like in the early games where he would teleport/fireball routine; Warrior like Gabula in LoS2. Just imagine tearing through "team Edward" as either version of Dracula and reclaiming the castle from those freaking sparkling beings who give vampires a bad name. For someone like me who hates twilight and feels that it ruined vampires, I think it would be a lot of fun regardless of if it had a strong story or not.
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I'm pretty sure what I feel as I read your post is an aura of sarcasm...but nonetheless, I think I would buy and play such a game if it existed! ;-P
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Seeing how we have talked about what CV has lacked preventing it from being mainstream, how about discussing what could make it mainstream?
I'm no game developer, but I do have an idea for a new CV game separate from all the others. Basically, you play as Dracula trying to reclaim his castle which has been taken over by a new species of vampire who aren't hurt by the sun. They only sparkle and are so emo.
As far as gameplay would go, you have your chose between two versions of Dracula: Classic Mage like in the early games where he would teleport/fireball routine; Warrior like Gabula in LoS2. Just imagine tearing through "team Edward" as either version of Dracula and reclaiming the castle from those freaking sparkling beings who give vampires a bad name. For someone like me who hates twilight and feels that it ruined vampires, I think it would be a lot of fun regardless of if it had a strong story or not.
A Castlevania game where you play as Dracula, for me, feels like a Smash Bros game where Ridley has been made playable through rescaling his sprite and nerfing his powers. I simply can't feel it. It happened with LoS2. I can't see Gabriel as Dracula. I simply can't. He'll always be Gabriel. Dracula doesn't exude warrior-esque feels, and thus I can't see him walking, running, attacking melee, flinching. I dunno, doesn't feel right.
As you proposed, here I go.
How to make Castlevania mainstream:
-Make the protagonist mute and characterless. Let the player sympathize with the character. Make it's gender and class selectable, too. Male or Female, Vampire Hunter (Whip), Warrior (Swords/Flails), Mage (Magic). Yeah, make it like "The Arcade".
-Make it disconnected from the main timeline. People won't play Castlevania because of the sheer size of the franchise. It scares people. See how LoS fared? That's because it felt so much disconnected that people received it as being a completelly new game. It felt new. (However, new doesn't mean good).
-Add Alucard somewhere.
-Advertise the game as a [movietrailerannouncervoice]"New epic take on the classic gothic tale of Dracula!", "Explore a vast universe ravaged by darkness!", "Face hellish creatures in relentless combat!", "Customize your hero with relics and weapons to crush your foes!"[/movietrailerannouncervoice]. Yeah, advertise it like a MMO;
-Add tutorials in between loading screens. Bitches love tutorials in between loading screens.
-Make the story have as much relationship with real world events as possible, and incorporate in it actual events as much as possible.
-Make Dracula witty, snarky, but evil to the core. Make people love to hate him.
I think that's all.
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"Castlevania MMO" ...interesting. Because of my CV obsession, I did (often!) suggest to PlayNC that they add whips to the Scrapper and Tanker weapon selection in the "City of..." games. Sadly, it never happened.
I like what you're suggesting though. (Although, I guess my obsession might lead me to like almost anything suggested at this point...almost anything...just to have something.
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"Castlevania MMO" ...interesting. Because of my CV obsession, I did (often!) suggest to PlayNC that they add whips to the Scrapper and Tanker weapon selection in the "City of..." games. Sadly, it never happened.
Interestingly enough they have chains that you can whip around in Champions Online. I made Sonia Belmont in that one, lol.
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I'm pretty sure what I feel as I read your post is an aura of sarcasm...but nonetheless, I think I would buy and play such a game if it existed! ;-P
Well, I guess I could say it was half sarcasm and half serious. I guess it could be a stand alone game that took place in the CV universe, but separate from existing games. Just something that was different and could be fun for a certain group of people (*cough twilight haters cough*).
Considering that Twilight seems to have single-handedly killed that image of vampires as scary monsters, it would be nice to restore that scary image vampires once had.
Hell, throw the Belmonts in their too. Have them hunt this new threat.
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Seeing how we have talked about what CV has lacked preventing it from being mainstream, how about discussing what could make it mainstream?
Eh, I think that I missunderstand the topic of this thread :P. That`s the reason for my last post.
A Castlevania game where you play as Dracula, for me, feels like a Smash Bros game where Ridley has been made playable through rescaling his sprite and nerfing his powers. I simply can't feel it. It happened with LoS2. I can't see Gabriel as Dracula. I simply can't. He'll always be Gabriel. Dracula doesn't exude warrior-esque feels, and thus I can't see him walking, running, attacking melee, flinching. I dunno, doesn't feel right.
Totally agree with you. When I see the first ingame gameplay, I asked to me, why, if I see Dracula in the game, why he have a whip? Yes, I know that he "inherit" the whip when he destroy it at the end of the first game, am I wrong? When I play the demo, I feel exactly like controlling Gabriel from the first LoS. I would prefer that Gabula fights only with his sword, and uses Dracula`s powers: a better bat form, more fireballs, real flying... you know, that things that a vampire like Dracula does. In fact, I simply don`t like that Gabriel becomes Dracula in first place >:(.
Considering that Twilight seems to have single-handedly killed that image of vampires as scary monsters, it would be nice to restore that scary image vampires once had.
Oh, yeah, I miss that days were vampires were real vampires. And now, lets see how the future new Dracula "another story" movie goes :P...
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-Make the protagonist mute and characterless. Let the player sympathize with the character. Make it's gender and class selectable, too. Male or Female, Vampire Hunter (Whip), Warrior (Swords/Flails), Mage (Magic). Yeah, make it like "The Arcade".
-Make it disconnected from the main timeline. People won't play Castlevania because of the sheer size of the franchise. It scares people. See how LoS fared? That's because it felt so much disconnected that people received it as being a completelly new game. It felt new. (However, new doesn't mean good).
I'm not sure if you were being ironic here, but I really like that idea, and I thought of something similar.
I tried to come up with a system where the player's abilities were based on the equipment that is being worn. For example, if you want to change into a mage class you dress up in blue robes, or you can collect Simon's gear from SCIV or something. Seems to me like something the developers could have fun with and it could lead to some nice fan service.
Also, about being disconnected from the timeline, Castlevania would probably benefit more from having less of a story. Instead they could focus more on lore and make the world more interesting and immersive. So having a mute protagonist would work well in combination with that idea. Less is more, and all that.
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While I generally like a good story in a game, I agree removing it would work with CV. I don't think it would hurt if there is a little bit of story, or if the character speaks some...I think what was in SotN was a good amount of each, but beyond that they started adding more. Again, I never minded it but for the suggested idea I personally wouldn't add any more than was in SotN.
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Its hard to define the tone of the series: its not really a lighter and softer series, and not something "darker and edgier" either.
I think it would be nice if it went darker. It will never be as family friendly as a mario games(-because castle+vampires will keep away parents who want light content for their children) sot it should go all grim dark.
But in a different way than PS2 and Los Games. A mastered dark story can please people and sell well.
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It will never be as family friendly as a mario games(-because castle+vampires will keep away parents who want light content for their children) sot it should go all grim dark.
I'd still hope they are careful not to go too dark though...just personal preference. The bloodier/darker games get, I just don't like them. They just become stupid somehow...sorry to those who like that kind of thing. Although, I do love Eternal Darnkess, which seems fairly dark to me, so maybe it just has to be done "just right" or something?
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I would seriously love a new "spooky" Castlevania game, rather than a "horror"-ish one. You know, maybe a Mega Man: Powered Up-esque remake of CV1 or CV3.
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i feel i couldnt struggle long nowadays with such a difficulty level, unless i have quicksaves
The old CVs weren't that hard. Tough, yes, but not too difficult. My buddy never played Castlevania but downloaded CV4 and Rondo on his Wii after I kept pestering him to play the series (and of course he loved both games). He beat CV4 and gave up on Rondo after that goddamn boss rush fight with Shaft. By comparison to Shaft's fight, the other old CV games were a bit of a cakewalk.
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I'd still hope they are careful not to go too dark though...just personal preference. The bloodier/darker games get, I just don't like them. They just become stupid somehow...sorry to those who like that kind of thing. Although, I do love Eternal Darnkess, which seems fairly dark to me, so maybe it just has to be done "just right" or something?
I would seriously love a new "spooky" Castlevania game, rather than a "horror"-ish one. You know, maybe a Mega Man: Powered Up-esque remake of CV1 or CV3.
I agree with these above. And to me it seems that Castlevania was at it's absolute best when it was the classic horror, campy Halloween-esque series we grew up with. Personally it should have stayed there.
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I would seriously love a new "spooky" Castlevania game, rather than a "horror"-ish one. You know, maybe a Mega Man: Powered Up-esque remake of CV1 or CV3.
ewww, no. leave cutesy to Kid Dracula.
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I'd still hope they are careful not to go too dark though...just personal preference. The bloodier/darker games get, I just don't like them. They just become stupid somehow...sorry to those who like that kind of thing. Although, I do love Eternal Darnkess, which seems fairly dark to me, so maybe it just has to be done "just right" or something?
I would seriously love a new "spooky" Castlevania game, rather than a "horror"-ish one. You know, maybe a Mega Man: Powered Up-esque remake of CV1 or CV3.
I agree with these above. And to me it seems that Castlevania was at it's absolute best when it was the classic horror, campy Halloween-esque series we grew up with. Personally it should have stayed there.
I'm not familiar with Mega Man: Powered Up but yeah. I like Castlevania when it doesn't take the horror elements too seriously and just tries to be fun. With refrences to cheesy old monster movies etc. I mean I don't think most of them even tried to be scary, or they had a few scary elements overshadowed by lots of goofy (or, in the IGA era, gothic and moody but not feally frightening) ones. Castlevania is an action franchise with a (cheesy and/or Gothic) horror theme, not the other way around.
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Yeah. I've always liked the gothic/horror/mythology references found in the games and enemies, but I never needed it to be creepy in any way. As must as I like a good story in a game, I found CV more fun when they were less focused on some huge dramatic story and were more just games, or a little campy even.
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Castlevania's always been mainstream, but it's been on the outskirts of mainstream. It was the mainstream game that people who liked GOOD games wouldn't be ashamed to play. A game hipsters could enjoy but that also had mainstream appeal. All the people I knew who were REALLY into games with maybe one exception owned at least ONE CV game.
The classic games were a good barometer of what was going on with the home console market. CV1 was arcade-based while CV2 and 3 made the games longer, more adventure-like. CV4 made full use of the SNES' Mode7 and pushed the console's capabilities as did Bloodlines on the Genesis. Rondo made excellent use of the Turbo Duo's CD drive and boasted graphics that looked like a full on anime cartoon.
The series took a lot of chances too. They'd establish something then obliterate it. The classic games gave way to SoTN and the exploration games, something that wasn't welcomed by some of the CV fans I knew. Making Alucard the main character in SoTN wasn't a popular move with a lot of the people I knew who were fans from the beginning. But SoTN went on to be one of the series' highlights. Some of the chances they took were rather ill advised (Judgment, but that's more a symptom of Konami going from state-of-the-art publisher to me-too company) but they did a lot more chance-taking than series' like Mario, Zelda, or Sonic did.
Having at least one CV game on most systems definitely didn't do them any favors, but years later it means we have more games to enjoy. But CV was all the rage back in the day. You definitely heard more about CV than you did about Metal Gear, at least until MGS came out.
The games stopped being cool probably around Aria. HoD was probably the last "cool" CV game IMO because even though in places it seemed like they were trying to remind people of SoTn, it was weird, jaunty, and in some ways, supposed to make you go O_o. I didn't like that game as much when I first played it, but it's really grown on me over the years. They watered the subsequent games down a good bit, and as much as I like the LoS series (especially the 1st game) they aren't cool in the same way that the Transformers movies aren't cool.
TL;DR Castlevania has always been sort of mainstream, but it also kept its cred for a long time too.
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It's the long history of the series that spawned a lot of fans with differing opinions on how it should be made. And most of the time fans don't agree with each other.
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I'm not familiar with Mega Man: Powered Up but yeah. I like Castlevania when it doesn't take the horror elements too seriously and just tries to be fun. With refrences to cheesy old monster movies etc. I mean I don't think most of them even tried to be scary, or they had a few scary elements overshadowed by lots of goofy (or, in the IGA era, gothic and moody but not feally frightening) ones. Castlevania is an action franchise with a (cheesy and/or Gothic) horror theme, not the other way around.
MM:PU was a PSP remake, or reimagining, of the first Mega Man. It featured a cartoony graphical style that really helped it feel light-hearted and just fun, and was, according to Keiji Inafune, how Mega Man was supposed to look in the first place. Now, I don't mean Castlevania should look outright cartoony, but be what Powered Up was to Mega Man. Embrace the fun of the game, be more about fun of the game rather than making an edgy and visceral vampire flick.
Granted, that doesn't necessarily help the image of vampires in this day and age, but whatever.
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Yeah, Twilight kinda f**ked vampires over for everyone.
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Yeah, Twilight kinda f**ked vampires over for everyone.
Not just vampires. It killed literature and ComicCon too.