Topic: Lament of Innocence, take 2

[Evil_Tim]

The main issue with LoI is that it's designed as if it's a 2D game even though it's a 3D game, with the solid segregation of foreground and background you'd expect from any regular Castlevania game translated to 3D where it doesn't work at all. In-room detail is folded out of the walls, but is completely non-interactive [to the point you can't even jump over it], and the levels are treated as if they're tile sets in a 2D game rather than actual structures. That needs to be the first thing to change: everything inside a room ought to be possible to jump on or over, and more things should be breakable or possible to examine. I wouldn't mind levels a third of the size if they're not made of identical rooms. Level structure should focus on exploration, but with far greater emphasis on rooms joining together rather than walking in a direction until you can't go that way anymore and then doubling back.

 Whip-jumping should just be flat-out removed, it really isn't that interesting a mechanic. Using the whip to swing from things would be nice, but just using attack as a jump button in some situations is silly. If it has to be there, have it triggered with the jump button.

 Equally, the camera needs fixing: At very least, there needs to be a camera location at each end of any given hallway, since LoI could only deal with this by never spawning enemies in a corridor if you were walking 'into' the camera. Either a DMC-style system of many fixed cameras or even a proper 3D camera would be much better.

 Enemy design should focus on a small number with a lot of abilities rather than a large number with a couple each; that'll make combat more interesting, since you won't just be dealing with the same attacks over and over.

 Story-wise, the whole aspect regarding the crusades is silly: not only is the game set a year before the Crusades even started, it seems pretty daft that the church would go for the holy land with perfectly serviceable demons to fight right there in their own back yard, and Leon's renouncing of his title just seems a cheap way to heap more arbitrary tragedy on the character. So, have Leon go with the church's blessing and keep his sword, receiving the Alchemy Whip as well, and let him switch between them as he likes. The sword would be relatively weak but fast and with a wide variety of moves while the whip would be slow, strong and have a bunch of extra combat abilities like wide sweeps or the ability to grab and throw enemies. Ditch the system of learning moves when the game feels like it; give Leon most of the core techniques immediately, with the rest bought from Rinaldo as 'technique books' or something so you can see what Leon's capable of immediately; you shouldn't have to earn even the most basic abilities like Perfect Guard and the default whip combos.

 Don't bother enchanting the gauntlet unless Leon's going to start off with a Relic worth using, otherwise hold off on that cutscene until he's been handed a couple. In Lament, the orbs, relics and gauntlet never even came into play during the unbelievably long first level, and it takes forever to build up a decent collection of orbs. They might be cool, but they're not cool enough to be a reward for two hours of wandering around. Also, tighten up the Gauntlet's ability to interrupt the run-out animations of other moves; it's pointless having a guard move if you have to take hits all the time anyway because all your moves have tons of idle frames tacked on the end. Another idea might be to allow Leon to use the gauntlet to catch and throw back enemy projectile attacks, or use MP directly to do so.

 The story ought to play more of a role in the stages; not necessarily cutscenes, but shorter stages with stronger themes would work far better; for example, if House of Sacred Remains is going to have an icky biological boss, why not have the rooms slowly shift from stone and metal to flesh and blood as you get closer to it, and the enemies shift similarly from more normal things to boss minions and even the rooms themselves?

 Reduce the number of torches and increase the heart pickups to 5 and 10 rather than the default drop being 1. Make it so there's a given item in each candle, not just a single heart or a single coin in dozens of them; after all, they're no longer going to be the only interactive scenery, so we don't need as many. Have Leon run faster, and generally move a little more quickly.

[Thunderbrand]

Some good suggestions here for sure.

However I still think some people miss the whole point of LoI. The castle itself, in the way it was not very explorable, and the whole "mission" of the game was done on purpose. That's the whole story. The castle was Walter's, not Dracula's, and so it did not have the effects and the same atmosphere that Drac's castle would have. Walter's castle was not the "creature of chaos" we all know. It was a totally different place. Thats why the layout and all the elements were so different.

Walter set up "the game" for Leon (and many hunters before him). He trapped them in his castle, and forced them to meet different challenges (in the form of bosses) before gaining the honor to face Walter himself. This is obviously a different scenario than most other CV games, and it was supposed to be. Alot of people didnt quite get that, or they expected a more traditional style CV game and thats why they were dissapointed. Many people simply didnt understand that LoI was supposed to be different...mainly because it was NOT Dracula's castle, and the Belmont clan did not yet know of their lineage.

Thats why I personally have always liked LoI. It was a way different take on the CV story.

[PFG9000]

I think it was probably due to the limited amount of information a DVD can hold.

[The Last Belmont]

In Reply To #17

It's a different castle, yes, but that doesn't explain why the entire thing extends over several square miles but is only 3 stories tall at its highest point.

[Evil_Tim]

One interesting idea for LoI might have been to do an origin story for the castle itself, since it is an important 'character' in the series. You could make it that Walter's own Castle is slowly being taken over by the Castlevania castle, which would explain why the inside is vastly larger than the outside appears to be [in the style of the ridiculously creepy story House of Leaves] and the Forgotten One is the last 'master' of the castle who Walter keeps imprisoned to control it. This would give you a reversal of the usual Castlevania ending where Walter's castle twists and expands into being Dracula's castle as the creature of chaos is freed from Walter's control.

 It'd also be nice if the death of Leon's betrothed wasn't directly as a result of Matthias' plan; I can accept that he'd be devastated by the loss of his own wife, but it's a bit much that he'd become that evil that quickly.

[Alexc2808]

In Reply To #20
Walter was just a powerful vampire.  He had no chaos, he had no monster castle.  Dracula got all that a little bit before Cv3.

[Thunderbrand]

God of War and Devil May Cry both managed to have good level design with the same memory limitations as Lament of Innocence.

[Efrit]

I want to play this game, Once I get it
I will make sure to fight that Hidden boss, from what I have heard, he is kinda creepy.

~Efrit

[Evil_Tim]

Walter was just a powerful vampire.  He had no chaos, he had no monster castle.  Dracula got all that a little bit before Cv3.

 Yes, but that doesn't mean that LoI couldn't have done something like that. Make Walter an arrogant idiot who's in way over his head with the creature he's trying to control slowly warping and obliterating his own castle [hell, it'd give you and excuse to change the hub level every time it's visited], and build each level on that theme, the normal rooms of Walter's mansion slowly giving way to the grand, impossible architecture of the Castlevania castle.

 It's handy because it lets you have your cake and eat it: believable settings can be mixed with the fantastic castle of the other games, and we can set up that castle as actively malevolent rather than just weird. You can also throw Leon as many anachronistic weapons as you like, since the Castle has never really seemed to pay much attention to what year it is.