Topic: Castlevanian Obstacles

[Gimph]

I recently finished Castlevania: The Adventure, and enjoyed it a lot. I think it's a great game, despite what others have to say about it. Anyway, what REALLY stood out to me was the fact that it wasn't all just fighting enemies like more recent Castlevania titles. There were some extremely fun, yet challenging obstacles besides enemies. For instance, the best example of this was stage three. Starting the stage, there is a long hallway, in which the ceiling is lined with spikes. After a few seconds of walking down this hallway, the ceiling begins to lower, in an attempt to crush Christopher. What you have to do is go down the hallway as quickly as possible (With Christopher, that's not very fast! ) ducking under indentations in the ceiling and breaking giant screws to make the ceiling rise. Then, once you think it's over, you make it into the next room and the floor begins to rise, and, as expected, there are spikes on that too! After climbing up a ton of ropes, taking out numerous enemies, and making some incredibly risky jumps, you make it to the stage's final obstacle. The wall (with spikes) on the right side of the room slides left across the room. Your only option is to head across the room in a race against time through numerous obstacles like ropes and falling platforms and make it to the end of the level before the wall crushes you.

Once I finished the stage, I thought, "Holy crap, that was insane! Why don't recent Castlevania games have that kind of stuff?!"

Really, why don't they? It's been all enemies with few jumps and platforming. And it's not just that one level; the entire GAME was full of falling platforms and moving spikes that seem to have been lost to past Castlevania titles. I think it adds more platformer elements that take away from the RPG elements making for a more enjoyable playing experience.

[Bafeel]

IGA puts in unnecessary RPG elements so he can extend gameplay time. So instead of creating engaging level design, the team is focused on filling the game with identical rooms and useless trinkets to collect.

[Gimph]

In Reply To #2

I just don't understand why Iga feels that it's necessary to transform Castlevania into an RPG. Castlevania was originally an adventure/platformer game. I think it's a lot better that way. I'm not totally against collecting items. I think that Castlevania 64 had the right idea. There were healing items that could be found, as well as items to help through obstacles like the sun and moon cards. Also, Renon could sell you everything you needed, yet it was still challenging. They balanced out the platformer and RPG elements really well in that game, and I wish they could revert back to that kind of game, but I know Castlevania is still popular -if not even MORE popular- with this style of game, so I know it's too late...

[fallenangel86]

i hear that, about bringing back the action platformer, but i don't think i could ever make it through adventure without cheating my ass off(or putting more time into it than i'd care to). that stage you mentioned is probably the single nastiest in a castlevania game ever. if memory serves, there are still enemies in the way as spikes are coming from the right too.

[Azmodan]

IGA puts in unnecessary RPG elements so he can extend gameplay time. So instead of creating engaging level design, the team is focused on filling the game with identical rooms and useless trinkets to collect.

Quite unlike the spikes that adorned the clock tower in AoS and DoS, and spiked roofs and pitch-black rooms in Lament.

wait wut. I thought you were the one who bitterly defended how dumb it was to criticize PoR's simplstic level design?

And again, the last time IGA programmed and directed a Castlevania game was back in 1997. He's producer now; he handles pitching the game to the public and reporting its progress to Konami.

[Gimph]

In Reply To #4

Yes, there ARE monsters (giant caterpillars) that are too large to jump over and if you don't have a power-up, they curl into a ball and roll around in an attempt to knock you into the spikes. The level is actually pretty easy if you memorize everything. I can beat the level without getting hit or dying because I've done it so many times. I'm awesome at that game!

[Bafeel]

Quite unlike the spikes that adorned the clock tower in AoS and DoS, and spiked roofs and pitch-black rooms in Lament.

wait wut. I thought you were the one who bitterly defended how dumb it was to criticize PoR's simplstic level design?

And again, the last time IGA programmed and directed a
Castlevania game was back in 1997. He's producer now; he handles pitching the game to the public and reporting its progress to Konami.

Actually,  I was talking about the people that complain that PoR's a bad game for those reasons. I don't hate the games for the direction they're taking, I just preferred it the way it was before.

If you have access to a DS, play Aria of Sorrow, Dawn of Sorrow, and Portrait of Ruin, and don't listen to the ****head elitists that bash the DS games because of square rooms, anime art, or some other irrelevant complaint.

This was my other post, and I was mentioning that most of the things people complain about barely affect gameplay, especially since square/rectangular rooms are in every SotN styled game.

[Gimph]

Ha! I just got an insane new high score in The Castlevania Adventure! I made it to stage twelve and got 103,590 points!

Anyway, Portrait of Ruin's level design was repetitive, but it wasn't bad enough to hate the game for that one sole purpose.

Jonathan and Charlotte killed it, the storyline was predictable (as always) the game was WAY too long, and it seems that Konami just kept on adding to the game relentlessly for the sake of making it longer.

[Azmodan]

Thing is, things like pitfalls would most likely translate poorly into the current formula. The last few stages of Vampire Killer could get tedious just because of that- you'll never know if the pit below you leads to a new area or is just a pit until you, well, leap in and find out.

The environments of open-ended games are threatening in the sense that there'll be small traps that will wittle away your health, like the poisoned waters in CotM, but no instant-death scenarios that will cause the player to tread with caution. These small obstacles have been in all of the recent games with the exception of CoD's sterile environments (and possibly OoS, never played it.)

The trap tower in CV:A wouldn't translate well into a game that relies on backtracking, since such traps rely on the player going in one direction pitted against a timer.


So yes. It's not only the so-called RPG elements meant to enhance the experience for casual gamers, but also the fact it'd be difficult to throw in large pits and not have players complain about never knowing which pit leads to a new area or is but a trap.

Also, SotN and AoS, and for the most part DoS, noticeably lacked identical rooms and samey areas.

[Gimph]

In Reply To #9

Actually, in Castlevania Adventure, I accidentally jumped into a pitfall thinking it was the entrance to a new area!

You're right that pitfalls wouldn't work very well. They could always have pitfalls that have spikes visible on the bottom to fix the problem. Then, you could see the spikes and know it's a trap! Also, if they were to have a clock tower stage and re-create the spike rooms from stage three, they could always just make the spikes move faster, and add extra things like enemies to kill and maybe have spikes fall from the ceiling so it's more challenging even with the additional abilities like double jumps.

[Gimph]

that stage you mentioned is probably the single nastiest in a castlevania game ever.

Whoa, are you kidding?! Maybe I'm the only one who thought they were hard, but I personally thought that EVERY SINGLE LEVEL in the original Castlevania were all way harder! Well, with the exception of the first stage.