Topic: I had an epiphany earlier tonight.

[Eric Roman]

Perhaps we should've known something really bad was going to happen to the CastleVania series...

...when I Am the Wind started playing over Symphony's end credits!

[Belmont Stakes]

Hopefully the indie game scene will come in and root out these people that are molesting the series.

[crisis]

Order of Shadows was developed by indies & look how that turned out .o.


I don't like I Am The Wind.

[X]

I thought OoE was developed by IGA and IGA is no VG indie.

-X

[thernz]

He said Order of Shadows, the mobile game.

[X]

Oops! My bad. 

-X

[Inccubus]

I agree. And I had an epiphany of my own. While making the map of stage 1 of Haunted Castle, it dawned on me that like 80% of the graphics of that stage are based on Simon's Quest graphics... or vice versa depanding on which was developed first.

[Eric Roman]

The pisspoor CastleVania Legends, the half-finished CastleVania for the 64 (which SHOULD've been LoD), one SotN fail-to-be after another, Nation of Fools (TWICE!!!!!!!!), Richter, Richter, Richter, Richter, and to top it all off, Grant the Cybermummy and GirLecarde in JUDGMENT!

What...the...EFF!!!

Lords of Shadow (of the Colossus), please be as awesome as Dante's Inferno puts on!  You've got a lot of dignity to win back for the CV camp!

[Inccubus]

You articulate my feelings so well! ^_^

[Munchy]

While I wholeheartedly agree with you on the Rondo-of-Blood-self-masturbating of the DS games (and, yeah, Legends was kinda meh), I still get a huge kick out of the game format. Now if there were just some kind of payroll penalty for the recycling of sprites from previous games...

[Mobius]

Okay, Eric? Calm down. Breathe. Now we all know that one single game, no matter how spectacular or groundbreaking it may be, can never live up to every person's expectations and simultaneously rejuvinate a bumpy series in one fell swoop. I think we should all take some comfort in knowing that the door is still open to an entirely different approach to CV by new developers. That in itself is a plus. Beyond that, it's still pretty clear that the series has nowhere to go but up. Naturally there are going to be people on all sides of the board drawing comparisons and complaints about obvious similarities to other games, CV-related and otherwise. "Oh this is just like God of War. Oh those graphics are just like Assassin's Creed. The music sounds like the soundtrack from Legacy of Kain. The bosses look just like the ones from Darksiders." It is inevitable. The fact is that every game that recieves great recognition on its merits and/or advancements will always be emulated, and not always succesfully. Judgment attempted to add the Soul Calibur formula to Castlevania, and failed. Point is, we have plenty to look forward to and anybody that can't enjoy the new title on its own merits is, like all the staunch CV 64-bashers and SotN purists out there, going to do so by choice. As always though, that's their problem and not ours.

And as for the current state of the series? Dude, Castlevania is timeless. It is one of if not THE most venerable, inspiring and enjoyable game franchises of all time. One poorly thought out fighting game or cell phone experiment can not drag the whole series down. Hell, I say you only need to keep one thing in mind. - The series has survived under Igarashi-sama's direction all this time. There's little doubt it will continue to endure, mm'kay?

[Raphael Belmont]

the series will eventually die with time that's a sure....since after SotN, with the gba CotM (nice game but...) we all knew deeply in our hearts the series would become a class "b" game....how i wished CV was a top seller game like GoW by example...in order to survive CV must "reborn" into 21 century...in a new console (not handheld) and reinvent game play like ps2 succesfully did for RE4, DMC, GoW and etc...fans to buy the game they surely have...they know it...let's just wait and see what happens next...

"true fans never stop enjoying, no matter how old it gets, after all isn't it the same for sex? :p" *Raphael D. Mendonça.*

[Wallachia]

yes, haha, I am the Wind signaled a bad turn form the greatness we were used to. And not, maybe Lords of Shadow is a fork in the road to get back on track. We will just have to see..

[Ahasverus]

Don't worry, beyonce will sing the LOS epilogue song with a GOSPEL CHOIR FTW! 

[crisis]

Don't worry, beyonce will sing the LOS epilogue song with a GOSPEL CHOIR FTW! 

I'll quit castlevania if that happens.