Topic: Harmony of Despair (The next Castlevania game?)

[e105beta]

Lords of Shadow sold more copies in less time on the same system and that game is terrible.

I'm kind of pissed, though. By the time Julius comes out, nobody is going to be playing the game anymore.
Julius better be amazing.

[superDioplus]

It was I who posted the system failure info on gamefaqs....together with a picture proof. I am using a Japanese Live account.

[corneliab]

Lords of Shadow sold more copies in less time on the same system and that game is terrible.

:/

Better change your icon and caption, then.

[e105beta]

:/

Better change your icon and caption, then.

It was sarcasm.
I love the game.

[affinity]

Really, the only way they could run into trouble with marketplace guidelines is if they essentially break the game with their DLC. If it really is the case that they're running into marketplace guideline issues, then they're doing something seriously wrong.

Well it's their first time trying to make DLC work for a Castlevania.  Not only work for the game, but also
work through the marketplace (they had trouble making Music Pack 1 downloadable first day, maybe a different problem has risen when involving DLC characters?  Well once they figure it out, I think future DLC will come sooner, or at least smoother.)

[Ahasverus]

The faster HoD dies, the better for Castlevania's public image.

[Valtiel]

The faster HoD dies, the better for Castlevania's public image.

And yet on paper it was IGA's best idea in years. It was the format in which his design approach would have worked perfectly. How could they fail so bad in delivery?

[thernz]

I thought the idea actually worked against his design approach. All the balancing (hghgh) and tweaks to be multiplayer-focused killed it. Well, I mean, some of the ideas to be more multiplayer accessible were just generally horrible as well. Then add the vapid level design and shoddy coding and woop! iga, you're horrible!

[Ahasverus]

And yet on paper it was IGA's best idea in years. It was the format in which his design approach would have worked perfectly. How could they fail so bad in delivery?

It's IGA, what did you expect? 

[PFG9000]

What's so bad about it?  And for the haters, how much time did you spend playing it?  I didn't care for it much at first, but once you get your character a little bit leveled up so that you can contribute to the team, it gets to be ridiculously addicting.

[Reinhart77]

i wonder what the chances of them deciding to make a completely new game for PS3 instead of porting over the old one.  i'm thinking something like what happened when they "ported" Rondo of Blood to the Super Nintendo, but due to licensing restrictions, ended up making a whole new game.  maybe microsoft won't let them port the game, but they could make a whole new game with a similar idea.  maybe they could remake it so that Jonathan, Charlotte, and Shanoa have a wider variety of hunter skills that they had in their original game.  they could make new levels (also ripped from previous games, of course) and populate them with a different variety of enemies, giving Soma a different set of souls to collect.  the game could be completely rebalanced and give players who played the game on XBox 360 who also own a PS3 a reason to get the game again if they so wanted.  of course, it'd be maddening to those who want to own all the games and don't have both systems or don't want to buy it again.

[Foffy]

I'd prefer an all new game, myself.

[Valtiel]

I thought the idea actually worked against his design approach. All the balancing (hghgh) and tweaks to be multiplayer-focused killed it. Well, I mean, some of the ideas to be more multiplayer accessible were just generally horrible as well. Then add the vapid level design and shoddy coding and woop! iga, you're horrible!

I think he could have pulled it off right, because it's a format that oddly makes the best of his "limits".

Reusing assets would have worked wonders (and in many ways it does in HD) in thematically designed levels. Also, having a cast of characters that are mostly copy-pasted from each other but have an unique trait each is basically the golden formula for a multiplayer game with a selectable character roster. IGA's rpg hybrids lend themselves to become loot hunts. No need for a story, no risk of messing up the canon. I could go on for days.

The core formula is... sound. Not the best game ever, but possibly the best IGA game in years. It failed mostly because something went wrong in the execution, and above all... lazyness. If they strived to reach at least a ratio of 75% of reused content and 25% new material/ideas, it would have still been a good game.

[thernz]

i dont think an idea that encourages the use of a method like sprite reuse makes it a good idea, but the opposite. the high resolution just completely clashed with the tiny pixel art. the idea itself just sounded like a cheap cash-in product.
and while, the games do tend to place a lot of emphasis on loot, i think that's actually a detriment of them. especially, since the looting is actually a branch of the exploration principle behind the games, except here the exploration is completely butchered so you mainly have to rely on grinding instead of a will to explore. so if anything, hod was the playground to express these faults to their extremes. it's really more like iga's worst idea.

[Valtiel]

i dont think an idea that encourages the use of a method like sprite reuse makes it a good idea, but the opposite. the high resolution just completely clashed with the tiny pixel art. the idea itself just sounded like a cheap cash-in product.
and while, the games do tend to place a lot of emphasis on loot, i think that's actually a detriment of them. especially, since the looting is actually a branch of the exploration principle behind the games, except here the exploration is completely butchered so you mainly have to rely on grinding instead of a will to explore. so if anything, hod was the playground to express these faults to their extremes. it's really more like iga's worst idea.

But that's what IGA's being doing for years now. Instead of fighting against his natural inclination and deliver something new, he had the perfect chance to make a game that was all about recycling and make it right.