Topic: Castlevania 3DS: What do you want?

[Hanniballistic]

Ok, how the hell was Castlevania not goofy? It had references to old Hammer horror films.  You play a barbarian with a whip that fights Dracula.  I'm sorry, but that's a little cheesy.  I LOVE that about Castlevania but you seem to want everything to be epic and deadly serious in your Castlevania.  Why don't you and Ahasverus make your own game?  I know that's one of the lamest things to throw at someone for ragging on a game but it seems to fit you two perfectly.

[Hanniballistic]

I also can't stand the "iga using anime" complaint. I am not really a fan of anime, but I have no problem with it being used in the castlevania series occasionally. Rondo of blood is mostly referenced, but even look at the artwork in the original castlevania and simons quest japanese manual. Every nes game had badass box art but the real art is always in the manuals and the first two cv games both have anime-like art. I have the simon art from cv1 as my icon and if you look at it, he's not some huge babarian guy, he's got a small build.
This goes the same for the Kojima art, they don't look like huge buff warriors, and that's ok, cause the original simon doesn't always look that way either

I just want to say, that I'm not some huge anime scholar but I do watch some occasionally (movies at least, I can't get into shows).  That said, it's always annoyed me at how people get so crazy about it and act like it's the plague.  It's just animation made with Japanese principles.  That's it.  A JAPANESE developer putting JAPANESE animation in their game... wow, that's a stretch!

[Valtiel]

In reply to Crisis,

Wow, I guess you should work for Konami as senior advisor or something since you obviously know what's best for CV more than anyone else. About half your posts here have been nothing but criticizing the series, while saying ambiguous statements like "i think such n such is great but here's why it sucks."

You seem to have a fairly narrow vision of what a fan is. Being a fan doesn't mean subscribing to what an author makes and considering everything he does perfect.
I started playing CV when it was born, as I'm NES/C64 gamer. I was a kid back then, and to me it was a fantastic gothic story with monsters and stuff and there was a dude with a whip and even if the gameplay sucked (it didn't, to be clear, but I'm making a point) I would have loved it because it was magic and I loved the concept. I grew up with these games and some I loved and some I didn't. I liked SotN but probably half as much as some other fans did. I loved CotM to bits and most other fans think it's derivative and an inferior clone. I had a crapaton of issues with LoI and still it's one of my favourite PS2 games. I hated CoD, instead. I think OoE is an incredibly, unbelievably amazing game and Portrait of Ruin is an actually very decent CV game and I hated the Sorrow games with a passion.
I like Castlevania. I like it a lot. Heck, outside of the Sorrow games (and CoD), I wouldn't say I disliked any CV game yet. I do however feel like the saga didn't deliver what it could. Time went by and we got the Resident Evils and the Devil May Crys and the Silent Hills and the Princess Crowns and the Odin Spheres and the Bayonettas and all that jazz. We saw videogames reinventing themselves 15 times over every year, and yet since SotN Castlevania has delivered the exact same game installment after installment. Don't misunderstand - I like that game. I keep dishing money to replay that game. My DS is a dust collector as I have basically no other game for it than the CVs. I love the series to bits, but I think some of the games are worse than they could be, and I think the saga as a whole has issues. If 10 years from now CV games still look and play the same I wonder if we will have a CV saga at all.
I don't have a very precise idea of you as a poster, but I seem to recall you being fairly critic about LoS. A lot of people (legitimately) said "I don't like where Cox is taking Castlevania" or "this isn't how Castlevania should be, in my opinion". I think it's completely normal. I have a similar approach with IGA. I think that after SotN he didn't have the guts or capability to stand by the things I liked in CV and instead he kept pushing things that had little to do with the saga or that were borrowed from other games (the Metroid design, leveling up etc). He managed to deliver mostly quality games; I just disagree with some of his decisions and I think he's taking the story in a disasterous direction.

The anime influences have been there since the beginning, while being enhanced in Rondo (It's a JAPANESE game series, after all, which was, uh, influenced by an anime called VAMPIRE HUNTER D). Yes, it was annoying with PoR, but that's about it.

I'd say Rondo was quite a huge departure for the saga; it's pointless to discuss it now, but while I really like Rondo as a game (it's one of my faves actually) *some* of the anime stuff I'd rather wish never happened. However, there's a misunderstanding here: I got nothing against CV staying closer to its japanese roots. In fact, I was extremely bothered about LoS being developed in Europe. CV *is* japanese and there are some things about it that LoS fails to capture (to summarize it as well as I can, CV despite being a gothic adventure is extremely, uhm, "energetic", and LoS is generally moody and depressing, a flaw that hit LoI too). I'm fine with anime drawings and jrock music and all. I just think Aria and Dawn went toward a very specific kind of anime subset that have bloody nothing to do with the saga.


There's nothing really wrong with IGA's games, they are playable from beginning to end. Are there any outstanding glitches that make jumping impossible? Is the button layout "not castlevania enough?" Sure, there could be more platforming & new sprites here 'n there, but other than that they are exceptional games, aesthetics aside.

Those are not the flaws I refer to. As I said, taken individually all these games range from good to excellent to absolutely and insanely fantastic. And I'm not one of those "they don't make them like they did anymore" guys. Some of the recent games are the best. OoE is a masterpiece.
However, once you look at them as a whole the problem arises. CotM is too much like SotN. PoR is too much like CotM. AoS is too much like PoR. And CotM. And SotN. This is what I refer to when I say things are "stale". People see the recycling of sprites as a sympthom of the lack of budget. I don't buy that. People is pushing out innovative 2D games every year on XBLA and PSn and handhelds with minimal budgets.
I don't know how long you've been playing CV. It's 20 years for me. Every release is a joy, but there's also this crawling feeling that yes, it's a SotN reskin. Again. Is that a problem? Not that much. I can still like the saga as it is. I will keep buying the games. But I'll keep seeing other sagas and other games daring new things and I'll keep wishing CV did that because CV is my favourite saga and I'd want to see the great ideas happen here.

I said it elsewhere. Sometimes it feels like the innovations that don't really work (see leveling - and I guess it could work, handled differently; heck, at this point I'm not sure I'd want to see it go, I'm so used to it) get attached to the saga but other things aren't tried. Why did we never get a CV game with combo-based, brawler like combat? Why didn't we ever get a CV that broke the room format and went full, consistent side scrolling? Why we never got a game that tried something new art-wise? Why we never got a game that tried making CV more fast paced, or one that made it slower? Heck, why we got a *fighting game* and we never got an RPG?

I understand a part of this is probably rooted to the fact that there's something like liking a series too much. I remember playing Vagrant Story and thinking "I wish this was a CV game". That's going too far, I guess. But as a fan, seeing other sagas I like grow and change (and fail and get back again) while in many ways I'm still playing SotN... every 2 years or so.
I don't think it's so absurd to want something new. And while I really liked LoS, I sort of want the japanese team came out with something like that, because they could have kept it closer to home.


I'm with you on how Konami should have the balls to launch CV in new areas, but what's the point in pointing out every single flaw the games have to offer? Does anybody here really lose any sleep at night due to these flaws? If so then you shouldn't be here in the first place.


Once again, it's a matter of perspective. The list of things I like about CV is about 3000 times longer than the list of things I don't. However the staleness is a VERY big, pressing, colossal, elephant-in-the-living-room issue. It's not a detail. And again... it's been 20 years. And now someone did something new with CV, and it's very good but also sensibly different, and I'm not entirely sure about how I feel about it because a part of me still wants that to happen within CV's original environment.
I love all CV games, but Aria and Dawn (Aria is actually quite good in the game side, if I could stand the story). Now those 2 I really dislike. Yes, I could write a book on how wrong those 2 games are. I may come out more negative about the saga than I really am because my basic assumption is that everyone here loves CV. But the issues are there and they're somewhat hard to ignore. Still it's a very exciting time because something is changing in the saga; I'm not referring to LoS only, but also to Castlevania HD. I don't particularly like CV HD as a product, but there's a very strong chance that it's a move to test the XBLA/PSN market and that market is the place that can give us some hope for another 2D console game. Let's hope the feedback at Konami is positive. And when things change, it's fairly natural to point out all the problems in order to see them solved. Look at the LoS feedback: it's almost entirely made of "I liked/loved LoS but..." followed by huge posts of criticism. It's natural. I don't jump on those posts because they're negative towards I game I love because *I* am often negative about the games I love.

I think the bigger problem may be that I got no faith anymore in IGA. I'll try to keep that for myself, since I know it's annoying to hear someone being negative about someone or something you appreciate, but that is that. I don't think he's the right man for CV anymore, and I doubt I'll change my mind.

I respect your opinion on CV. Everybody's entitled to one, but if the opinion is nothing but "castlevania isn't what it should be wahhhh" over & over, then.. maybe it's time to move on. and Ahasverus agreeing with you every sentence.

I understand your perspective, but I didn't say "CV isn't what it should be". I said "CV isn't what it could be". It's a sensibly difference; one thing is like saying "CV is a cat, but it should be an airplane!". The other is "CV is a cat, but it could be a tiger". I'm not saying "these game would be good if", I'm just saying these games could be even better.

[Valtiel]

I also can't stand the "iga using anime" complaint. I am not really a fan of anime, but I have no problem with it being used in the castlevania series occasionally. Rondo of blood is mostly referenced, but even look at the artwork in the original castlevania and simons quest japanese manual. Every nes game had badass box art but the real art is always in the manuals and the first two cv games both have anime-like art. I have the simon art from cv1 as my icon and if you look at it, he's not some huge babarian guy, he's got a small build.
This goes the same for the Kojima art, they don't look like huge buff warriors, and that's ok, cause the original simon doesn't always look that way either

Castlevania had anime since Rondo, and it was fine. My comment on anime is tied to Aria and Dawn specifically, and it's not because of the art style. The story and character dynamics are the problems. The story turns from a goofy but cool take on Hammer movies and gothic horror to the most generic "schoolboy to the rescue" plot that every single anime that is popular right now has. CV is a japanese game. Anime cutscenes are absolutely perfect for it. But the Soma Cruz plotline is the eastern equivalent of dudebro-ing the saga.

[Valtiel]

Ok, how the hell was Castlevania not goofy? It had references to old Hammer horror films.  You play a barbarian with a whip that fights Dracula.  I'm sorry, but that's a little cheesy.  I LOVE that about Castlevania but you seem to want everything to be epic and deadly serious in your Castlevania.  Why don't you and Ahasverus make your own game?  I know that's one of the lamest things to throw at someone for ragging on a game but it seems to fit you two perfectly.

Once again, that's not the kind of cheesiness I'm referring too. There's the cheesiness of Rondo's scenes and the Frankenstein monster animations and then there's skeletons with vacuum cleaners and the like. But this would require a quite in-dept discussion, and I doubt we have the time or interest. In short, there's a difference between portraying something "serious" with a lighthearted style, and portraying something actually silly. Case in point, SotN: it's goofy, but it's not silly. The sillyness came after it.

[Nagumo]

All the cheesiness in Castlevania has always been silly. Remember that the first four game or so were supposed to be a parody of classic horror films of some sorts. Every game has its own silly things and insight gags. Whetever is are the eyeballs from Adventure, monster name puns, or the maids from AoS, its all the same.

[thernz]

i think he's okay with that nagumo. i think he's more bothered by stuff like jonathan and charlotte and yoko-obsessed hammer. and soma. and you know, how repetitive things have gotten. i'll have to disagree with how he finds the gba saga too similar to sotn and the others though. cotm and hod were especially quirky in how things were dealt.
then there's ooe, which is hopefully a sign of that trend breaking: ooe revamped the combat considerably. i mean, the only thing i would find ooe too similar to the other ds titles is movement and physics. beyond that, it has a distinctly different style of progression, principles on inventory, emphasis on weaknesses, enemy placement, etc. the differences between it and other recent vanias are as substantial as the differences between any classic game.
you can probably argue that any of the iterations after sotn have enough differences in gameplay to rival the differences in classic titles actually. i would say the feeling of sameness can be attributed to the lack of dramatic events within the environment. gimmicks and unique level design within stages and the like rather than actual gameplay systems.

[Nagumo]

Oh yeah.

That applies to only two games though. Luckily its a thing of the past now. They probably had to put in that stuff in order to appeal to the audience they were targetting.       

[X]

In terms of a 3DS CV game, I'd want to see the 1999 battle. But I don't think that the MetroidVania styler of gameplay would fit the bill. It's afterall, the 1999 battle; the Demon Castle wars. It's in war time so it should be a traditional style of gameplay and not and RPG that will slow things down. In war time, everything happes so fast and so fiercely that the only way to properly reflect this is to make a fast-paced CV game and only a traditional level-by-level gameplay of CV's past (Cv 1, ,3, 4, Adventure 1 & 2, Bloodlines, Rondo, Dracula X) can deliver it.

-X

[crisis]

All this constant nitpicking about CV is starting to become an eyesore, so I'll just leave it at that. It's really getting monotonous.


Wasn't it confirmed that classic titles will be available for the 3DS? I wonder if Konami will release a compilation, or just 1 game at a time. A demo for CV1 was revealed already, but it's not likely they'll add anything else to tweak the gameplay. IGA confirmed he's been playing with a 3DS Development Kit, so I'm eager to see what he comes up with.. hopefully the 1999 game won't be a launch title (I'd rather the team get used to the hardware first, before making something epic like 1999 right off the bat)

[Kale]

Love anime, but I much prefer the elegant look from Sotn... and PoR made anime + cv = nasty.

[DragonSlayr81]

The thing about PoR and even DoS was that the type of anime they used was based on modern style stock anime. It's really the more basic of basic anime styles out there. Maybe had they did something more darker and mature, it would've resonated with fans. The only reason IGA chose the "cliche style" was to try to get all those kids who like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! onto the bandwagon.

Though yeah, I didn't like the anime-styled stories either. The whole bit about, "She's got you under her finger..." or something in DoS had me rolling my eyes. That was like something you'd find in a shoujo toon. "Nyah! Onechan!!" .

[shelverton.]

The only reason IGA chose the "cliche style" was to try to get all those kids who like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! onto the bandwagon.

I honestly don't think IGA is to blame for that. My guess is Konami has a lot of demands and ideas and this was probably coming from someone higher than IGA. (I mean, a person with a higher position, but yeah - that person was probably high on something else too.. lol).

[Harrycombs]

Love anime, but I much prefer the elegant look from Sotn... and PoR made anime + cv = nasty.

SotN character designs definitely drew inspiration from anime though. I'm sure Vampire Hunter D has been influencing the art in the series since day one. I agree that the art in Dawn and Portrait was really bad though.

Once again, that's not the kind of cheesiness I'm referring too. There's the cheesiness of Rondo's scenes and the Frankenstein monster animations and then there's skeletons with vacuum cleaners and the like. But this would require a quite in-dept discussion, and I doubt we have the time or interest. In short, there's a difference between portraying something "serious" with a lighthearted style, and portraying something actually silly. Case in point, SotN: it's goofy, but it's not silly. The sillyness came after it.

First off, Symphony had enemies based on the Wizard of Oz! How is that not silly? And second, goofy and silly are synonyms, I don't understand what you are trying to say. Also, the reason Symphony still worked with its outrageous designs was that  they still managed to fit them into their levels well, unlike those horrid maids vacuum cleaners ( who if I recall were vacuuming a cave in one room?). That wasn't just goofy, it was also a really bad idea. But many other monsters that were goofy were used by other teams. For instance, the skeleton acrobat character seems kind of ridiculous, but it still worked (and he was also in CotM). Mercury Steam introduced the Chupacabra, which also was silly (and annoying...). Also, haven't the maids been around since the early 90s? Really, what did IGA add that in and make the games more silly outside of the horrid story and characters in DoS and PoR (which he has regretted)?

I don't like IGAs  recent direction with the series (DoS and especially PoR were bad), I don't even like OoE, but really he hasn't been anymore goofy than the previous Castlevania teams. In fact, DXC was significantly darker than the original Rondo, but still managed to capture that same goofy feeling at times and quickly switch back to being darker. If IGA made a new game with that sort of style, it would probably be perfect. It was significantly better than what Mercury Steam did. But I doubt IGA is going to do much better at this point, so I really just want a new team altogether to work on a 3DS castlevania. If Mercury steam isn't able to deliver in the sequel, Konami needs to find another studio.

Also, the original Castlevania was far more silly than you are admitting. Just watch the credits again.

[Kale]

SotN character designs definitely drew inspiration from anime though. I'm sure Vampire Hunter D has been influencing the art in the series since day one. I agree that the art in Dawn and Portrait was really bad though.

Maybe, but I never really viewed it that way. As I've seen some other drawings that look similar while not having any thing related to anime.