Topic: best aspect ratio for castlevania game

[Arcraith]

hey guys, I'm working on a fan game at the moment, and I was wondering what would be the best aspect ratio for a Castlevania game? I'm thinking of designing it similar to the classic Castlevanias like dracula x. A wider aspect ratio could have the disadvantage of revealing too much of the level to either side, thereby decreasing the element of surprise hence difficulty.
An aspect ratio thats very square would just be kind of too NES/GB-like and retro, and thats not quite what I want. Anyone know what the aspect ratio for SotN was? I guess I could choose one similar to the ds games or something.

[C Belmont]

Didn't Dracula X chronicles have a wide aspect ratio? I don't remember that effecting the way it played, and besides the element of surprise is far from the only way to make a platform game challenging. I would actually feel more worried about the background tiling becoming more apparent or needing to make stages longer or something like that.

[PFG9000]

The DXC remake had a wide aspect ratio, and it didn't hurt the gameplay one bit.

[X]

SotN for the PSX used the same aspect ratio as per the earlier console titles. In the DXC they stretched it to more of a wider screen format which I really didn't like. PFG9000 is right that it didn't hurt the game, but for me personally they should've left it alone. It reminds me of the damage they did graphically to Sega Saturn's NitM. That game's aspect ratio was stretched in all the wrong ways. If you're looking for balance in terms of aspect ration then find something in between the standard TV ratio and the digital flat-screen ratio. Neither will reveal too much of the levels but it shouldn't take away from the surprise factor either.

[Arcraith]

ok thanks, I'll be using 5:3 then.

[Kale]

16:9 widescreen. What older games have, has nothing to do with newer ones. When the older ones were made, they were made with 4:3 in mind. That standard is slowly disappearing... or already considered gone.  Unless you're doing a hack... which is just editing a made game (and even then it's questionable), you should use the current standard.

[Arcraith]

16:9 widescreen. What older games have, has nothing to do with newer ones. When the older ones were made, they were made with 4:3 in mind. That standard is slowly disappearing... or already considered gone.  Unless you're doing a hack... which is just editing a made game (and even then it's questionable), you should use the current standard.

i hear what you're saying, but its not like the quality of my fan game is going to be anywhere near the quality of todays games. Actually its a remake of one of the old games, but since something like the DXC remake is of course beyond me, its going to end up looking kind of retro anyway. And personally I don't really think retro graphics and widescreen mesh too well? I've seen some Castlevania fan games with retro/undetailed graphics and high resolutions and they always look like masses of putty to me...

oh and don't suppose there anyone here with a bit of XNA knowledge? I'm new to it, and not that it matters at this stage, but I'm having problems maintaining the aspect ratio in fullscreen.

[TheouAegis]

The old CV games weren't square. It was 224x192 for the field or 224x240 all together. That was the NTSC aspect, at least. PAL was different, I think. If you use GM, you can keep it retro and simply have it scale vertically to fill the screen, then GM can fill the rest with black border, or you could program in a border yourself.

[Arcraith]

The old CV games weren't square. It was 224x192 for the field or 224x240 all together. That was the NTSC aspect, at least. PAL was different, I think. If you use GM, you can keep it retro and simply have it scale vertically to fill the screen, then GM can fill the rest with black border, or you could program in a border yourself.

cheers but I dropped GM a couple of years ago since I wanted to try me some real programming. So at the moment I'm teaching myself C#, so making a fangame using XNA seemed like a good opportunity to motivate myself. Turns out XNA is just a framework rather than a fully featured game engine though so I'm still just at the stage coding the tile engine, etc. It'll take a while of course but the fangame is something for me to work towards! =D

Oh and I think I found a way to solve the fullscreen problem so no worries.