Topic: How could we make Portrait of Ruin a better Castlevania?

[DragonSlayr81]

No offense, but that seems a little cliche to me. It seems like there's a lot of fiction out there about the Nazis messing with the occult and reviving ancient evils and such. That might've been more expected for PoR than the plot we ended up getting.

Cliche, for the fact that it's an idea that's been done, maybe, but you can say, within the CV series, the whole "Dracula being resurrected by a cult" or "yet another Belmont faces against Dracula" is just as cliche. Hell, it would be as cliche as every take on Dracula(despite the little things that make them different/unique), every take on possession, ghosts, the whole "god is really an alien and mankind was an experiment", and the "Wait! I was dead all along!" type story. There's nothing wrong with a simple, shared base idea, it's how it's executed that makes it worthwhile. You could have five titles that, simply put, are about heroes rescuing princesses, but the meat of the game and what transpires are all very different from each other. Take an example the movie Inception. Some might think it was orignal, the idea to enter the dreams of other people to influence them and such. It WAS done prior to that, though, in the movie Dreamscape. The only thing is, Inception did it's own thing and did it well. Base concept's pretty damn close, nonetheless(using dream interaction to influence the sleeping person, or help them psychologically to deal with issues, or even KILL them). It's the spin you put on it that makes it unique.

I think people wanted the whole "Nazi occultisim" because, seemingly, there WAS a group that DID dabble in the such. Were the conjuring demons? No, but it WAs still something that went on, and the mysteries of such intrigues people and imaginations run wild. It's similar to the whole "secret history" theme of various stories(Castlevania included). That there's this shadow of events that happens under our noses, kept from the history books, covered up by the governments of the world to keep us in ignorance(in CV's case, for the greater good). Whether it's been done before, so what. It's been done, will be done again, and so on and so on. CV could've put it's own unique spin on it, and that would've been one I would've love to see.

[Charlotte-nyo:3]

I'm aware that CV already uses tons of cliches (probably to be expected given that the story doesn't really come first in the games). I'm merely advocating cutting down the number of them as far as possible while still maintaining the traditional feel of the series.

[BingleGod]

Delete it from reality forever.

As a less harsh variant:
- make it into a completely different game

[Munchy]

-Dial down the super happy tone of the artwork and dialogue a few hundred notches.
-Replace Richter and Maria with John and Eric. (Too many throwbacks to Rondo, not enough to Bloodlines.)
-Actual globetrotting rather than painting stuff. (Why wasn't OoE's map system used here?)
-Make Eric look anywhere near what he's like in Bloodlines.
-Co-op play. (The boss rush mode doesn't count.)
-Have sprite artists consult with each other for some kind of consistency in artwork. (You could say this for all the DS games though.)
-More references to WWII than just a blurb in the introduction.
-Make Brauner look like something other than Olrox MK II.
-Take out that fucking Keremet boss.

[Super Waffle]

They could always adapt "Bloodbath" as an alternate ending.

[Sumac]

- make it into a completely different game

That's not what I had proposed. I think the core of the game could be the same, but there should very many improvements here and there. It's shouldn't be remade as completely different game, but changed in multiple aspects to make it more dark, serious, interesting and "Castlevaniaish".
And no Nazis. POR story could perfectly work without them and they involvement is one of the most tired cliches, when it comes to the supernatural stories happening during WWII.

-Make Brauner look like something other than Olrox MK II.

Wasn't he already looking pretty much like modernized version of Olrox?

[BingleGod]

That's not what I had proposed.

Oh, I know. I was proposing it. :3

[Flame]

Wasn't he already looking pretty much like modernized version of Olrox?

that's the problem

[knightmere]

that's the problem

Their both based off of Nosferatu, the German version of Dracula.

[Mystic Myotis]

Their both based off of Nosferatu, the German version of Dracula.

I find it amusing that a lot of the Castlevania titles are similar to the full title of that film:

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror

An interesting fact: Nosferatu was nearly physically obliterated from the face of the planet for copyright reasons.  There are only a handful of prints left, and none of them are original.

[DragonSlayr81]

Their both based off of Nosferatu, the German version of Dracula.

Olrox, I'm guess, was meant to be "Orlok", which IS Nosferatu.

And I agree, I didn't care for Brauner looking like Graf Orlok. I remember when he was first announced, but before we got to see what he looked like, someone mentioned that when they heard his name, they imagined him to have a beard. I would've preferred a different look, myself. One with hair. I recall Brauner was inspired by Victor Brauner, a surealist painter. Actually, they could've worked more of that into the story. Victor Brauner was a Romanian Jew, and considering what was going on in the time, and CV's Brauner hate of war because his daughters were killed, it could add more Brauner's rage.

[Flame]

Their both based off of Nosferatu, the German version of Dracula.

Again, that's the problem. His design is totally unoriginal and is just a knockoff of Olrox, who is supposed to be Orlock.

Why couldnt they just give him an original design? I mean, Walter came out just fine... So what happened there? Ill blame whoever was in charge of the character designs... I didnt really like Johnathan's either. Seemed... too anime... Dunno how to explain it.

[Chernabogue]

If the game must have puzzles, please more than 2 or 3. I clearly remember that the duo abilities are used one or twice for puzzles in the game and it is reaaaally too anecdotic.

[Dominus]

The development team agreed.  Too bad they made the script read like something out of shitty anime.


The war was briefly referenced in the Intro I believe.  Or maybe it was the box or manual.  I don't have the box anymore and I don't feel like digging around for my cartridge.  I'm sure someone else could verify.

I meant like in game, like in gameplay, not just the intro. Again AoS had the dead soldiers and DoS the intro sequence in the city and the cars

[KaZudra]

re-write the plot, Brauner Kidnapping Eric's daughters didn't really amount to much and the whole whip draining life thing was total Bullshit, also Dracula was shoe-horned in as opposed to playing an actual part of the plot (like most of the metroidvanias)

I suggest a new plot...
 - Jonathan is there to avenge his father's Death from the Hands of Dracula (like his father)
 - Eric was Killed by Brauner, Serves more to the plot other than quests
 - Charolette has a better reason for being there other than just tagging along.
 - Dracula works behind the scenes, and actual evidence will be shown in game
 - Brauner takes advantage of the situation and has Nazi Zombies