Topic: If Castlevania II was linear

[Denis Belmondo]

And when I say linear I mean if it was done in the style of its predecessor. Now, I haven't actually beat Simon's Quest yet so if my conceptualizations come off as uneducated... well... they are and I apologize in advance. Just something I wanted to discuss.

Now, it would be kind of hard to "convert" the hardwired exploration gameplay to something more action oriented I imagine, given that the towns look very similar to one another and each is followed by a mansion for every part of Vlad you have to collect. Also, we are going to assume that we're trying to preserve the game's story and area progression (I am not sure how to word that).

I think Simon would start in Jova and collect hearts and whip upgrades before heading out to the woods and by the time he reaches Veros it is already night or evening. I'll elaborate on it later.

Anyone want to discuss?

[X]

I think it could be done. In fact some games have done this very thing. Valis II to name one. Liner gameplay like the original Castlevania (stage by stage), with a boss possessing one of Dracula's remains as well as receiving whip upgrades after beating a level or two. Then of course your sub-weapons would be found like they had always been found; candles and walls. It's do-able and I'm surprised that the game designers didn't take this road rather then the one they did end up taking.

[Denis Belmondo]

Yeah, it would be something to see Castlevania's gameplay expanded upon even more. I wonder what Simon's Quest's gimmick would be since every CV game had one. The day/night cycles wouldn't work too well with the original formula I'd think.

I think what would work well if Simon's Quest was reworked into a traditional classicvania, is the map system in the vein of Belmont's Revenge (or Mega Man). You would be able to choose which town you want to start in first. Once you're done retrieving most of Dracula's body parts, save for the eye, you would be left with a single map screen that gets Simon to travel through Braham Mansion, where he fights Death and then Castlevania.

[Aridale]

itd be like CV1 but pretty repetitive cause basically each stage would be woods maybe some bridges and a then a mansion. The mansion would of course have a boss at the end. Defeat the boss and then the "end level orb" would be the stake orb to get the body part. Rinse/Repeat til the ruins of castlevania stage and the dracs ghost battle final stage. No need for buyin anythin and each stage could start at the exit of a town. Get hearts subweapons and whip upgrades just like CV1 but add another one for the flame whip and make it so you can only get it if you havent died in that section else you wont have enough upgrades in the area to get that high.

[Inccubus]

In anticipation of TheouAegis' CV3 engine, I put together a little bit work on a design document for just such a project as this. I call it "Castlevania II: Dracula's Curse". (It may seem to be an odd choice of title, but it's close to the original Japanese Title of CV2 in meaning & my remake of CV3 would be titled "Castlevania III: Legend of the Demon Castle".)

Anyway, my idea for the game was to have the player start in the Town of Jova during the day. The player would be able to buy some items at the town's shop and then exit either to the left or right of the town. The two paths never cross like in RoB and here's where your gimmick comes in. Whichever path you choose the stages making up that path will progress from morning to sunset until you reach the Town of Doina. You will be told at Doina that you must have all of Dracula's parts before you enter Dracula's Castle. Now you proceed back to Jova where it is now night and the place is crawling with monsters and you are forced to take the opposite path from the one you took before. The stages in the second path progress from night to sunrise back at Doina where you are now allowed access to Castlevania which is itself expanded into a set of four stages.

This Day/Night gimmick is different from that in the original version of CV2, but I think it keeps to the original spirit of that mechanic. Furthermore, it extends play time in a way that isn't tedious by giving you a different experience on a second play through by choosing the pathes in the opposite order from before.

I should also, like to mention that on the second path, being that it takes place at night, none of the towns have shops available like on the first path.

Here's the basic stage progression I came up with:
Start
Jova (Day)

Route A
Belasco Marsh
Dead River 1
Brams Mansion
Dead River 2
Aldra
Sadam Woods
Strigoi Cemetery
Ondol
Dead River 3
Jam Wasteland
Deborah Cliff

Route B
South Bridge
Veros Woods
Berkeley Mansion
Dabi's Path
Aljiba
Yuba Lake
Rover Mansion
Joma Marsh
Laruba Mansion
Debious Woods
Uta Lower Road

Cross Paths
Bathory Mansion (Both Deborah Cliff & Uta Lower Road lead here)
Wicked Ditch
Doina
North Bridge
Dora Woods

If Your Reach Dora Woods at Sunset
East Bridge
Denis Marsh
Jova (Night)

If You Reach Dora Woods at Sunrise
Yomi
Vlad Graveyard
West Bridge
Castlevania Ruins (Here a cut scene showing Simon burning Dracula's parts happens & the Dracula Wraith is summoned.)

Castlevania Wraith
Entrance + Chapel
Outer Wall + Underground & Courtyard
Cursed Dungeon & Laboratory + Clock Tower
Castle Keep

This short version of Castlevania is loosely based on the NES/MSX version, but in barely stable ruins. I was thinking of trying one of two things to represent the chaotic, half-formed nature of this quasi-revived version of the castle. A) Super-Ghouls-'n'-Ghosts-style shifting terrain effect during game play, or... B) Semi-randomly generated 'chaos' rooms dispersed within each stage.

That's pretty much my idea for a linear CV2 remake. Of course many of the areas will have to be completely redesigned to make things more interesting, but that pretty much goes without saying.

[Denis Belmondo]

Nicely arranged, Inccubus. That really sounds like a game that fits Simon's second adventure better than the original game itself. The implementation of the original stages was pretty slick too.

I am wondering what the music would be like since there are so many more areas to progress through. I imagine, if the game actually existed of course, that people would get bored of hearing Bloody Tears and Monster Fight a couple of hundred times as unlikely as it seems since SQ's tracks are glorious. Though, one would've already taken account of this I'm sure.

From your description I can picture the first half of the ruins stage would be playing Vampire Killer and the stairs or stage before the keep would be playing Within These Castle Walls but that's all I can offer for now. I'd probably throw in some Battle of the Holy in the game somewhere, I dunno.

[TheCruelAngel]

I think Inccubus nailed it on the head. A more linear CVII would, I think, play more like RoB than anything else, Inccubus' interpretation I think is an excellent balance of how it would flow and change depending on choices.

+1 for you good sir!

[Lelygax]

 There is a game with nice concepts that can be used, it being linear or not:
http://horrorquest.altervista.org/download.html
 Download and play Dracula's Shadow, I played it years ago but doesnt liked it so much, but this time I give it another chance and its fantastic, this game plays like CV2, but much much better. You need to fight a boss when you reach enough EXP to level up, if you lose the fight you lost the chance and needs to try to level up again.
 Its almost like a CV 2.5, only be playing it you can understand what Im trying to say.

[Inccubus]

Thanks!

I remember Dracula's Shadow. I want so badly to remake the graphics for it. No offense to the original author, but some of the graphics are atrocious. I did like some of the concepts used in it.

As for the music I'd probably go with 'environmental' themes since there are at least two of every kind of location. Sort of like how Mario games have an overworld, athletic, underground, and underwater stage theme. Also, I tend to like remixes quite a bit so I'd want several remixes from previous games in the timeline to round out the original soundtrack.

Actually, come to think of it, Optomon was working on a kick-ass CV2 hack that has apparently been cancelled, but he did end up making a CV2 style soundtrack for it. When combined with the original ost it pretty much covers everything one could ask for. I'll attach the nsf file for it along with the one for cv2.

CV2 OST NSF
CV2 Hack OST by Optomon NSF

[Aridale]

that soundtrack by Optomon is BAD ASS. I have it as just another album in my mp3 collection. Its that good

[Lelygax]

What I need to play these *.NSF files?
Also Im stuck in Dracula Shadows now, I need only one more Dracula part (Evil Book or something like that). I need to go to Fleva, but I dont know how, I have only these clues:
"Use the power of Dracula's ring to get to Fleva." Right, this one is easy....
I found this earlier in secret mansion "Evil birds used to go from here to Fleva land." this is easy too, because in this mansion exists a big bird that is the only enemy that doesnt have a name nor lifebar using the Monster Encyclopedia. I tried to equip Dracula's Ring and wait near the open window (the only one in this mansion that you can see the mountains, also this is close to the bird, in fact he flies near this window throwing stones every time), I tried to duck, hold up, jump on it and nothing works lol

edit: I discovered searching in the internet, I hate to do this, hate even more when the answer to the problem is so simple. The thing is that this bir clue is useless, it doesnt have anything to do with the ring riddle. The worst part is that this game dont have a warp room and I walked for almost 12 minutes to reach this wrong place, so boring hau auu~

(click to show/hide)

If I knew that this bird is useless, I would have tried using the ring in the 2nd ferryman sooner instead of searching the way that I did

[TheCruelAngel]

For NSF Players.

http://famitracker.com/wiki/index.php?title=List_of_NSF_players

I recommend NSFPlay since I'm still stuck in the 90's and use winamp as my default mp3 player and NSFPlay provides a plugin just for winamp.

[Lelygax]

Thanks, I will download NSFPlay, since in the wikipedia page it seems to be one of the betters and you recomended it.

[Inccubus]

Personally, I like NotSoFatso the best for Winamp. The NSFE format is pretty awesome. I have both of those files I uploaded converted to NSFE if anyone wants them.

[Lelygax]

What changes? Also this NotSoFatso is better even for people that dont use Winamp?