Topic: Missed Opportunities in Castlevania games?

[DarkPrinceAlucard]

Curse of Darkness had so much more potential for a more interesting story. For starters, there's the parallel between Drac and Hector. That dialogue before the final battle could have had so much more depth. Two men who lost their wives because of the ignorance of humans. Instead, it boils down to a brief mention of Hector as a traitor. You could chalk it up to Drac's inconsistent personality resulting from his deaths messing with his head, but he has a clear memory whenever he meets someone personally significant to him (like Al).

And the game itself wouldn't have needed much to be at least "ok". But things like the slouching speed of Hector drag it down.

pretty much everything here^^^

I really liked the gameplay and story of Curse of Darkness. The whole "Devil Forgemaster" thing was a nice little edition to the series and hearing that their power once was said to rival Deaths gave you something to work towards when starting out as a weak devil forgemaster.

The story also introduced a unique plot element with Saint Germain and Time Travelers in the CV universe and the little dialogue between him and Death where he says "I will keep returning, until the day you finally surrender" was some epic forshadowing of a eventual confrontation between the time traveler organization that Saint Germain belongs to and Death.

Another thing I liked was that the game brought back the ability to get multiple types of weapons and items like in Symphony and Aria which was great.

The Devil Forging was also pretty neat.

But the game suffered heavily by having a complete and utter lack of platforming and not so diverse areas that felt the same. And this severe flaw in the game was only made worse by making Hector soooooooo freaken slow and not giving him some magic ability or relic to make him run faster through the very large areas.

So when I think of CV games with "Missed Opportunities" I can't help but think of this game that could have been so much better.

[DragonSlayr81]

- CV2: Make villagers less useless and hints less vague. Also, feature a different boss in each mansion.

- LoI: Story was fine, but level design could've been less flat.

- CoD: Story could've been deeper, and Alucard, Sypha and Grant should've at least appeared(or made some sort of cameo, like the speculation that we were going to see Alucard asleep in coffin in his catacombs). Areas were too big. Mostly each area should've been cut into two smaller areas, and each of those areas should've had their own bosses(or a mini-boss at the end of each first area). Dracula's Castle should've been broken up into multiple areas, each with their own boss. All areas should've had better level design with good platforming(ESPECIALLY Enemaos Machine Tower).

- DoS: Cut out the bullshit "cute" crap(She's got me under her finger). Nix the anime designs(and I'm awayre RoB was anime too, but it was GOOD anime, from a time when anime WAS good, call me biased or what, I don't care ). Should've been a dark story where Soma comes to the conclusion that he can't escape his dark fate(no happy endings). Either that, or they should've just made Julius the main character(Julius encountering a cult of Dracula sympathizers or Olrox allies).

- PoR: Last 4 painting should've been original levels, not the first 4 paintings tweaked. Similar thing regarding the anime look(should've gotten Kojima to do the designs). Also, the characters and story should've been better(Brauner should've look like something completely original instead of Graf Orlok with a monocle). Jonathan was your typical "Yankee" Japanese stereotype, and Charlotte the "cute childhood friend" who's always scolding him. Urgh! And yes, John Morris and Eric Lecarde would've been WAY more fitting secret characters than Richter and Maria.

- OoE: Should've went more in depth with WHAT happened to the Belmont clan(and I mean, give us the effing story, not just some "Oh, we are all descendants!" thing.

- LoS: Where to start? More CV-feel other than the Bernhard Castle. More traditional platforming, less shimming, climbing and teetering. In the Titan battles, no SotC enemie climbing, just a more traditional boss battle, but of a difference scale. Little to no QTEs. More classic enemies returning, and more classic songs returning. Less ambience and epic score, more a mixture of different styles.

[muteKi]

- OoE: Should've went more in depth with WHAT happened to the Belmont clan(and I mean, give us the effing story, not just some "Oh, we are all descendants!" thing.

Pet theory: After Richter gets possessed, the Belmonts don't hold on to the VK any more and go into hiding of sorts specifically because of what happened in SotN; they can't dare risk having another strong vampire killer wind up in the service of Dracula*. Everything would go to hell. I dont think there has been a single game starring a Belmont -- one that's considered canon, at least -- chronologically between SotN and Aria.

Speaking of which (and getting back more on topic) I kinda want to see a Castlevania game about the prologue to Aria of Sorrow with Julius with the whole war thing going on, ideally more in the style of Chronicles than SOTN, just because the story seems to call for a much tougher and perhaps a bit more linear game. But with the MercurySteam stuff that seems unlikely to happen.

[beingthehero]

They missed an opportunity to use that 2D Leon Belmont sprite from PoR for another game. After seeing it for the first time I was 80% certain the next DS game would feature him.

[Kamirine]

-Castlevania 64...just, all of it. The game really had a lot of potential that got squandered, it would have been nice to see what it would have turned out to be had they actually gotten a chance to finish and tweak it properly.

-PoR: The stages/portrait setting in general: the first part (or first portraits) I think should have been more like Bloodlines, with the players making their way to Dracula's castle and going to different countries and destinations, then the last four stages could have been the castle and the portraits. I can't agree more that John and Eric should have been the unlockable player mode over Ritcher and Maria.

-OoE: Whoever mentioned the Simion's Quest idea. That.

-The second playthrough in particular: I think they should take a page out of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, or rather: make the playthrough experience different, from stages to bosses, even if it is shorter then the main playthrough.  If the unlockable character had a special role/thing to do in the story, maybe go to different places/fight different bosses they would have experienced via their story, or something.

[Phoenix7786]

Seriously, after playing Super Mario 64 and Zelda 64, there was no reason Castlevania 64 should have been as bad as it was. Hell they even took a 2nd shot at it with LoD, and that STILL didn't fix all the issues. I'm very grateful they at least gave us a controllable camera and 2 extra characters (including one with his own story to it), as well as new stages. But damn they had a chance to really redeem the game and just missed their chance.

You mentioned giving 2nd playthroughs more meat, and I couldn't agree more. We've seen stuff like  DoS' Julius Mode (and to a MUCH lesser extent Sisters Mode) jury-rig a quick story in, but I'd love to see it done as LoD did it. Not counting the armored knight's segment (in case someone doesn't want that spoiler), Cornell, Reinhardt, and Carrie all have their own plots with some unique areas and bosses, even though they are still very similar to the Richter-mode premise.

And like you said, why not make the Richter-mode character a Gaiden-esque segment, explaining what that character was up to throughout the game (if the plot allowed for it of course)? Why not show what Julis was up to in Aos? Granted he has amnesia for a good junk of it, but still show what he was up to. In DoS especially, there was lots of room to show a Gaiden segment (although I am VERY pleased with how they did his mode in DoS). Julius is on his own for a good chunk of the story, as we see him do stuff like enter the castle alone, fight with Dario, and investigating the barrier. How do we know he didn't encounter unique bosses or have a confrontation with Celia or something?. In Ecclesia, why not show what Albus was doing to further his own research into Dominus?

[Successor The Cruel]

Everything DragonSlayr said o___ob

[darkwzrd4]

- CV2: Make villagers less useless and hints less vague. Also, feature a different boss in each mansion.

- LoI: Story was fine, but level design could've been less flat.

- CoD: Story could've been deeper, and Alucard, Sypha and Grant should've at least appeared(or made some sort of cameo, like the speculation that we were going to see Alucard asleep in coffin in his catacombs). Areas were too big. Mostly each area should've been cut into two smaller areas, and each of those areas should've had their own bosses(or a mini-boss at the end of each first area). Dracula's Castle should've been broken up into multiple areas, each with their own boss. All areas should've had better level design with good platforming(ESPECIALLY Enemaos Machine Tower).

- DoS: Cut out the bullshit "cute" crap(She's got me under her finger). Nix the anime designs(and I'm awayre RoB was anime too, but it was GOOD anime, from a time when anime WAS good, call me biased or what, I don't care ). Should've been a dark story where Soma comes to the conclusion that he can't escape his dark fate(no happy endings). Either that, or they should've just made Julius the main character(Julius encountering a cult of Dracula sympathizers or Olrox allies).

- PoR: Last 4 painting should've been original levels, not the first 4 paintings tweaked. Similar thing regarding the anime look(should've gotten Kojima to do the designs). Also, the characters and story should've been better(Brauner should've look like something completely original instead of Graf Orlok with a monocle). Jonathan was your typical "Yankee" Japanese stereotype, and Charlotte the "cute childhood friend" who's always scolding him. Urgh! And yes, John Morris and Eric Lecarde would've been WAY more fitting secret characters than Richter and Maria.

- OoE: Should've went more in depth with WHAT happened to the Belmont clan(and I mean, give us the effing story, not just some "Oh, we are all descendants!" thing.

- LoS: Where to start? More CV-feel other than the Bernhard Castle. More traditional platforming, less shimming, climbing and teetering. In the Titan battles, no SotC enemie climbing, just a more traditional boss battle, but of a difference scale. Little to no QTEs. More classic enemies returning, and more classic songs returning. Less ambience and epic score, more a mixture of different styles.

All great points.  I agree with them all.  And, here's my two cents to add to them:
LoI: Should have had more areas and bosses (the game was too short)
CoD: Nix St. Germain. Have Alucard still be awake helping Trevor investigate the Curse.  Alucard should be the one trying to talk Hector out of revenge.  The first fight between Hector and Trevor should end with Alucard breaking it up and telling Trevor that Issac is the one they should be after.  Grant should be in the clock tower and under the power of the curse and comes to his senses when beaten at which point he says something like "ah man! Not again." (sort of a comedy relief). I have no idea of how Sypha would show up.
PoR: Yes, John and Eric should have been there instead of Richter and Maria. Charlotte should have been equally as powerful as Jonathon instead of an after thought.
LoS: Should have been its own series without the CV name and name drops.  Good series, just not really CVish.

[SiFi270]

I think there should be at least one game where you fight Carmilla in her humanoid form before she transforms into the skull/mask/whatever thing.

Or better yet, maybe she could transform into that cat thing from the original book!

[Harrycombs]

Kind of a small thing, but it makes me scratch my head when DXC plays the track Former Room instead of Poison Mind when the player battles the CV1 bosses in a gauntlet before Shaft. That is just incredibly dumb, especially since Rondo of Blood -- which gets it right -- is there to use as a template. It's like the devs didn't know the significance behind playing Poison Mind at that part.

That always did annoy me. Its one of the very few things I disliked about DXC.

Portrait of Ruin was filled with missed opportunities. Charlotte was poorly implemented, the Richter/Maria mode made little sense to include, and the Sisters mode could have been really interesting but was poorly implemented. Its especially a shame after how fantastic the Julius mode was in Dawn.

[SiFi270]

I think Galamoth should have been the boss of Chapter 8 in Harmony of Despair.

[crisis]

hohoho fighting Menace in DoS should've utilized both screens

[GuyStarwind]

They should have used a slow maybe classy version of vampire killer when Leon makes the vampire killer whip. I believe in DXC when you rescue one of the girls it plays some sort slow easy going version of vampire killer that I think could work.

[Successor The Cruel]

Portrait of Ruin could have utilized the World War 2 backdrop much better. Have a cold, methodical, reserved, and all-business SS character named Josef investigating the castle, who is at odds with an impassioned, and rugged American agent with a five o'clock shadow named Jim Campbell who has somewhat of a footloose demeanor even though he takes his duties seriously, The dynamic could be somewhat like how Graham and Yoko and St. Germain and Zead were enemies.

EDIT:
Also, somehow manage a boss fight against Josef while he's within a German Tiger tank. He should also have some secret highly advanced Nazi weapons for fighting on foot.

[X]

Also, somehow manage a boss fight against Josef while he's within a German Tiger tank.

*Chuckle* I believe you mean Panther Tank as in the Nazi Panzer division. But I get what you're saying. Pretty much everything said here I am in agreement with. So many missed opportunities... But then of course there are some opportunities that should have been missed so as not to mess up the series anymore then it already is. But that's a topic for a different thread