Topic: Save your criticism

[Kingshango]

Man that LOS announcement topic is full of hindsight.

[Ahasverus]

I miss those real HYPE days, you could feel it in the air; we are excited for LoS2 but it's not the same, it doesn't have that "mysterious/foregin/exciting" factor that LoS had in its time.
Funny, because all signs point to LoS2 being the most radical update in the formula and well, the better game.

[Pfil]

Really, what this all comes down to is the, "What is Castlevania to you?" philosophical crap that was going on on a daily basis here once the CV label on LoS was revealed. Personally, I don't see drastic differences between LoS (music or gameplay) and earlier titles in the series. You and other folks on here do. It's all opinion. It's one thing if you don't like it, but to claim that the OST "factually" doesn't fit is a logical fallacy.

No it is not about what is Castlevania to me. It is a fact.
I don't to sound big-headed, but if you understand musical theory you can check any soundtracks from 1986 to 2008 and see the similarities in chord progressions, melodies, cadenzas, arrangements...
And you will see that LoS is nothing like that, but for example the theme from Soul Calibur that I posted yesterday did have lots of things in common with CV traditional music.
The debates about the gameplay and look can be more subjective, but musical theory is like maths. 1+1 is always 2.

Konami was trying to breathe new life into a series that had been flagging for years, and while you may not like the outcome of that, it gave CV a higher profile as a current game than people paying lip service to how much they loved SoTN or CV1 in the press. Which means that we're likely going to see more CV games once MS is done. So LoS might be the gateway to you actually getting CV games you like now that it's been shown that CV can actually make money.

Perhaps, but if the games I will see will have this kind of music, to me it is the same as if CV would have suffered the fate of Megaman. Or even worse.

The emphasis on exploration over action and platforming was definitely NOT what the series was about. Plus we were playing a non-Belmont character that had ridiculous powers as opposed to a Belmont with many limitations. In a lot of ways, SoTN was an even greater departure than you claim LoS is. I remember when it came out, and I was a CV fan for many years before it did and I remember playing it for the first time and scratching my head as to why they called it Castlevania.

The look and music is what the series was about, and that didn't change with SotN.
If Konami decides to make another fighter but includes Castlevania stages and a new soundtrack with all new tracks, I'll be happy. As long as the music and look resembles anything from 1986-2008.

Is it really necessary to have EVERY game be EXACTLY the same? As much as i love many of these games, if they were all the same, I'd have stopped playing them a long time ago. LoS was a breath of fresh air just like SoTN was. And they all brought different elements to the table that wound up staying.

Yes it is, at least for me.
Give me a MetroidVania in an anual basis and I'm the happiest person in the world.
I would keep playing them forever (as well as the ClassicVanias, but I'm more of the MetroidVanias).

I think his criticism comes more from the fact that it seems like anything pre-LoS taking inspiration or copying ideas tends to be given a pass, while LoS gets the "GoW clone" slander thrown around all the time.

I don't have so much problem with the GoW thing if the music sounded like any other CV soundtrack or at least would have retained the identity.

Just for the record I want to say, as I already have said many times, I am a fan of IGA.

I've said that many times on here now. SOTN, LOI and DOS, or all in my top favorite CV games. I think all of these games were masterpieces. I've been saying this for a while. However, there were a lot of things he did that were not my cup of tea.

I've also said many times that LOS is not a perfect game. I did not care for MOF at all, and I've said that too. But LOS is also in my top favorites.

So I just want to clear the air here and let people know that I am a fan of both developers and I actually like their good games equally. The only reason things may seem weighted in my comments is because IGA has produced 10 times the amount of work MS has. And while IGA produced many games that I cherish, he also happened to release a lot of other CV games that I didn't care for.

I just want to say that to explain myself.

I am too a fan of Iga, since MetroidVania is my favourite thing in the world, but I don't say everything Iga did was perfect. I didn't like DoS very much, and I find Judgment and CV HD like mediocre products saved by the music and look. But I have PoR, CoD, AoS, OoE and SotN among my all-time favourites, together with Rondo of Blood, Legacy of Darkness and Simon's Quest.

And I don't hate everything MS did. The story of Gabriel in LoS/MoF was great, the tragic fate between him and Trevor was awesome, the art created for some main characters is great, and I really liked the library, the castle environment and the clock tower from LoS, and some backgrounds and stages from MoF.

I can't help it that when I play a MS game I can't feel it is a Castlevania, and if I could forgive so many mistakes from past games, I have to come to the conclusion that it is the music (and to a lesser extent the look) that keeps taking me out of place.
Had LoS been another game, without the CV label on it, I would have probably played it anyway, even liked it, but I would still have hated the music, because, as I said, I find it to be boring, repetitive, predictable and uninspired.
So I can't come to any other conclusion that the biggest problem, by far, is the music, and theoretical analysis proves my point when I pay attention to every detail about the soundtrack.
I just can't find a single redeeming quality about it.

Don't take it personal. I like you and I agree with a lot of things you say.
I just have to respectfully disagree about this particular subject.

[Bloodreign]

I am so happy that my opinion has pretty much remained the same.

I may not enjoy the music from LoS (and am rather bored with MoF), but I actually played them more than LoI and CoD, which I still don't like (even if their music is better IMO).

I wonder if I can summon A N T R A X X back.

Not even the mightiest powers could bring Antraxx back, he works for some game company now.

[Nagumo]

Just for the record, I personally never disliked LoS because it took elements from other series, and a lot of other people don't either. "All haters dislike LoS only because it rips off GoW" is greatly oversimplifying the issue. Any supposed double standard upheld by people on this forum or the fanbase in general is just an exaggeration. Making accusations like that is very offensive.

[Belmontoya]

Pfil. Don't try to bend musical theory to support your opinion. You're not the only one here who has taken music theory classes.

[crisis]

Just for the record, I personally never disliked LoS because it took elements from other series, and a lot of other people don't either. "All haters dislike LoS only because it rips off GoW" is greatly oversimplifying the issue. Any supposed double standard upheld by people on this forum or the fanbase in general is just an exaggeration. Making accusations like that is very offensive.

Especially those generalizations that claim most fans here give IGA & his games a pass but crucify Cox & LoS for what it is.



I miss Antraxx. And TheAshenian. And a lot of other members that have moved into the Lifestream :/

[Inccubus]

I don't really understand this statement. What exactly did he rip off, and who here gives him the OK? He's been hated on ever since Harmony of Dissonance, continues to be hated on even to this day, and he's ALWAYS had more haters than supporters. The only game I can see he "ripped off" from was Nanobreaker (an equally shitty game), since him & his team basically admitted to using that game's code & resources and remade it into CoD. I've seen some people say "Devil Forging is a ripoff of Pokemon!!" but that's just a downright silly argument to make, and makes the debater sound childish.

I'm pretty sure the only thing that was ever "ripped off" was the Metroid format and that's a silly argument, too. I can't see anyone legitimately saying anything was "ripped off" from NanoBreaker on account of IGA produced NanoBreaker and more importantly it was made using the LoI engine. Also, I'm pretty sure that what IGA and his team said was something along the lines that the reason they even made NanoBreaker was to practice 3D action game development before working on CoD.


Recently having played through CoD again, it's my opinion that as far as game play CoD is really not all that different from LoS. My issues are with the presentation, focus being taken away from traditional platforming, and the combat being even more overblown than the 3Dvanias that came before. Now don't think I don't have issues with LoI and CoD, but it's not with the presentation. My problems with those games is with game play and level design. The level design being especially atrocious in both cases.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Obligatory and Appropriate:

Extra Credits: Video Game Music

[Pfil]

Pfil. Don't try to bend musical theory to support your opinion. You're not the only one here who has taken music theory classes.

Then you must understand. I'm not supporting my opinion, I am stating facts. Chords is where almost all the base for emotion resides. Without the right chord progressions, everything else is pretty much useless.
Take the chord progressions from top CV tracks, for example, Prayer for a Tragic Queen or Calling From Heaven from Bloodlines, or Wood Carving Partita from SotN, or Gaze Up At The Darkness from PoR, or the town theme from Simon's Quest, the boss theme from the Albus battle in OoE, the intro theme in Judgment, Study from AoS, Cursed Clock Tower from DoS, Proof of Blood from CotM, Forest of Jigramunt from CoD, the theme from SCIV stage with chandeliers (I don't recall the name), or Beginning and Clockwork from CV3, etc. etc. etc. etc., it's a neverending list, I just tried to pick some from each game...
All those tracks are very different from one another, but they retain the CV identity because the chord progressions are based in classical music, especially in baroque cadenzas, and the melodies have a strong baroque feeling, as well as the very classical arrangements, no matter which instruments play them, if they are chiptunes or real orchestras, it is the same, because the structure on which the theme is composed doesn't change the CV 25 years long musical trademark.
And now try to find something similar in LoS and MoF.
And that's just the beggining. You can't find similarities in arrangements and melodies either. I don't remember to hear a single dominant's dominant, neapolitan or suspended major dominant in anything from Araujo.
There's not a single time when we hear the 4th grade followed by a dominant's dominant and a suspended major dominant.
There's not one time we can hear a major tonic in a minor key theme followed by a 4th grade, or the common progression tonic / 4th / 7th / 3rd / 6th / 4th / D'sD / MD susp.
And that's just one of many, many progressions defining CV's musical identity.
Add to that the fact that it is repetitive (because it is; you can hear the same chords and arrangements throughout the entire game).
Add to that the lack of closure to ideas (themes beginning to construct something and never finishing it, it's like they reset half-way through, or near the end, to begin again... that's something very common in movies, and very annoying, because it hurts the trained ear to hear an incomplete idea). Or that thing Araujo seems to like so much, that instead of using the major dominant in a minor key theme, he uses the minor dominant and uses it to recycle the same idea with a tonality shift, only to re-use it a minute later and go back to the original tonality).
Add now the repetition of arrangements throughout the complete length of the game, and if all that wasn't enough I had to endure the annoying battle music, which sounds more like something out of Transformers 3 or Battleship than from a Castlevania game. There were so many (so many!) brilliant battle themes from CV! He could have taken any structure and use it to compose his new ideas, like it's been done for almost a quarter century in Castlevania, but no, he had to go with his usual mannerisms, and so now we have a CV game with an Araujo typical soundtrack.

[Pfil]

This is a good example of music for a tragic scene that would have served LoS so well...

SANGUEPAZZO - TRAILER

And a good movie track perfectly in touch with Castlevania roots...

House By The Cemetery 1981 theme

Now for a good track for the snow levels and haunted villages (the first minute of the theme)...

Call Of Duty MW3 OST- Russian Deliberations

Already posted, but this an epic battle theme...

Soul Calibur 3 - 020 - No Regrets

And this is epicness...

Hans Zimmer - The Rock - Hummel Gets The Rockets

Now for good ambience...

Secret Garden moongate

Another example of brilliant movie composition...

BSO Gladiator: 07 Patricide

Or this one...

The Man in the Iron Mask Soundtrack 13 - All For One

All of that, music that would suit the LoS game perfectly, and would have been in touch with Castlevania's essence.
I can name hundreds of examples that would fit.
And why is it that they fit?
Because they are built on classical bases, in terms of arrangement, melody, and especially chord progressions.

[Belmontoya]

You should know that music theory is not an absolute law on the relationship between the music and listener. It is a collection of proven concepts that work to achieve certain musical goals. It does not disprove the effectiveness of music that does not follow it's guidelines and mechanics. This is one of the first things my professor told me about it. I took one class in college.

You have made very detailed observations about what you don't like abou the score. I'm not sure how much training you have had but I have met people before who took way too much theory and could no longer listen to music without over anylizing it and in the process, missing the meaning and intent of the artist. Music is an art after all, and there are no facts in art, there are opinions and that is all there ever can be.

I would love to dive further into this with you because I actually enjoy debating music theory, but I can't continue if you're going in to this with the idea that your opinions are facts about artistic aesthetics. You must consider that if this were really true, I couldn't be here telling you that i enjoyed the score of LOS. no one could, because it would be impossible to enjoy. There was a user here named The Great Reviewer who felt that way, and he was impossible to reason with.

Just to clarify, I'm only referring to the LOS soundtrack. Mirror of Fate disappointed me in nearly every department.

[Ahasverus]

I for one think the LoS score is not supposed to reflect the /game/ but Gabriel's feelings, and it's in my opinion very melancholic. I feel it.

[Pfil]

You should know that music theory is not an absolute law on the relationship between the music and listner. It is a collection of proven concepts that work to achieve certain musical goals. It does not disprove the effectiveness of music that does not follow it's guidelines and mechanics. This is one of the first things my professor told me about it. I took one class in college.

You have made very detailed observations about what you don't like abou the score. I'm not sure how much training you have had but I have met people before who took way too much theory and could no longer listen to music without over anylizing it and in the process, missing the meaning and intent of the artist. Music is an art after all, and there are no facts in art, there are opinions and that is all there ever can be.

I would love to dive further into this with you because I actually enjoy debating music theory, but I can't continue if you're going in to this with the idea that your opinions are facts about artistic aesthetics. You must consider that if this were really true, I couldn't be here telling you that i enjoyed the score of LOS. no one could, because it would be impossible to enjoy. There was a user here named The Great Reviewer who felt that way, and he was impossible to reason with.

Just to clarify, I'm only referring to the LOS soundtrack. Mirror of Fate disappointed me in nearly every department.

I'd like to continue this, believe me, I'm trying to express myself without coming out as a pedantic person, because I don't like that kind of people, I like to keep myself humble.
When I said it wasn't my opinion, but facts, it was to remark some facts about the Castlevania musical legacy, some things in common between every Castlevania score, identity marks that Araujo chose not to follow.
I can't help but to over analyze music because that's the way I learned it, and when I hear a Castlevania score that doesn't follow what I've perceived all my life as established rules, I can't feel nothing.
And since some people maybe agree with me on personal perception, I didn't want what I was saying to be taken as just a personal perception, so I decided to explain it in music theory basis, something I didn't want to make because, I know, many people can take it as a pedantic attitude, which is exactly what I don't want to be.
But I don't see another way.
Believe me, I never put my opinion as facts. It's just that, in this case, my opinion is the same as some established facts. Many things, musically speaking, that were always present in CV soundtracks and that they are not in LoS.
And forgive me if the musical theory becomes lost in translation, because I learned everything about it in spanish and I don't know if some translations I've been giving are correct (such as the grades, for example). For example, here we name the notes do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si, while in the rest of the world it is C-D-E-F-G-A-B. I don't know if suspended is the correct term, for example. Or dominant's dominant, for instance.
I believe my english is good, but this a very technical aspect of the language I'm not very familiar with.
So, to separate my opinion from the facts, my opinion is that I don't like Araujo, his music doesn't make me feel anything, doesn't say anything at all to me, and everything in LoS and MoF bored me to death (ambience) or killed my ears like with a drill (battle music).
But the facts are that Araujo didn't follow any of Castlevania established rules for soundtracks, something that never happened in the previous 25 years.
Some people may like it, that's OK, but it's not Castlevania music.
It's like if in a future Castlevania they decide to include a genre of music that I personally like but doesn't follow Castlevania rules. I may like it, because I like the genre, but it will also be true that the score is not in the vein of the Castlevania sound.

I also want to clarify, so that because you asked, that I studied piano and musical theory for 11 years, but that doesn't prevent me from enjoying music.
I know exactly where my emotion chords reside, and while my knowledge makes me analyze everything I hear, what matters to me in the end is just the emotion (which is to me, of course, the basis of Castlevania music, being CV music from 1986 to 2008 my all-time favourite music).
That's why you can find similarities in everything I like, be it VG music, movie soundtracks, rock, metal, pop, K-pop, romantic single singers or anything. I pretty much like music from every genre, but always within some technical aspects that are where I can find emotional impact.

I for one think the LoS score is not supposed to reflect the /game/ but Gabriel's feelings, and it's in my opinion very melancholic. I feel it.

Apart from not being Castlevania, I personally didn't feel nothing from it.
This is an example of what I perceive as a melancholic, but not necessarily Castlevania sound.

Gods and Generals- Gods and Generals

Leaving aside eveything I said technically about Araujo, one thing that bores me about his subtle and soft sound is the lack of melodramatic moments.
Listen from 1:47 to 2:18 in the track I linked. The peak of emotion comes at 2:13.

[Pfil]

Just to clarify, I'm only referring to the LOS soundtrack. Mirror of Fate disappointed me in nearly every department.

I found it to be a step in the right direction from MS when comparing to LoS, with the exception of gameplay, but the music remained the same to me.