Topic: Disappointment about new Castlevanias:bitterness, nostalgy, or legitimate view?

[Shiroi Koumori]

The castle flip was justified by IGA that they wanted to make the most of their assets (sprites, music, etc.) and also provide gamers more time to indulge in the game since it was expensive to buy a ps1 disc at that time. Cheesy or not, it was worth it in my opinion, considering the cost involved to buy the game and the amount of time you needed to complete everything. Kinda like Pokemon.

Well, regarding the original question, I feel... nothing, on the main console releases, and disappointment on MoF. Argh I need more use for my 3ds.

I am far more excited for the pachislots. Dammit Konami, I want my pachislots!

[Flame]

The castle flip was justified by IGA that they wanted to make the most of their assets (sprites, music, etc.) and also provide gamers more time to indulge in the game since it was expensive to buy a ps1 disc at that time. Cheesy or not, it was worth it in my opinion, considering the cost involved to buy the game and the amount of time you needed to complete everything. Kinda like Pokemon.

Well, regarding the original question, I feel... nothing, on the main console releases, and disappointment on MoF. Argh I need more use for my 3ds.

I am far more excited for the pachislots. Dammit Konami, I want my pachislots!

he can try and justify it all he wants, but it was a cheesy and lazy gimmick. Lots of the castle was annoying to traverse upside down simply because it was not really designed to. They designed it rightside up and then simply added traps to the upside down version, and figured that you get the upgrades to traverse it anyway, so no use in designing the castle to work both ways.

It wasn't really worth it. Considering they went out of their way to make new bosses and enemies and all that, they should have gone the extra mile. Unless they just didn't have enough time to make a whole other area for the post-castle section, and flipped the castle upside down with different color filters over it. That's what I'm leaning towards, since they also made a grand total of 2 tracks for the inverted castle. Which got really old really fast.

[zangetsu468]

The handhelds kept the series alive for hardcore fans? Do you speak for all of the hardcore fans? I've been a fan of the series for well over two decades and I found the gameboy advance and ds handheld games to be some of the most uninteresting Castlevania games ever made. For many people, they are what was killing the series with their redundancy.

I speak for myself and the group of fans I know personally who have been playing CV for varying amounts of time, some are younger and some older than myself. Each fan is entitled to their own opinion, which does not deride that of another fan. Personally I love classicvania and I love metroidvania, I've bought consoles purely for CV games in the past. I believe that this doesn't make me less of a fan just because I prefer metroidvania style CV. A fan is really someone who will support the series no matter which route it will take, I didn't enjoy the LOS series as much as the original, but I can say that with certainty because I still purchased and played those games through and gave them a chance.

If you believe that, I'm not stating you're not entitled to. However it can also be argued what was killing the series was IGA's bad 3d translations of CV. Now I'm not saying they were bad games, I even thought LOI was closer to what a Belmont CV would play like in 3d. I would say they were simply missing a lot of elements not only that the 2d games had, but in and of themselves LOI had particularly uninspiring level design (aside from the secret areas which I thought were executed really well). I'm hearing areas an enemies were recycled in Classicvania>>SOTN>>Metroidvanias, but Iga's games were even more guilty of doing similar things. How many boxes (rooms) and halls were reused in LOI, how many of the same enemies were there - and God damn, was there even a bat in COD? (aside from the chauve souris)

I agree that Muramasa is funner game than Dragon's Crown, but to say Dragon's Crown is a sack of crap!? Come on man.

You know what, DC is a potentially good game, which is hampered by the amount of cutscenes/ script which don't actually involve animation or characters moving their mouths, or doing anything besides breathing heavily. I love the artwork, I like the gameplay, I think the developers have made some solid titles (muramasa, odinsphere) For me, DC is just broken by simple things, an eg. In multiplayer mode you want to do a side mission, all 4 players have to select that mission at the guild before you can even leave the hub... It's just like you have to grind in order to even go and grind.. which is a little painful.

I'm not saying I hate the game, it just puts me off a little bit, like I wouldn't put an hour aside to play it, I'd probably need 3-4 hours with friends. I certainly wouldn't buy it. Now I know people will say this isn't as deep, but a good example of a similar game which flows better imo is Guardian Heroes. You can still have a good crack even if you have 1 hour spare.

[zangetsu468]

The castle flip was justified by IGA that they wanted to make the most of their assets (sprites, music, etc.) and also provide gamers more time to indulge in the game since it was expensive to buy a ps1 disc at that time. Cheesy or not, it was worth it in my opinion, considering the cost involved to buy the game and the amount of time you needed to complete everything. Kinda like Pokemon.

See to myself, this is much like what was done in DMC4. Simply put, I think a game is meant to be fun, if it's fun enough that they re-use stages or half of the game I really don't care so long as I like the game. Personally, I think gameplay, narrative(character development, plot etc), artwork and ost matter moreso to me than graphics, environments, and recycling. Each to their own though. 

Well, regarding the original question, I feel... nothing, on the main console releases, and disappointment on MoF. Argh I need more use for my 3ds.

Fire Emblem, 3d Land, ALBW

[Viskod]

God DMC4 was such a letdown at that point.You didn't even get new bosses on the way back either. At least the inverted castle had new bosses.

I can't go back and enjoy many of the GBA and DS Castlevanias. They were fun at the time, but once I was done with them, that was pretty much that.  Maybe Circle of the Moon and Aria of Sorrow if I could find them. But Harmony of Dissonance is just plain fucking ugly and has terrible character design, Dawn of Sorrow has that pathetic shoehorned 'draw glyphs to kill boss' mechanic that just kills the gameplay for me. The few times I've tried to go back to that game, I just have to play it in Julius mode.

Portrait of Ruin, I'm going to say is probably the one I can go back to easiest. Order of Ecclesia has terrible characters and story for me, I just didn't like Shanoa at all. I think it has a great Dracula fight though, probably the best of out of the whole series since they finally did something different with him.

[zangetsu468]

God DMC4 was such a letdown at that point.You didn't even get new bosses on the way back either. At least the inverted castle had new bosses.

Fair enough, we must live on different planets, I think DMC4 is tops. Inverted Castle had the track "lost painting" which is my personal favourite SOTN track.

I can't go back and enjoy many of the GBA and DS Castlevanias. They were fun at the time, but once I was done with them, that was pretty much that.  Maybe Circle of the Moon and Aria of Sorrow if I could find them. But Harmony of Dissonance is just plain fucking ugly and has terrible character design, Dawn of Sorrow has that pathetic shoehorned 'draw glyphs to kill boss' mechanic that just kills the gameplay for me. The few times I've tried to go back to that game, I just have to play it in Julius mode.

DOS was a rare case where Julius mode (second playthrough) actually felt like another better and more difficult mode. I liked the throwback to CV III with the ability to switch characters, and I think this was executed better than what they tried to do in POR.

Portrait of Ruin, I'm going to say is probably the one I can go back to easiest. Order of Ecclesia has terrible characters and story for me, I just didn't like Shanoa at all. I think it has a great Dracula fight though, probably the best of out of the whole series since they finally did something different with him.

Haha, we are the opposite.. OOE is my favourite is nearly every sense of CV, yet I felt that POR's Dracula fight was even better!

[Viskod]

Portrait of Ruins Dracula fight I would definitely place at a close second to OOE's because they still tried to do something different with it, by having you fight Death at the same time.

But OOE's Dracula is just an almost different boss entirely, new attacks, new variations on the staple attacks, and no "monster" form, he just actually starts walking around. I thought he had a pretty good design in OOE as well.

[zangetsu468]

OOE's Dracula design especially in the intro where he's sunk into the throne with red eyes, that's probably the closest description I can compare with the way I imagine Dracula the first time I read Stoker's novel. They did him justice. 

[theANdROId]

I think it's funny how much we (gamers) have changed.  Years ago, people would line up for games like Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, and Galaga.  There was little (if any) sprite difference from level to level in those games.  Sure, DK had a few different levels, but they repeated and nobody cared.  The games just got harder by adding more enemies or going faster, and that was enough.  Now, some people start to cry "FOUL" if a part of one game even remotely resembles something from another.   Yeah, I know, times have changed and technology can do so much more...right, right.  That doesn't mean we had to though.  And yes, this is a fan forum, where we all get together to share their thoughts and opinions, then fight over them, then either make up, agree to disagree, or kick someone out.  I'm just noting the difference in the times...it's funny to me!

And of course, I don't mean to imply that I'm not guilty.  When I first played through HoD (Harmony of Dissonance, that is) I complained at some reused sprites.  Didn't that one use the lizard-man-thing 4 or 5 times?  I hated that!  But I'd imagine it uses less space or something, leaving room for other stuff.  I just can't imagine the developers saying, "Hey, here's an idea!  Let's reuse sprites as often as possible so we can party/be lazy and piss off our players!"

[Morning star]

I think it's funny how much we (gamers) have changed.  Years ago, people would line up for games like Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, and Galaga.  There was little (if any) sprite difference from level to level in those games.  Sure, DK had a few different levels, but they repeated and nobody cared.  The games just got harder by adding more enemies or going faster, and that was enough.  Now, some people start to cry "FOUL" if a part of one game even remotely resembles something from another.

I support this message, lol. This for the win.

[Viskod]

Its mostly when those crying foul have a chip on their shoulder for the product already. If one game has something another game does, and you like it, then it pays "homage" to said game, if you don't like it, then its a "clone" or a "rip-off".

[RegalSin]

Okay to keep things short, when CV for the Dreamcast was released, people were kind scratching their heads about the idea of being created by a western studio. However in all honestly, I do not know if that was the case. The whole Sonya Belmont is the source of all the Belmonts and Alcard is the source of the Belmont powers, leading to the so called "Curse of Simon". When LOtI came along, looking at the game, makes you think "is this going to be like the N64 games or another SOTN clone", and now with Cox ( doing what we all dreamed of doing, turning us into Jelly players ),  he pretty much decided to bring the game to the level of DOOM and Colossus, which is just silly. You have over the top boss fights, alongside lame but creative boss fights, and decent enemy design. It is hard to say, what is good and what is bad.

Once you start dwelling on the time-line, and looking how current trends ( cell phones, a room full crappy flat screens, and junk like that, one day we are going to see that robot from Rocky IV, make an appearance), are impacting the story, it stops being Casltevania. Sooner or later, and becomes another Blade.....Wouldn't it be nice to see, Dracula run into Blade one day.

All Castlevania's are great to play, with the same idea in mind. Kill the devil, stop the devil, crucify ( ha ) the devil, Make Akuma pay, with vengeance. That is what makes it unique, where people can ignore all the religious fractions, or RPGish ( DAD ) atmosphere and play something that is fun.

................

[X]

The whole Sonya Belmont is the source of all the Belmonts and Alcard is the source of the Belmont powers, leading to the so called "Curse of Simon".

Actually Simon was cursed by Dracula as a final act of malice before Simon killed him. It had nothing to do with the Belmont origins as Legends came out a decade later.

[Morning star]

Actually Simon was cursed by Dracula as a final act of malice before Simon killed him. It had nothing to do with the Belmont origins as Legends came out a decade later.

This is a true story. IDK what weird made up timeline this other stuff comes from but i don't remember any curse that has anything to do with Alucard. Especially not one that involved Simon.

[zangetsu468]

This is a true story. IDK what weird made up timeline this other stuff comes from but i don't remember any curse that has anything to do with Alucard. Especially not one that involved Simon.

He's talking about the curse of the Belmont blood through Alucard's affair with Sonia in Legends. This is irrelevant, as Legends was retconned and LOI became the new origins story afterwards.