Topic: Lords of Shadow producer believes the days of 2D Castlevania games are gone

[beingthehero]

We have Cox, and for all his lies, this is the one subject I really tend to trust him on.

He's tweeted both:And:
So it's not exactly coming out of anyone's butts. We don't know if it's flopped until all is said and done, regardless of what one headline proclaims.

I hate to be stubborn, but remember him lying in regards to Contra 4 selling poorly when Hulett himself said it sold better than what Konami expected?

Plus there was the whole thing with Konami Europe Twitter doing the whole "Lords 2 is getting rave reviews!"...after Metacritic had it at 63/100.

[Mike Belmont]

I don´t (never) take Cox´s words as a rule. It´s his opinion, after all, the last word is for Konami, as the games come from it.

...But yeah, old news...

[Dark Nemesis]

Are you following some kind of agenda posting old news about the 2D games? This was discussed like three weeks ago. Operation Akumajou is it you?

Posted by: Flame
This is the oldest news... Seriously.

Old or new, for some people, including my self, are new, but i wouldn't expect anything less from people who are following blindly whatever they throw to them and i'm talking like this, because your passion about the LoS serries and your hate about Iga and the latest 2D Castlevania games, has become cliche.

 Cox from the start, didn't have any respect for the old fans of the serries and he proves it again, by calling us niche market. Tombias, leader and singer of the band Edguy, changed the band's music style and the old fans went disappointed and he response that this is the way he wants to go on, so the old fans they turned their selves away, so guess what? At their last album, he went back to their old style. My point? It's us, the old fans who have kepted the series alive. The logic of Konami and Cox about mainstream market, doesn't have to be connected with the old series, since the casual and mainstream gamers who have peaked LoS games, they don't have any idea what Castlevania it's looking before LoS games.

[Flame]

but i wouldn't expect anything less from people who are following blindly whatever they throw to them and i'm talking like this, because your passion about the LoS serries and your hate about Iga and the latest 2D Castlevania games, has become cliche.

as cliche as the people who blindly defend IGA and deny he did ANYTHING wrong or bad? Not calling you out on it specifically or anything, but it goes both ways for sure.

I defend LoS because I see the positive in it and I just liked it because my tastes are different. I can admit fault where I see it, and the LoS series is not free of them. It has it's faux pas just as the older games do.

IGA tends to get singled out because he's done more harm than good when you look at what became of the series in the later years. many people resent him for that, and see him as the man who almost killed castlevania.

And I would have to agree. As much as I love games like Aria and Lament, I feel he just lost his touch really quickly, and when landed opportunities, squandered them with "sequel" games, or things like Judgement and HD. His development process is also somewhat flawed, as he has a gimmick driven design philosophy. By itself this isn't bad, but for Castlevania? It wasn't exactly needed either. At least not in the form it took on.

I like IGA. I do. he seems like a fun guy, and I genuinely loved some of his Castlevania games. But I was extremely displeased with his later efforts, which was compounded by his admissions that his handhelds got above average budgets for handhelds.

Then i see LoS, and I see it as getting way too much undeserved hatred, for things it's predecessors did too.

It also saved the series from getting killed off, by introducing fresh blood into it. New perspective on the vision, a wider audience to sell it better, and it didn't stray too far from the core, aside from the story of a Belmont becoming Dracula. And yet, Belmonts being related to Dracula is not new, and Legends did it first. people STILL give IGA flak for retconning it out of existence, despite that. So obviously those people are totally ok with it there.

Of course this is all just my opinion mind you, but don't start spouting nonsense and putting thoughts in my head. I'm not going to blindly defend what came before all because I don't like what comes after. Even before LoS I was criticizing IGA's practices, while lauding the ones I thought were fine.


 

Cox from the start, didn't have any respect for the old fans of the serries and he proves it again, by calling us niche market.

Truth hurts, doesn't it? He's partially right. The kind of 2D castlevanias we were getting from IGA were only being sold and catered to one group. "oldschool" Castlevania fans. And that's not even counting some fans, who don't like metroidvania and never bought them, and believe me, those fans do exist. The ones who were never on board with SotN's radical changes to the formula, and feel as strongly about metroidvania as some people feel about LoSvania.

Metroidvania itself is a pretty small more niche subgenre. It's only recently gained more popularity because every other indie game wants to be one. The fact is, the poor production values of the later IGA games, along with the controversial decisions as far as art and story, didn't do it any favors. Aria was the last Castlevania game I recall hearing any sort of anything about as a big deal. After that, quality declined, and 'the mainstream" picked up on that and just wasnt interested anymore. There's also a huge backlog of history to the franchise and it's timeline, which matters, since the majority of IGA's games were sequels that expanded on older games plots. HoD, Aria and Lament are literally his only original story entries into the main series that don't rely on preexisting characters or story elements. And OoE is iffy, since it deals with the Post-Symphony setting after Richter was possessed and the Belmonts went into hiding. That's like, 3 games out of what, 8, not counting remakes and spin offs?

Tombias, leader and singer of the band Edguy, changed the band's music style and the old fans went disappointed and he response that this is the way he wants to go on, so the old fans they turned their selves away, so guess what? At their last album, he went back to their old style. My point?

I don't think it's quite the same to compare a videogame to a band. Music is even more niche and target based than videogames ever were.

It's us, the old fans who have kepted the series alive.

And how many old fans are there? how many that still buy CV games? do you think there are enough to make back Konami's investments as production costs get higher with each generation? I mean, we keep demanding quality, but when we get high quality, it doesn't get back it's budget, and when we get low quality, fans don't buy it because it's low quality, and instead demand quality.

The logic of Konami and Cox about mainstream market, doesn't have to be connected with the old series, since the casual and mainstream gamers who have peaked LoS games, they don't have any idea what Castlevania it's looking before LoS games.

You'd be surprised how many "mainstream" gamers have played LoS as their first CV game and then decided to go back to the older games. Many simply were never attracted by the older games for whatever reason. Either they weren't around for the Classicvania days, or they were put off by the bishounen art of Ayami Kojima, or just didn't feel up to buying the game that was a sequel, because they didn't ant to be confused by the story, who knows. But then loS appeals to them, they like it, and they look into the franchise. They see that it's back from the NES days, and decide to go back to the past.

My first Castlevania game was Aria of Sorrow. After I played it, I played Castlevania 1 and 3. probably not too comparable, since it was still part of the same overall timeline, but gameplay and stylewise, Aria really has NOTHING to do with Castlevania 1. they are completely different. Same for LoS and previous CV games.

Castlevania used to be a mainstream game, as much as you may hate to admit that a game you like was "mainstream". CV2 was on the cover of Nintendo Power, THE videogame magazine of the day. As time went on, and the series got stuck on handhelds, it just lost mainstream power due to a lack of consistent console outings. And a lack of good marketing.  LoS sought to fix that, and it did it pretty well. I'm pretty confident that the next CV game we see, be it loS or otherwise, will be a console game, even if it's a downloadable game. (I sure hope not- and if it is, they better fucking advertise it)

[crisis]

heres the solution: konami shoulda catered to both groups (niche metroidvania fans) by making canon 2D games for the 3ds (we prolly wouldve been at least 2 games deep by now) or digital releases, and the big-budget, reboot los-style games continue on mainstream consoles

whats wrong with that. more moneys in konamis pockets and all fans would be satisfied

[Mike Belmont]

I am agree...

...at least that we have a Castlevania game.

In the end, I am sure that we are going to buy both games (2d and 3d) as CV fans we are...

[Ahasverus]

I would even buy a vector graphics Castlevania.

[darkmanx_429]

This is the oldest news... Seriously.

First all, I agree.

Second, I must say I enjoyed LOS2 more than Mirror of Fate HD. Am I the only one that thought that game was EXTREMELY boring? And I really wanted to like that game. I did enjoy the nods to some of the classic games, but I didn't even finish the game.

[Mike Belmont]

Well, I think that one of my major complaints about MoF is its gameplay. Its seems that MS wants to preserve LoS spirit in it, and for that reason feels like a hack n slash in 2D.

MoF is not a bad game. Just can be better...

[Flame]

Has noone tried to mod the 3 LoS games? ARE they even moddable? even if its just musical mods and shit?

[DragonSlayr81]

I don´t (never) take Cox´s words as a rule. It´s his opinion, after all, the last word is for Konami, as the games come from it.

...But yeah, old news...

The thing is, it shouldn't be Cox's opinion. At least, as far as he's speaking as a representative for Konami. On his off time, when he's not PRing for Konami, go ahead. But as a producer for Konami, to the gaming press, he(and other folks in the industry) would be wise to hold their tongues and not say things that might come back to bite them in the ass. Imagine a 2D CV IS being made in Japan, the homebase(as far as Konami's concerned, Konami of America and Konami of Europe are nothing by comparison). Then it would be like, "Oops, well....". That's why you don't say stupid things you might regret. And I know people tend to say, "Hey, they are human. They make mistakes!", but those mistakes are not for US to learn from, but THEM. If you keep on spouting off and make it a habit of saying stupid things, and don't learn from them, as far as I'm concerned, you deserve all the scorn you get from people you've pissed off.

[Mike Belmont]

Yes, you´re right.

After all, is just another phrase coming from David Cox. I have to say that I don´t share his thoughs about gaming. Although, gaming nowadays is very oriented to financial success, so the company and producer will always search for a successful game, appealing to a major audience in the process...

...But still I don´t like that guys words...

[e105beta]

I hate to be stubborn, but remember him lying in regards to Contra 4 selling poorly when Hulett himself said it sold better than what Konami expected?

Plus there was the whole thing with Konami Europe Twitter doing the whole "Lords 2 is getting rave reviews!"...after Metacritic had it at 63/100.

I remember Cox saying Contra 4 was niche, and that Konami needed to do something new with it to make it "big", but I don't remember him saying it sold poorly.

The latter is just marketing. Konami has nothing to gain lying about sales.

I don´t (never) take Cox´s words as a rule. It´s his opinion, after all, the last word is for Konami, as the games come from it.

Dave Cox isn't a small fish or anything. He's high enough up the Konami ladder to choose what projects he gets to work on and with which studios.

Not that he can't say anything independent of Konami or anything, but sometimes the best you're going to get from Konami IS a statement from Dave Cox. That's how it was with the "Lords of Shadow is the best selling Castlevania"

[Flame]

Keep in mind also that Konami UK isn't Konami JP. What konami UK thinks doesn't make any impact on what Konami JP thinks, and in many cases, Konami UK probably doesnt really talk with JP that often on anything and is out of the loop unless it's for localization.

Remember when that guy from Capcom EU said that nonsense about "the fans not caring enough" and "it was the fans job to make the game" in regards to the legends 3 project? yeah. He was talkiung out of his ass and didn't know what the fuck he was saying despite being Capcom.

[e105beta]

Keep in mind also that Konami UK isn't Konami JP. What konami UK thinks doesn't make any impact on what Konami JP thinks, and in many cases, Konami UK probably doesnt really talk with JP that often on anything and is out of the loop unless it's for localization.

Remember when that guy from Capcom EU said that nonsense about "the fans not caring enough" and "it was the fans job to make the game" in regards to the legends 3 project? yeah. He was talkiung out of his ass and didn't know what the fuck he was saying despite being Capcom.

Very true, but when Konami UK is in charge of a project, I'm going to be looking at Konami UK's opinions for anything other than future direction