Topic: What "lacked" to make Castlevania a mainstream ip?

[Nagumo]

If we're talking about the metroidvanias, why not talk about the classic games as well? Why did they lack mainstream appeal? The most influenceal and the only one which probably had an impact on gaming in general was the original.

[EisaKrieger]

All in all, it lacked everything that is terrible and/or extremelly mainstream, and was actually a good game. The people are the ones with a problem. Too many kids playing shitty games are killing Castlevania.

Thank you.  Quoted for ultimate truth.  Although the descriptions about what has been going on at Konami with the series seem very accurate as well.  Video games altogether have gotten so unbelievable mainstream.  I actually took a good 9 year break from video games except for a few rare times.  Messing with them again now after such a break I see a really stark difference from what I remember.  Practically everyone and their grandmother plays games now, great grandmothers probably too.  Unfortunately the mainstream is dumb as a stump.  Everything is dumbed down, from education to video games.  Years ago I remember hearing that TV meteorologists have to talk as if their audience is 12 years old or 6th graders.  Now it's probably lower than that.  Plus 12 year olds aren't as smart as they used to be and are rarely capable of what we were at that age.

[Shiroi Koumori]

@EisaKrieger: AMEN.

@Nagumo: The action horror genre will never be mainstream maybe except when it involves zombies and stupid protagonists.

[JR]

One thing that still astonishes me is how fairly well Ghosts N Goblins outsold Castlevania for the NES. I could see how a typical consumer would find the two games similar at first glance. But then you'd think that people would quickly realize that Ghosts N Goblins is like 10X harder (at least for me). Maybe its sales were bolstered by people already being familiar with the original arcade version?? I don't know.

[Ratty]

If we're talking about the metroidvanias, why not talk about the classic games as well? Why did they lack mainstream appeal? The most influenceal and the only one which probably had an impact on gaming in general was the original.

Well, this is all conjecture on my part. But I think it was a couple things probably.

First was that they followed up Castlevania with such a drastic change. For comparison we can use the Zelda series here. People were surprised and hated Link's Adventure in a reaction similar to Simon's Quest. But while Nintendo followed that up by going back to and refining their original formula on the Gameboy and one console game (Link to the Past) Konami came out with the very problematic "Castlevania the Adventure" and the amazing but late-in-the-NES-lifecycle Castlevania 3.

When the time came around to put the series on the next console generation instead of giving the fanbase 1 system to follow they split the series across three consoles. Just as we see today a series that hops across multiple consoles with different titles for each (as opposed to just porting the same title to multiple platforms) means most fans won't be able to play all of them, which hurts fan enthusiasm and probably discourages new players to a degree. Also by not being an exclusive series to a particular console they lost any prominence/slavish Sega-or-Nintendo-fanboy devotion they might have gotten by being "ammunition" in that console war. Also by the 16bit era most people were getting used to a different style of jumping mechanics than ClassicVanias use, which I think was the final nail in the coffin for any chance the ClassicVanias had of regaining Castlevania 1 popularity and influence.

You can see there were attempts to negate these problems. Castlevania 4 is significantly easier to have wider appeal, Bloodlines was originally intended to be a Gaiden and iirc possibly the start of a SEGA specific spinoff series, Rondo of Blood was remade for the Super Famicom. It's just that these attempts didn't really work unfortunately.

One thing that still astonishes me is how fairly well Ghosts N Goblins outsold Castlevania for the NES. I could see how a typical consumer would find the two games similar at first glance. But then you'd think that people would quickly realize that Ghosts N Goblins is like 10X harder (at least for me). Maybe its sales were bolstered by people already being familiar with the original arcade version?? I don't know.

That would be my guess. Because NES Ghosts N Goblins is not a better (or even a better looking) game by any stretch of the imagination.

[uzo]

To take it one step further, I really believe if the series had CONTINUED to evolve based on the changes made in SCVIV, that the games would be more widely played and diverse.

However the concession is that it's very possible the exploration style may not have returned as a result. At least not in the same way we know it today.

[theANdROId]

It'd be great if people who played the new stuff were inspired to check out the older stuff and became CV fans who'd buy into the series and create reason to make more games.  It worked that way with my sister -- she saw me playing SotN -- except she doesn't yet have a job and steady income to buy all the games she wants.  It also kinda worked that way for me.  I loved the original CV and CV3 as a kid, but I was terrible enough at games that I couldn't even make it past level 1 without my dad's help.  I kinda forgot about the games until I saw SotN and CV64 at a friend's house.  I borrowed his SNES and SCV4, and also went back and replayed the original, did much better at it, and became a huge fan of the series.

It also seems like the NES/SNES "retro" style is making somewhat of a comeback.  It'd be nice if that too can help revive the series a little.  Perhaps with well timed re-releases or something, people getting into those retro themed games can find their way to the retro CV games, and eventually the series.

I guess that's hoping for a lot though.   

[X]

When the time came around to put the series on the next console generation instead of giving the fanbase 1 system to follow they split the series across three consoles. Just as we see today a series that hops across multiple consoles with different titles for each (as opposed to just porting the same title to multiple platforms) means most fans won't be able to play all of them, which hurts fan enthusiasm and probably discourages new players to a degree. Also by not being an exclusive series to a particular console they lost any prominence/slavish Sega-or-Nintendo-fanboy devotion they might have gotten by being "ammunition" in that console war. Also by the 16bit era most people were getting used to a different style of jumping mechanics than ClassicVanias use, which I think was the final nail in the coffin for any chance the ClassicVanias had of regaining Castlevania 1 popularity and influence.

This is what really bothered me back in the day. Didn't have a Genesis though we could rent one, and we especially did not have the TG-16 turbo duo due to the system being somewhat recluse. And there's also fact that I had never heard about Rondo until 2 years after I had gotten it's watered down SNES counterpart (didn't get the internet till 1997 and SNES Dracula X came out in 95'). As a Nintendo fan I was hoping the CV series would stay with Nintendo as that's how I remembered and experienced it, considering that all the CV games from SCV4 going back to CV 1 were all playable on Nintendo consoles.

[olrox2]

To be honest i tried  almost all old castlevanias a few years ago(from the first one to rondo of blood), and while i enjoyed the artistic design, i feel i couldnt struggle long nowadays with such a difficulty level, unless i have quicksaves.
I also tried simon quest, but couldnt get into it, and i found that idea of countdown quite stressing.
I think there could be castlevanias platform games, but with a tweaked difficulty and a bunch of checkpoints.

I had never heard about Castlevania until 2000, when i bought a magazine about playstation tta listed best old games. Symphony of the Night was in the list, and i got it for Christmas. I was wondering what was the mysterious game that ended at the prologue, and only found out about it years later, in a time where unlimited Internet became the norm.

I think yes we can have a castlevania Platform, but with a strong condition tough: a good artistic design, an identity.
Super meat Boy is both a challenging game  and a well artistically designed one.
Some new content is needed. I just played Portrait of Ruins today, and i found out most of monsters i have met are picked from SotN, literally.Fithfulness to the myth is good, but at the same time, new stuff must come.

I remember that a bunch of monsters from Circle of the Moon really looked new and really nice, but then, in following games, it goes back to a SotN design.

[Mike Belmont]

Back in the 90s, speaking of myself, I consider Castlevania unique in his type. A hero with a whip, fighting monsters from horror movies and mithology, and Dracula as the main enemy. I can´t remember another game that has that. In terms of gameplay, there was some "similar" games: Ninja Gaiden and Vice Project Doom are coming to my mind right now. And then we have the great music and its graphics in the NES and SNES games. The Genesis game was great in that terms, too. So, in that years Castlevania was easy recognized, almost for me. Then, with the "SoTN era" (Metroidvanias), we have another style. Same great music, and lore (monsters, mithology, Dracula).

So, in the present era of gaming, we have a lot of games with similar settings and styles. DmC, Bayonetta, Dark Souls, among others. Yes, they don´t have Dracula in his story (at least in the games I know), so if we have a modern Castlevania game, it will rivalize directly with those types of game, as an IP. That was the situation with the LoS trilogy, most importantly the first and third one, in my opinion.

In few words, to make a Castlevania a mainstream in the present its needs to have a distinct element, different from the other ones, to attract more gamers and give them more interest enough to prefer Castlevania among the others.

The story, gameplay, graphics and music works for me in the past...

[theplottwist]

..Yes, they don´t have Dracula in his story (at least in the games I know), so if we have a modern Castlevania game, it will rivalize directly with those types of game, as an IP. That was the situation with the LoS trilogy, most importantly the first and third one, in my opinion....

You see, I've though of that before. Dracula is public domain, so why don't other games use him more? That must be mostly because Dracula is already too recognized as "that villain from Castlevania games". I think IGA should start his own "Dracula" franchise. He's already "IGA". If he had a Dracula, he'd pretty much steal Konami, without actually "stealing" Konami. He should do it u.u

[Mike Belmont]

You see, I've though of that before. Dracula is public domain, so why don't other games use him more? That must be mostly because Dracula is already too recognized as "that villain from Castlevania games". I think IGA should start his own "Dracula" franchise. He's already "IGA". If he had a Dracula, he'd pretty much steal Konami, without actually "stealing" Konami. He should do it u.u

Yes, that were my thoughs and expectatives when I know that IGA will work alone, without Konami. The company owns the name Castlevania, but IGA (or another developer or company) could make a game called Castle of Dracula, or The Curse of Dracula with Dracula as the main enemy... 

[Flame]

At some point they were reluctant to give any budget to Castlevania. They kept trying to repeat the success of Circle of the Moon by releasing non stop handhelds.

Didn't IGA once say his CV games always got above average budgets or something?


Other than that i agree. Konami simply followed the money from the start, without thinking about the future, and therefore alienated the franchise from mainstream consumers. The early handhelds, like HoD or AoS, CoM, those were still relatively mainstream, because until the PSP came, Nintendo had a monopoly on the handheld market. if you had a handheld, it was a GBA. It was nintendo. With the advent of the PSP though, it suddenly became the "cool" "adult gamer" console, with THREE DEE games. shit like God of War and whatnot, so it was for matuuure gamers, while the GBA and the DS were for "little kids". that mindset that got into the popular gamer culture of nintendo consoles being kiddy consoles with the 360 and PS3 being the mature ones, really hurt castlevania, since all the handhelds mostly stuck to Nintendo, with DxC being the exception. So the handheldvanias sunk lower because of it, alienated even MORE from the common consumer.

like Uzo said also, the PS2 games were nothing ground breaking. And they got piss poor marketing. The one American commercial for lament is pretty nice, but it's just that one, and the Japanese one is totally weird and doesnt do much to sell the game or concept at all.

so since try #2 at Consolevania failed, they once again relegated it to handhelds that noone but fans bought. Especially when they became sequels and prequels.

and then try #3 with Judgement failed and i have NO idea what the target audience was for that or why they thought it would generate any kind of appeal, and we wound up with them deciding to push the financial burden onto an outside team for "fresh perspective", which worked well enough for the first game, but quickly unraveled into a mess that Konami probably should have kept a tighter leash on.

Also Marketing Marketing Marketing. Videogame magazines no longer really exist. you can't just dump a one page ad into a couple and call it a day. you have to use the interweb. release footage to gaming websites, make interviews, commercials, etc.

TLDR seems like mismanagement and very poor foresight.

Not too different from Capcom and Megaman, actually. Only difference being Konami still actually cares about Castlevania as a prized franchise that they want to make work, while Capcom stopped Caring about Mega Man (and most of their franchises) as anything other than a cash cow long ago and just can't be bothered to try and make it work again.

[GuyStarwind]

I don't actually know but my guess is probably doing the same formula over and over again. I'm cool with it but I'm not everyone.

[uzo]

and we wound up with them deciding to push the financial burden onto an outside team for "fresh perspective"

If you're referring to Mercury Steam, then I don't believe thats true. Konami is a publisher. Typical publisher relations involve the publisher giving the budget for the game to the studio, and the studio receiving a small profit share off of it's sales. Typically 70% to publisher, 30% to studio.

Unless you have an article or interview where they stated otherwise. Publishers not fronting the budget is a very unlikely course of action. Studios rarely have the budget to make, let alone market, their own game.