Topic: Castlevania Identity Crisis:what should the next Castlevania game be like?

[DragonSlayr81]

You know what, as many things as Other M didn't achieve, the gameplay was spot on (although I would replace the waggle-dodge with a backflip if possible) and I have actually voiced the same idea around 2 years ago.
Why can't Castlevania work following the same environmental 'planar' format? This way the game would be more about landing jumps, backflips and timing whip attacks, rather than trying to string combos together.
In fact, two games spring to mind for 3d Castlevania: Other M and Gauntlet 3d. I always thought a 3d CV should be more zoomed out, almost more like its 2d brethren. 
Beh.. Maybe some day they will get it right.

I personally think it should be a mixture of multiple plane styles. Not all rooms will be presented in the same fashion. Some will be full 3D(and more horizontal platforming could be handled in this style), while like the examples given with Other M. other styles of rooms will be in a different perspective and allow different things. I've always said this you don't need full 3D in every area. Hell, I even though it would be cool(IMO) if bosses were fought in different perspectives. Maybe on boss is fought old school side-scrolling, while another is fought in a full 3D arena style. Mixing up styles would, IMO, make the general presentation more interesting. You don't see many games mix styles. Oddly enough, some of the few do it well(I think New Super Mario World U is one where not only does it feature full 3D stages, but perspective changes depending on various different stages. Some are even handled more 2D in style, and more vertical hillsides pull back to allow a greater view of where you are ascending towards. You need a smart camera programer for this, though. But it CAN be done, and hell, with some choice ideas(even added perspective for dramatic scenes, like entering the castle for the first time), it can result in one WILD 3D Castlevania ride!!

[zangetsu468]

I personally think it should be a mixture of multiple plane styles. Not all rooms will be presented in the same fashion. Some will be full 3D(and more horizontal platforming could be handled in this style), while like the examples given with Other M. other styles of rooms will be in a different perspective and allow different things. I've always said this you don't need full 3D in every area. Hell, I even though it would be cool(IMO) if bosses were fought in different perspectives. Maybe on boss is fought old school side-scrolling, while another is fought in a full 3D arena style. Mixing up styles would, IMO, make the general presentation more interesting. You don't see many games mix styles. Oddly enough, some of the few do it well(I think New Super Mario World U is one where not only does it feature full 3D stages, but perspective changes depending on various different stages. Some are even handled more 2D in style, and more vertical hillsides pull back to allow a greater view of where you are ascending towards. You need a smart camera programer for this, though. But it CAN be done, and hell, with some choice ideas(even added perspective for dramatic scenes, like entering the castle for the first time), it can result in one WILD 3D Castlevania ride!!

Agreed that multiple varations of platforming/ presentation would create an interesting CV game in 3d.
The issue is, I don't think Konami care as much about its own franchise as the fans do. Even though Iga's 3d castlevanias were not great, they still had that CV element that made you feel like you were playing a cv game.

Konami thrives on big commercial games, the way they have with SH and MG, I'm not certain that the success of CV longevity-wise can be sustained by being heavily commercial. It worked with LOS 1, not so much with the other 2. 

[Belmont Stakes]

Do you know what would work to translate it to the 3D world? Metroid Other M's system.

Metroid Other M has platforming, had the combat, has the map exploration, everything.
Castlevania COULD borrow from this, and finally make it's glorious transition to 3D while looking badass as hell.

And of course, this would be the second time that Castlevania borrows something from Metroid xD

Also, I don't know about you guys, but I actually love how the Belmonts whip in Judgment. That game may have been... Odd... But it sure got it's whipping right in a 3D plane.

Take that, add buttons in place of nonsense wrist movements, put the character inside Metroid Other M's framework, BAM! Badass 3D Castlevania is born.

So now we've gone from Metroidvania to Metroid Other M Vania? Eh. I haven't played the Other M series but I would be open to it. I do think that a mish-mash of different gaming styles can work. Combining GOW arena enemy wave fights with platforming with SOTN style game play can mesh in a cohesive seamless title. Now if story lines and voice acting get a little more refined....

There is a controller and field of vision issue that needs to be solved. Sorry Rockman X I am not a keyboard mouse fan. I think there is a more ergonomic product out there that would probably suit some of us more effectively. Maybe Dual Shock 4.

I would like to see the game be more first person. Maybe have some areas where you can only go in eight directions as opposed to having full 360 Degree Range Of Motion. This would be reserved for those narrow hallway fights with wave flying enemies ie. medusa heads, bats, gargoyles and ghosts. Also making the main character transparent ala the old Punch Out games may be necessary to have a more head on style of gameplay. COD would have benefitted from this along with some camera tweeking.
There can still be areas with 360 DROM for those endless horde fights.

The only way I can see having SOTN-esque game play is for maybe Alucard to be in toe again following the Belmont character or whoever this time with their foreknowledge. Maybe Simon beats a long vertical area destroys all the obstacles and that allows for Drac's son to fly up a long shaft or use mist or something. Nothing groundbreaking but he can level up his magic and powers by fighting enemies on his way to the boss. In any case there needs to be more platforming in the next title. SMB basically was the pioneer for platforming to wit the original Castlevania formula brilliantly utilized. I liked a lot of what LOI COD and LOS did but amongst the laundry list of complaints the lack of platforming is one that stands out as the biggest departure from what gives the series its identity.

[Akumajou Jason XX]

I would gladly pay $59.99 for a new classic-style Castlevania at this point.  Metroidvanias can be good, but it's been far too long since we got an honest to god full effort along the lines of Castlevania III or Rondo of Blood..

[Belmont Stakes]

     I feel this like identity crisis reflects an aspect of gamers that leaves me perplexed. How many hard core Castlevania fans like Call of Duty and Halo (cheap deaths and one hit kills are ok in that game but Castlevania is too hard) and what side of the CV tracks do they fall SOTN or classic platform? To put it in another way I wonder if they like the powers of Superman who is likened to Alucard or Batman with his gadgets like your typical Belmont character. As for me, dark knight would suffice even though alucard is so bad ass in SOTN and LOS.
     Also if we had the power (ha) who do you give the reigns to as far as development goes to make the game more classic renaissance and less post modern?
     Why for that matter why is this game not so survival horror based?

[Shiroi Koumori]

Survival horror has an IP in Konami. It is called Silent Hill.
Castlevania must not tread in Silent Hill territory.

[Belmont Stakes]

But it must. It has the tenure long before Silent Hill and Resident Evil for that matter but that does not mean that it should use the same type of game play mechanic as those games I am talking about atmosphere and maybe using oak stakes or impaling weapons on vampires and werewolves and sech.

Um just saw Bloodborne video. DING!!!!!!!!! 

Now this looks like what Konami should have been doing all along. But does it have platforming?

[X]

Castlevania must not tread in Silent Hill territory.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Castlevania is not a survival horror game. It is a fun, campy mesh of Halloween and classic hammer horror themes. It's an action platform series. Giving Castlevania another identity will be doing what Mercurysteam had already tried to do. I'd rather not see that again. Castlevania has it's own identity and should stick with it for better or for worse.

[EisaKrieger]

So far SotN/NitM is the only Medtroidvania designed to play on a regular full size TV screen.   All the portable ones are great, but still aren't the same.  If they finally made a big new full screen one with high res 2D with minimal 3D effects that would be something and probably be successful.  Otherwise such a big Classicvania production in that vain with the elements of Cv III or Rondo of Blood would begreat.  The chances of any of that may be pretty slim though.

[Mystic Myotis]

I think it's time for another classicvania, with some minor tweaks.

Take cues from III, Bloodlines, and Dracula X for level design, so branching paths in the castle, unlockable characters after beating the game who can access unique areas...   Could have multiple endings based upon branching paths taken in the game or something like that.  Put in 8-directional whipping (or some kind of directional whipping, anyway) but don't make the whip so stupidly long/overpowered that it makes most sub-weapons moot in most situations.  I'd toy around with the sub-weapon system.  Consider adding in the sub-weapons from Portrait of Ruin for extra variety, or give the old sub-weapons a little more versatility, perhaps.  I kind of want garlic and laurels to return in a different form.  Should sub-weapons be items that replace each other when you pick a new one up in in the original, or should they be like sub-weapon switchable abilities in PoR that you acquire through the game, or even CoD, where you always have access to all the classic sub-weapons?  If you pick them up, should collecting more of the same sub-weapon power it up or should the sub-weapon drops change into something else so you don't get copies? Meh, can't decide.  The one thing I am sure of is that stakes should be a sub-weapon.  I really don't understand why they haven't been in the series much.

Jumping should probably be somewhere between old-school and the newer games.  I like having control over my jumps but since SotN, jumping has been overly floaty for the most part.

One thing they should try to avoid are re-colored enemies.  I think the series does that a little too much.  There are a ton of enemies from the series to choose from; I don't see why re-colors are necessary.


And if it's a home console game, then they might as well go all out; I think it would be awesome if it was a re-telling of Simon's entire story- yes, again.  A 'definitive' version, if you will.  So the game would be divided into three sections.  First section is obviously the first Castlevania, but since the game is in three parts I'd tone the difficulty down a little bit.
The fun comes in where you get to completely re-work the Simon's Quest part of the game.  I've always felt that Simon's Quest had a lot of potential but was poorly executed.  Many of the metroidvanias have features that would have vastly improved Simon's Quest, like warping.  That is the first thing I would add; you can warp to towns, and once you hit the end of a mansion, you have the option of warping out.  By removing required back-tracking, this facilitates the implementation of more complex/difficult level design.  The game would have more unique areas, every mansion would have a boss at the end that you could not just walk by, sub-weapons would be more diverse, NPCs could still lie to you but you'd be able to gain an optional item that would let you detect when they were lying early on, nothing absurdly cryptic to the point where it's impossible to find without a guide. No levels, no purchasable whip changes because that's stupid.  Leveling encourages enemy re-colors and can imbalance gameplay; Simon shouldn't be getting stronger, he should appear to be growing weaker (because of the curse) by making the enemies progressively more dangerous. The game should be challenging; Simon is freaking cursed, and it should show.

And my final change would be this; after gathering all the parts, whoever told Simon to collect the body parts steals them in a throw-back to how he steals Alucard's equipment, and revives the castle. Simon has to work his way back to where Castlevania is.  Ta-da.  Super Castlevania IV section, but it works more harmoniously with the story, and this is the point where you can really crank up the challenge because at this point Simon is still cursed but he's trying to do what he did in the first section.


$60 2D home console Castlevania right there.  Lots of game time, tons of content, a plethora of areas to the point where you could fit in every iconic area and enemy, acceptable story, gameplay variety, replay value with branching paths/multiple endings/unlockable character modes.

[zangetsu468]

The one thing I am sure of is that stakes should be a sub-weapon.  I really don't understand why they haven't been in the series much.

The stake was an inferior version to the sword/dagger, and it was only used in Simon's quest so there was no real need for it. Also the mythos of the oak stake is kind of lost since the Belmonts use the VK.

Jumping should probably be somewhere between old-school and the newer games.  I like having control over my jumps but since SotN, jumping has been overly floaty for the most part.

I would say AOS/ OOE handled jumping very well, as well as backdashing to chain combos. SOTN's jumping felt overly floaty, but I also feel that reflected its slower pace of gameplay, which was slower than most classicvanias.

And if it's a home console game, then they might as well go all out; I think it would be awesome if it was a re-telling of Simon's entire story- yes, again.  A 'definitive' version, if you will.  So the game would be divided into three sections.  First section is obviously the first Castlevania, but since the game is in three parts I'd tone the difficulty down a little bit.
The fun comes in where you get to completely re-work the Simon's Quest part of the game.  I've always felt that Simon's Quest had a lot of potential but was poorly executed.  Many of the metroidvanias have features that would have vastly improved Simon's Quest, like warping.  That is the first thing I would add; you can warp to towns, and once you hit the end of a mansion, you have the option of warping out.  By removing required back-tracking, this facilitates the implementation of more complex/difficult level design.  The game would have more unique areas, every mansion would have a boss at the end that you could not just walk by, sub-weapons would be more diverse, NPCs could still lie to you but you'd be able to gain an optional item that would let you detect when they were lying early on, nothing absurdly cryptic to the point where it's impossible to find without a guide. No levels, no purchasable whip changes because that's stupid.  Leveling encourages enemy re-colors and can imbalance gameplay; Simon shouldn't be getting stronger, he should appear to be growing weaker (because of the curse) by making the enemies progressively more dangerous. The game should be challenging; Simon is freaking cursed, and it should show..

I like this idea, though I had an idea in the past where there was levelling up, I feel that in some sense levelling up is more rewarding than learning new techniques. I'm not certain why, but I always feel more satisfied playing Castlevania's where one could level up. My initial idea was this:
Level 1-10 is the leather whip, 10-20 the thorn whip, 20-30 the morning star, 30-40 the flame whip (I know I've missed the chain whip, but rarely do players need to level up to L50)

My opinion would be that on the normal mode of the game you can level up, on hard mode, only your whip changes when having slayed enough enemies, on the hardest mode you can not level up the VK and you're stuck on Level 1.
i.e. same as POR and OOE on the hardest setting.

Like CV64/ LOD, including the difficulty settings to have harder/ faster and more difficult platforming, the harder the setting. 

Include a day/night seamless transition, whether inside or outside mansions, which makes enemies actually change and take/ deal 1.5 x or 2 x damage.

Perhaps include a nightmare mode where it's like the hardest setting, but Simon just keeps getting weaker, the longer the game is played. Until the point where he will eventually die from 1 hit of any enemy.

No checkpoints mid way through bosses, for the love of god. Depending on the difficulty should determine where/when/how these are included. Nightmare mode should be more like oldschool gaming, no checkpoints, just continuing from a save point.
Adding this mode means casuals don't have to wet their whistles with frustration and discipline which the more hardcore gamers thrive upon.

Of course the harder the mode finished, the better the ending, the hardest mode should have a final form of Dracula which is unseen in other modes.

And my final change would be this; after gathering all the parts, whoever told Simon to collect the body parts steals them in a throw-back to how he steals Alucard's equipment, and revives the castle. Simon has to work his way back to where Castlevania is.  Ta-da.  Super Castlevania IV section, but it works more harmoniously with the story, and this is the point where you can really crank up the challenge because at this point Simon is still cursed but he's trying to do what he did in the first section.

I would say rather than stealing body parts, Dracula just tells Simon that he's too late, reassembling his body has re-awakened the Castle, thus allowing Dracula to reach full power. Castle rises up around Simon, Drac flies off to the throne room, Simon has one final quest to take on.

Really solid ideas though, I like them, Simon's adventure is overdue for the next gen imo.

[DarkPrinceAlucard]

I would gladly pay $59.99 for a new classic-style Castlevania at this point.  Metroidvanias can be good, but it's been far too long since we got an honest to god full effort along the lines of Castlevania III or Rondo of Blood..

To me classicvanias just do not have enough replay value for todays market to even warrant a 59.99$ price tag.

Not to mention the difficulty, it would hardly be worth the money in my honest opinion.

I love classicvanias so don't get me wrong, SCIV is still my second favorite castelvania game period, but classicvanias nowadays should be no more than 20 bucks even the new ones if you ask me.

That being said metroidvanias should be like 40 bucks since compared to classicvanias there is a lot more to do such as exploring and collecting items/weapons, and there is also unlockable modes that add to the replay value.

[Nagumo]

This would never happen, but a classic-style Castlevania with a $59.99 price tag but with actual extra content to make up for it would be very interesting. Simply cramming more stages into the game or making them longer probably wouldn't work. They would pretty much have to follow the same template as Rondo which has the most content of the classic games. Probably the difficulty should be kept around the same level too, to make it accessible. I wonder what other features they could add?

[Belmontoya]

Just play Castlevania the lecarde chronicles if you want to know how a classicvania can have more content. It's a perfect example.

As far as pricing goes... Anything from $5.99 to $15 is a good price for a classicvania or a metriodvania. I disagree with the replay value of a metriodvania being superior. I feel it is quite the opposite. Classicvanias can always challenge you with time and points. And it also comes down to taste.

[DarkPrinceAlucard]

 I disagree with the replay value of a metriodvania being superior. I feel it is quite the opposite. Classicvanias can always challenge you with time and points. And it also comes down to taste.

Disagree.

I like classvanias man, but its pretty much getting from point a to b and then your done.

Now there are some classivanias that give you secret routes and such, but metroidvanias leads more to exploration of a huge area, and finding out secrets,items,spells, and weapons and leveling up etc.

No matter how you slice it there is just more to do in a metroidvania.