Topic: Simons Quest: Revamped Again (fan project, in development) Want Suggestions

[AISTODIAOLO]

I d love some more plot hints here and there.
maybe add some yourself. or maybe side quests. saving villagers etc.(those quests would add to the story)
i think some cutscenes would do the trick too (for example before you fight a boss or after completing a quest. no voice acting etc. just a character icon and some text would be nice imo)
to be honest i dont like simon's quest.
it's too hard for no reason, you have to farm really bad.i think it lacks some core ideas to make the game interesting.
that's why i think that you should put some original ideas in it.
add story,add cutscenes,new areas,new shops,hell even gameplay elements.
maybe the original game won't suck if you trully remake it
anyways. good luck with that.i hope i ll be able to play your game in the near future.

oh and name it castlevania 2 the definitive edition. (true ending dlc costs 15 euros. demo costs 20 euros*coughs*metal gear ground zeros*coughs*, in true konami style)

[X]

It would be interesting to have more added stuff like side quests and all. But if that's going to happen then the time limit for getting the best ending either needs to be extended quite a bit or should be removed entirely. If there's too much RPG-ing going on then a time limit for finishing Simon's Quest will present problems.

[SabinFigaro]

I d love some more plot hints here and there.
maybe add some yourself. or maybe side quests. saving villagers etc.(those quests would add to the story)
i think some cutscenes would do the trick too (for example before you fight a boss or after completing a quest. no voice acting etc. just a character icon and some text would be nice imo)
to be honest i dont like simon's quest.
it's too hard for no reason, you have to farm really bad.i think it lacks some core ideas to make the game interesting.
that's why i think that you should put some original ideas in it.
add story,add cutscenes,new areas,new shops,hell even gameplay elements.
maybe the original game won't suck if you trully remake it
anyways. good luck with that.i hope i ll be able to play your game in the near future.

oh and name it castlevania 2 the definitive edition. (true ending dlc costs 15 euros. demo costs 20 euros*coughs*metal gear ground zeros*coughs*, in true konami style)

I feel all the above. Simon's Quest was great and original on paper, but somehow ended a broken game. I agree with all of Aistodialo's ideas. More stuff to do. More Bosses. Maybe even unlockable moves as your exp grows? Oh, and I would remove the timer and determine the good-bad ending by game completion% (get all items, reach lev.x etc..)

[metroidquest]

Great suggestions! I like the completion % idea for unlocking endings. I also like the idea of additional areas and skills. If anyone has any ideas on the specifics of these I would love to hear them.

[SabinFigaro]

Here are some ideas that you could implement dude. You could always tweak them depending of the difficulty (if you put in a difficulty mode)

-Acquire all whips (You could even hide a special god-like ultimate whip in the process )
-Acquire all sub-items
-Reach level xx without continues or just reach level xx
-No fall (No instant death due to pits)
-Talk to every NPC'S
-Acquire x-number of hearts (although I suppose this would go in the reach x level category)
-Acquire special items x that you could create and scatter through the world or via transaction with special NPC.

I got to go for now, but If I think of more I'll make sure to let you know. Koodos on this project dude. Simon's quest deserves a nice overhaul. Good luck with everything!

[SabinFigaro]

Damn...I misread your request. Thought you wanted more suggestions on end% criterias...My bad:)

[Lelygax]

Add a map and include some optional boss in this dead-end with a invisible stair near Dracula's Castle.

[piscesdreams]

It would be neat to expound on Castlevania more at the end of the game, making it longer. I always thought it was weird that it was so short and could have looked more like Castlevania 1's castle.

[metroidquest]

Add a map and include some optional boss in this dead-end with a invisible stair near Dracula's Castle.

I'm down with a map.. and something at the deadend. Good ideas 

[metroidquest]

It would be neat to expound on Castlevania more at the end of the game, making it longer. I always thought it was weird that it was so short and could have looked more like Castlevania 1's castle.

Very very interesting.. (creative gears churning)

[KaZudra]

Cut down on towns by half, and make the areas connected as branching pathways, also allowing you to make the towns more interesting

[Jop]

I will love to help you doing some monsters but im busy with others projects  , still its nice to see another version of this game, wish you luck.

[Inccubus]

Finally managed to get a stable enough wifi connection to comment on here. I was chomping at the bit to do so.

Anyway, my number one thing to improve CV2 and make it more fun is to add traditional bosses to every castle. And when I say traditional I mean that you have to defeat them to move on.

There are 2 projects I would suggest looking at for ideas to improve CV2:

Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest Multilingual Enhancement Patch

This one adds in a bunch of features that the original Japanese version of the game had or should have had including an intro cutscene, a digital version of the map from the original manual, the ability to drop down off of stairs, and  more including a vastly superior translation of the original script that actually makes sense.

Speaking of which, Bisqwit made a script analysis too: HERE.


The other project I suggest looking at is Dracula's Shadow, which can be found lurking near by:

Castlevania Dungeon Homebrew Games

This one has some features that make it easier to play and interesting solutions for some of the original game's issues.
For example instead of castle bosses, you had to defeat a boss at each level up. Didn't make a whole lot of sense, but it was interesting.


Going back to my own suggestions:
--The stair climbing needs a bit of an overhaul, it looks kinda wierd when Simon falls off of them instead of stepping off. In the original games pressing up or down near the stairs would sort of 'suck' Simon into the first frame of the stairs animation. I suggest studying the animation in RoB or Dracula X frame by frame for reference.
--Add left and right controls to the stair climbing routine, makes it flow better into walking.
--Add another button for talking to people so that they don't get triggered while I'm moving about the stairs in town.
--Reposition the start locations of Simon and the NPCs in certain locations like walking into the merchant's house on the right of the first town so that they don't appear in mid air and fall when the room starts.
--Remove the exit option from the menu and just have the start button enter and exit the menu while leaving the cursor where you left it. Also use the original way of selecting your items by pressing left and right to switch which one is active. This reduces the amount of time the player has to spend in the menu.
--Also some of the graphics in the start menu look blurry and should be redrawn. (I can help with that if you like.)
--When you first buy the holy water and the white crystal have them be equipped by default.
--Outside every town there should be braziers that you can break.
--At night, the lamps in the towns should be breakable too.
--Mansions should have the traditional candles, candelabras, vases, pots, etc.
--Add some of the items introduced in SotN that explain some of the lore in the game like the Cube of Zoe and Fairy Scroll.
--I agree that enemies should have that stun effect from the regular game, but make sure that it is only regular enemies. Bosses should not get stun locked except maybe to a single specific sub-weapon they are weak to. And Dracula's Ghost should not get stun locked at all.
--Improve the sub-weapons for example the holy water has a pathetic range which is optimal for using it to find hidden pitfalls in the mansions, but since you're not using the up+attack style of activation use that for an alternate form of the attack. So, when I press up+sub-weapon have Simon throw it farther. Maybe even have the normal throw not produce the flame and still be free and the up+ version can cost a heart and produce the flame.
--Speaking of hearts, remove them as currency. With the addition of candles and other breakable objects you can have the traditional system of hearts being only for ammo and bring back the money bags and use them for currency instead of the hearts. Again this will give players more stuff to do. You can even add little hidden cashes of treasure like in CV1 in interesting places that otherwise originally served no purpose.
--Taking a page from the CV2 multilingual patch, have the 13 clues be available to read on the menu and have the whips displayed in a similar way to the sub-weapons so that the player can switch between different ones.
--It might be cool to also add whip attachments like in HoD so that the player can access some fun features like the whip spin move and the fireball ability.
--One idea I toyed with once was reworking the way his HP works. He would start the game with the original maximum amount of HP and as each day passes he would loose a chunk until he is down to his minimum starting hp. And to offset this you could have armor in the game that bolster his defenses as he get's weaker because of the curse.
--I also agree with the issues of graphics consistency in the backgrounds. I like the idea of maintaining the the RoB look throughout the game as much as possible. (Again I can volunteer to help with that.)
--Make the fog at night translucent and add a foreground fog too.
--I also noticed that the mud near the second town doesn't darken at night.

[metroidquest]

Inccubus,

Awesome and well thought out suggestions! Send me a PM and let's see if we can collaborate.

[X]

In the original games pressing up or down near the stairs would sort of 'suck' Simon into the first frame of the stairs animation. I suggest studying the animation in RoB or Dracula X frame by frame for reference.

This happened in both CV 1 and CV 3 as well so it's not indigenous programming to CV 2 alone. I personally never found it a bother. In fact I though it was beneficial in some ways. That I don't have to cautiously step right at the edge of a platform in order to climb down or up a set of stairs without worrying about accidentally stepping too far and falling to my doom.