Topic: CV graphic style

[Belmontoya]

I think a tragedy of CV is the fact that the 2d graphic style stopped evolving with SOTN.

It was a great look, but for a decade following we never got a new look for 2d Vania games.
I think Iga's games could have been less repetitive if the look could have evolved.

I've spent so much time daydreaming of how it could have been. I think Castlevania became less and less exciting for this reason. All of the games that Richter's duo sprites from Drac x fit right in with. It's just not ok.

I think this is the 1 thing that bothers me more than any in CV. And it also could have contributed to the declining sales.

CV as 2d platformer is a timeless great thing. But it needed a change of clothes. Not 3D, not a large scale reimagining, just a fresh look!

Anyways I would of loved the hand drawn look, but that's just one of many ways they could have went.

Perhaps we could do this as a contest, but I would love to see how other fans would imagine a fresh 2dvania look.

What do you guys think?

[Jazz Paladin Productions]

Yup, totally agree. I know I've said this before recently and am sure I'll say it again countless times, but Hard Corps: Uprising gave me an awesome glimpse into what a next gen 2D castlevania could look like...

[zangetsu468]

I don't know what anyone else thinks, but aside from certain DOS and POR sprites (mainly DOS) which were not simply rips of SOTN, I thought OOE's graphical style was exponentially an evolution from SOTN>OOE.
I'm not going to lie, Alucard's animation was nice, but there were elements of the graphics (both sprites and backgrounds) even in the handhelds that I appreciated more so than what I experienced with SOTN. Also, the actual character/ intro art was on point imo, Dracula's depiction was my favourite. (As much as I thought POR's final boss fight was awesome, the character art especially of Dracula, sucked peehole).

[Belmontoya]

I don't know what anyone else thinks, but aside from certain DOS and POR sprites (mainly DOS) which were not simply rips of SOTN, I thought OOE's graphical style was exponentially an evolution from SOTN>OOE.
I'm not going to lie, Alucard's animation was nice, but there were elements of the graphics (both sprites and backgrounds) even in the handhelds that I appreciated more so than what I experienced with SOTN. Also, the actual character/ intro art was on point imo, Dracula's depiction was my favourite. (As much as I thought POR's final boss fight was awesome, the character art especially of Dracula, sucked peehole).

OOE was more polished, but it wasn't a new style. It didn't take the game in a new visual direction, which it desperately needed.

Yup, totally agree. I know I've said this before recently and am sure I'll say it again countless times, but Hard Corps: Uprising gave me an awesome glimpse into what a next gen 2D castlevania could look like...

I've said this before as well. I totally agree. Hard core uprising was a blessing. It was foolish not to put contra in the title though. The game would have sold better and perhaps Castlevania could have been given a similar treatment.

[Belmontoya]

Another thing I've often wondered is why new changes in gameplay weren't more frequent.

I mean things like this idea for example.

Street Fighter style attack combos that must be learned and muscle memorized.

How sweet of an addition to say the Rondo engine that could have been. Rondo of Blood should have brought that or something like it to the table that was radically new. Level select was ok, but it wasn't new. CV with attack combos blows my mind.

Imagine a new change like that with hand drawn graphics. It's frustrating how little changed in CV for so long, and when it finally did, it was sweet and then quickly bitter and for the worse.

[theplottwist]

On the technical aspect, there is only so much you can do with pixels.

Can you guess why Rondo's Skeleton sprite got reused over, over and over again? Quite simply - because it works. I consider the techniques employed on creating those sprites pretty much the highest quality you can achieve in such a small space to work with. Not only for skeleton, of course, but for every sprite in that game. The palettes, animations, and even the sprites' sizes are worked extremelly carefully to be recognizable, interesting and fit nicely on the game's screen.

Then SotN came along, and they managed to pull of the highest possible quality for scenario pixel-art graphics.

I was talking with some artists friends of mine about these graphics, and you can actually tell most of SotN's graphics - if not all - are hand-drawn pixel art with some pretty advanced shit thrown in for great effect. I've spent years studying them, and to this day I ask "How the fuck did the artist pull this off?". It's probably possible to do better than what they did in SotN, but boy, are you in for a ride.

Then, Dawn, Portrait and Order came along. For scenarios they ditched the hand-drawn pixel art in favor of high-res textures, which then had their resolution and colors reduced, and were manually corrected to give us just that familiar feeling of looking at a 2D Castlevania. Some are more obvious, some are not, but I can definitelly tell which is which, and I gotta say I dislike this a lot. For the new sprites, they had a new artist create them and ditched some of the techniques employed in the old sprites - which causes them to actually look rather different from the old sprites when positioned side by side. And they're not good. They generally have less frames and either too many or too few colors when compared to SotN-made ones. They're not bad, too, they just aren't as good as SotN-made sprites. Their palette is also generally more vibrant than the old ones, which causes them to stand out in a rather awkward way.

So, this all kinda explains why the graphics "stopped evolving". They hit a ceiling there with SotN. The artists probably tried their darndest to stay true to the feeling Rondo and SotN laid out, but it's something not so easily accomplished, and they had to pump that shit out faster than IGA could crack his whip.

Now, the only logical evolution is to upscale everything, getting rid of pixels and going full HD art. I'd like to see that, actually.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

I'd always imagined that Skullgirls would have represented the logical next step in 2D game animation, where everything is done the old school Disney Animation style for large screen releases.

It worked to great effect in Skullgirls, and I'm disappointed it never made it to Castlevania.

[zangetsu468]

OOE was more polished, but it wasn't a new style. It didn't take the game in a new visual direction, which it desperately needed.

Granted in handheldvania certain sprites were inevitably recycled or reanimated so they were reused in some way.

But how are you defining 'style':

"a distinctive appearance, typically determined by the principles according to which something is designed"

Specifically based upon appearance/ graphics?

If so, I'm not really certain I understand this concept, Mario for example, the 2d games' style doesn't seem to have changed aside from going 2.5D. The 2.5D "style" looks pretty well the same as it did in 2d (Example of Super Mario World compared to Super Mario U/ Luigi U) aside from the HD factor.

Castlevania tried the same thing with MoF, look how this turned out? Even if anyone likes the visuals (which were uninspiring to say the least) the engine impacted the game horribly and didn't work. Visually and stylistically the game no longer resembled nor felt like Castlevania.

The only game that specifically springs to mind that specifically has reinvented itself evolving graphically and so distinctively so over the years is The Legend of Zelda. Interestingly enough with the release of TPHD, it's supposed to be a "graphical evolution" from TP, yet they've removed much of the bloom lighting and ambience that gave the game its atmosphere in the first place. It's new "clean" appearance just leave it looking slightly more textured but a bit more dull imo.

One can argue that a series such as MGS has "evolved" graphically to the point of realism, but again I ask is it evolution simply because the graphics are higher resolution? MGS has nice graphics, but this was exactly the way I felt about MGS when I saw MGS for PS2. Has it evolved?

The problem with Castlevania's graphics evolving like Mario or Contra is that it's hard to capture the feel or atmosphere of an environment in 2.5d. With sprites you can make things look old, decrepit, ancient, architectural. I'm not so certain this is possible with 2.5D and I've personally never seen a game that's done it really well. Contra's graphics are actually too colourful and spritely imo for a Castlevania game, and I don't believe the 2.5D works. DXC's graphics did not look any better or more "evolved" from RoB's imo, even if we only count the backgrounds without the characters.

The way I define "style" is the aesthetic, ost and "feel" - ambience, gameplay, environment etc - of the game. In this sense OOE did much for the franchise, with refined Metroidvania gameplay, polished and attractive graphics, exceptional OST. Graphically for a handheld the game was good, for whatever budget it was made on it's one of the more attractive DS games (2d or 3d imo). It was also one of the more colourful Castlevania handhelds, the graphics were very clear and crisp, yet it managed to not over do it and still gave that certain ambience which the series has always carried. That's why I'm saying it was an evolution from the previous games. Graphics and graphical style play a much larger role in the Symphony that is Castlevania.

[Belmontoya]

I figured Mirror of Fate would come up. I like to pretend like it doesn't exist so much some times that I actually forget that it does.

By style I mean like compare the look of SOTN to say, Dragon's Crown.

They could have tried anything with CV. All hand painted oil painting on canvas graphics, for example. Something radically different to look at, but keeping the game play a tight platformer, and if it were up to me, still 2d. That's all I mean.

Basically all you have to do is look at Hard Core Uprising. That's not the look I would of preferred for CV. but it would of been super cool either way.

I love the SOTN/RONDO look. But for all the slight changes in the games that followed; they all fail the put the Richter sprite next to it and see if it looks like it's from another planet test.

I would rather have a game half the length of Portrait of Ruin that is refreshing to look at over Portrait of Ruin. As a fan I remember starting to get really pissed off about it when Portrait of Ruin came out.

[Belmontoya]

You're absolutely right about Zelda by the way.

That's something I love about Zelda.

[Belmontoya]

Wait, wait....

I forgot about Kid Dracula.

I think I'm gonna fire that up in my game boy tonight.

Pixel art isn't a style. It's a medium. They were never limited to the Rondo style simply because it was pixels.

:-)

[EstebanT]

I liked the way Mirror of Fate looked.

[Belmontoya]

I liked the way Mirror of Fate looked.

I don't think it looked bad. But it felt horrible to play IMO. It's a very bitter but mildly sweet game in that respect. The Simon design and the weird cut scenes were very off putting. And the level graphics looked like burnt toast.

But it was an effort. I'll give ya that.

I'll stop bitching now and go back to doing productive things.

[zangetsu468]

I don't think it looked bad. But it felt horrible to play IMO. It's a very bitter but mildly sweet game in that respect. The Simon design and the weird cut scenes were very off putting. And the level graphics looked like burnt toast.

But it was an effort. I'll give ya that.

I'll stop bitching now and go back to doing productive things.

I'm not saying it was the worst game ever, but there weren't even any candles in the damn game.
The camera would constantly shake even when the character was stationary.
Simon's concept art was okay, but he looked like a dinosaur in game and acted worse. Trevor was the only character in game who had some attitude and looked CV to me (Trevor not Trevorcard). 
Characters felt floaty and although some fights were fun, most of the game was not.
It was not an evolution that's what I'm saying. Castlevania on a 2d platform has always been about clean crisp gameplay and graphics, and consistency. MoF was not consistently anything which was my biggest issue.

Back to the main matter, I'm not sure about 2.5D. If DXC wasn't as good as RoB (from reviews which I've read, it isn't) and MoF didn't work maybe 3d was not supposed to be the next step. Maybe the next step was an 8/ 16 bit SOTN with contemporary CV moves and spells and actual pitfalls, or an LOI style stage-by-stage classic with 8/ 16 bit sound effects. I don't know, but trying would be a good start.

Again I don't agree with the Richter test in terms of OOE. Although they could make him fit into any game, OOE looked more distinct in it's own right than of the other DS handheld games. POR was even a stretch but I don't believe his or Maria's sprites looked bad by any means.
POR and OOE at least re-did certain sprites eg zombie/ghoul which looked decent. DOS did more for the series than POR imo though, more actual in game sprites (Soma, Yoko, Julius) Were not simply "ripped" and some of Soma's familiars looked really decent. Also in terms of bosses, I thought the Sorrow games had more attractive boss sprites. Death and the massive cyclops that shoot the eye beam in DoS were done really well. While in OOE, aesthetics such as Blackmore and Eligor (akin to a LOS' titan battles and an "evolution" of HoD's boss "Talos") Dracula's second form (being all chest out and tough) as ever so "3d" in nature was innovative to me. As was the Brachyura fight in general. There is evolution within these games which do not strictly adhere to graphic conventions or style.

Back to the 3D element in OOE Drac, I wondered if the game was partly 3d in nature, what if with increased graphically capable hardware certain elements like Shanoa's extremely long jet black hair were 3d and floated in and out of the plane of gameplay? (Take some inspiration with Dragon's Crown or Muramasa with how things move and how characters breathe etc) What if like Kirby 3ds there were elements of different planes of vision that could somehow be "seen to the player" in 3d and accessed on foot. Imagine a fully 3d Castle and environment where the player is roaming in 2d but they can actually see the background moving like the player is running around a 3d object.
Not only would this be graphical evolution but it would create a new style (however it looked).
That's evolution to me, and that would change graphics substantially, even if characters were left in 2d. Presuming 3d background can be made to house the same aesthetic as 2d. With a bit of TLC it could probably be done.

[Shiroi Koumori]

In order to add what plottwist said, I remembered IGA mention that the SOTN team employed 2 genius spriters and I don't know if these guys made it to the other games, looking at how Konami shuffles their employees.