Topic: Don't say 1999: What's your dream Castlevania project?

[Lumi Kløvstad]

I was listening to Jorge's remixes on Youtube (specifically "Praying Hands" which is one of Castlevania's finest tunes) just now, and it got me thinking of how amazing a full 3D remake of Belmont's Revenge would be if done right.

A retuned and fully updated remake of Castlevania 64 and Legacy of Darkness would be amazing as well, but my absolute dream project would unquestionably be a properly finished version of Castlevania: Resurrection, with maybe a bonus ReBirth style remake of Legends on the side.

I've always thought that the non-canon Castlevanias could be easily linked together into their own separate timeline too, and that they'd be a perfect direction for Castlevania to move back into for a reboot: still dark, still gothic, but with a pronounced and campy silliness about them (the same games that had the much laughed at Motorcycle Skeletons also had Actrise as a villain, and she was as evil and sinister a villain as the series has ever seen). I suppose that's why I keep holding on to some vain hope that we'll see more from those entries, as they are absolutely what Castlevania is to me.

But what is your dream Castlevania project? Figure, if you knew for a fact you were going to get one more, and ONLY one more, game in the franchise... what would it be?

[Chernabogue]

Judgment 2.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

Judgment 2.

I'm really hoping that's just a tasteless joke.

[Belmontoya]

Super Castlevania 5.

The idea of 1999 has never really excited me.

[zangetsu468]

@Chern Lulz

@Archer Check my sig re: timelines

I actually would prefer now that they never tried to make '99, it would NEVER live up to the hype and would end badly. It's best left as an enigma.

I would opt for a 3rd Sorrow Game (wrote a plot/ some dialogue off the back of someone's existing fanfic in a previous thread as to how shit could go down.) Basically it would end with

(click to show/hide)

Soma accepting the Title and Throne of Dark Lord [Dracula] and he and Julius finishing their battle from AoS

I would call it "Castlevania: Prophecy of Sorrow".

[Nagumo]

Souls/Bloodborne-style game with minimal storytelling (instead lots of lore), and character customization. The main character is a blank slate, the only known is that he or she is a vampire hunter. Perhaps you could choose a two-sentence backstory like in Bloodborne. You're thrown in at the deep-end at the beginning of the game. Possibly the objective would be to kill Dracula, but that may be too constraining. The gimmick would be that your class/abilities change depending on what gear you equip. For example, if you find robes you can cast elemental magic, or if you find barbarian Belmont-like armor your class will be reminiscent of a classic Belmont.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

Souls/Bloodborne-style game with minimal storytelling (instead lots of lore), and character customization. The main character is a blank slate, the only known is that he or she is a vampire hunter. Perhaps you could choose a two-sentence backstory like in Bloodborne. You're thrown in at the deep-end at the beginning of the game. Possibly the objective would be to kill Dracula, but that may be too constraining. The gimmick would be that your class/abilities change depending on what gear you equip. For example, if you find robes you can cast elemental magic, or if you find barbarian Belmont-like armor your class will be reminiscent of a classic Belmont.

I'd actually play that, and it would be among the few things that might take place during the 1999 Event that I'd play, especially if Julius' struggle was NOT portrayed, but is instead implied through bits that you come across in the game, like the aftermath of one of his fights, or a propaganda poster about how the Belmonts are back and they're going to save us all. Imply everything that you've heard about during the Sorrow series, but neither show nor tell ANYTHING. Keep it above your character's pay grade, as it were.

[TatteredSeraph]

I would opt for a 3rd Sorrow Game (wrote a plot/ some dialogue off the back of someone's existing fanfic in a previous thread as to how shit could go down.) Basically it would end with

(click to show/hide)

Soma accepting the Title and Throne of Dark Lord [Dracula] and he and Julius finishing their battle from AoS

I would call it "Castlevania: Prophecy of Sorrow".

This based on the idea I was bouncing around the other day?  It's a fix I'd love to be able to write, but I'd probably lose patience, even if I had the time to write it.  The title I was thinking for my ficcie idea was Castlevania; Requiem of Sorrow, as a sort of coming full cycle, a lamentation requiem, to reference Lament of Innocence, as well as tying in to Aria of Sorrow.  I really liked some of your ideas that you threw my way, and it made me re-work the ideas I'd had for how to reveal Soma's throne acceptance to the others.

[theplottwist]

Castlevania: The Adventure Chronicles

• Both The Adventure and Belmont's Revenge are fused into a single game in a long, 10~12 stage campaign separated in two chapters of 5~6 stages each. The first chapter comprises The Adventure, and the second chapter comprises Belmont's Revenge.
• Classicvania with in-level branching paths.
• Revamped graphics and reworked/new levels.
• Cutscenes depicting events such as Dracula's first attack and Soleiyu's coming of age.
• Two endings depending on whether or not you manage to save Soleiyu before killing Dracula.
• Secrets to find, one of them leading to one of the two different endings.
• Christopher's play style changes slightly between his younger, chapter 1 self, and older, chapter 2 self.
• Finishing the game unlocks an extra, shorter campaign: Soleiyu's hunting of a now vampirized Elizabeth Bartley at Castle Proserpina. Just three levels with Elizabeth as the final boss.
• Finishing the extra campaign unlocks Soleiyu to be playable in Christopher's campaign, allowing more secrets and branching paths to be found with his skills.
• Finishing the main campaign with Soleiyu unlocks a Boss Rush Mode and unlocks Young and Old Christopher to be playable on all campaigns, allowing for yet more secrets to be found.
• Finding every single secret along with beating Boss Rush with all three characters unlocks a final cutscene. It could be a scene depicting Elizabeth's resurrection by Drolta in Bloodlines, for instance.

[AlexCalvo]

A fully open world game with town and villages akin to Red Dead Redemption, but instead of desert it would have thick forests, mountainous area, caverns, swamps, ruins, cemeteries basically all your Castlevania type areas.  All with area specific roaming monsters.  Different castles, mansions, and larger ruins would serve as somewhat self contained levels.  Castlevania would just be ruins near the center until it is ressurected and becomes it's own self contained level, or game if you prefer.  The towns and villages would be full of people you could talk to like in Dragon's Age or Skyrim, giving you side missions and quests.  The series' lore would be spread out through various books and villagers' stories like in skyrim.

The story would be a retelling of the evens in the 1800's.  Players could choose between Reignhart Morris or Shanoa.  Whose secret histories are revealed through their stories.  Reignhart would receive the vampire killer, nor Shanoa Dominus until near the end of the game.  Their playstyles would be very different, but with a lot of variety.

Reignhart's combat would be combo based, but not so exagerated as something like God of War or Devil May Cry.  I would want a lot of weapons available, each with their own uniqe combo styles, like in Curse of Darkness but more modern.  Subweapons would factor in heavily as long range attackers, and a rifle subweapon would be a must.

Shanoa would be more similar to her glyph style in OoE but in 3D wih more variation in physical and more spell/long ranged type attacks, with lots of morphs of course.

Platforming would also be heavily implemented into all the self contained level areas ranging from LoS/SoTC type scaling to more assassin's creed type free running, depending on the area.

Beating the game would unlock characters like Carrie Fernandez, Henry Oldrey, Albus, Cornell, Nathan Graves... as many as they could fit in, expanding on different play styles of the primary two characters.  Boss rush of course.

This thing has been kicking around in my head for years.  I even made a map using the OoE map and icons.

[X]

Like your map bro! But the pixel quality could be adjusted as so that they're all squares insted of a mix of squares and rectangles. just FYI 

My dream Castlevania is simple: Take what made Super Castlevania 4 and expand upon it. I believe I've already mentioned it in another thread too... Ah! Here we go;

"Absolutely nothing brought over from LoS. The only thing worth preserving would be the graphical quality. That's it!

The return of multi-directional whip attacking. The only game to feature that was SCV4. Both Bloodlines and Chronicles had some but they did not go with the full 8 directions that made SCV4 so versatile.

Bring back the stairs as well as rope-climbing from the Gameboy titles. Both of these simple game mechanics added a kind of unique depth to the series as well as challenges. But since SotN Stair-climbing was almost non-existent save for their final appearance in Adventure Rebirth.

CV should also forgo the heavily romanticized Gothic tone that was prevalent throughout the IGAvania's and instead go back to the classic campy Halloween theme that made the series so popular to begin with. The Halloween theme can still be done and done very well.

Also we need more variety in terms of protagonists. New Belmonts would be more then welcome. Ones that we've never heard of before. Also it would be a good thing to introduce some women Belmonts to the stage as well. Not just try to bring back Sonia, but introduce a whole slew of others with their own themes and looks. Even better would be to have a character select menu where you can choose to be either a male or female Belmont, and you could even give them their own personal looks and first names. This will add more replay to the game and also give the player a more personal connection with the characters they have created as well. It will also quell the sexual inequality that has been unfortunately prevalent throughout the series.

Bring back the double and triple shot icons. I miss those    They were simple yet added their own depth to the series. getting a sub-weapon always made me want to collect the shot icons as I knew having them could mean the difference between life and death depending.

In terms of the sub-weapons I vote for a much stronger Dagger. The dagger has always been the weakest weapon in the series so I think it's time to bring it back with a bit of extra kick. Kinda like the silver knife or even the golden knife from Simon's Quest.

And as for Dracula? Enough with the wannabes. No Mathias, no Gabriel, no f**king emos, Just good ole Vlad III the impaler. The true Dracula."

[AlexCalvo]

My skills in graphic design do not go past basic microsoft paint. 

[piscesdreams]

A proper followup to Super Castlevania IV.  Although, my curiosity wants to see CV Resurrection its finished form, which is certainly not my dream game.  But hey, it'd be neat to see.

[zangetsu468]

@Tatteredseraph

Glad to hear it

[The Puritan]

I'd like a 3-D game retelling the very first CV, with the action of LOS and the atmosphere of CV64/LOD.