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

[Shiroi Koumori]

I love Alucard in his Genya Arikado disguise.  Lots of potential for stories taking place outside of 'Arikado's' missions with Soma, stories that can be told about jobs he's done with Yoko, etc.

Oh boy, I'm so in with the Genya Arikado missions story line. 

I'd love for the Conclusion of the Sorrow arc to have two modes. The normal mode which is played as Julius, the second mode which is Arikado in the full Genya getup. Except the way the Castle is traversed to be completely different for the two players. When you finish both games, a secret mode where interchangeable Yoko/ Hammer is unlocked. Better yet, this is the hard mode; interchangeable Yoko and Hammer where both are on screen at once and share 1 life bar... This is HARD MODE

I like your ideas. That Hard mode looks promising.

This would be sweet. But I wonder if the game would put us on control of Curtis and those sweet Death powers, or Michelle and her bowgun.

Two modes, or maybe three cause I really wanted to play Julius mode.

[theANdROId]

Sterling...
Seraph...
...
...damn, those are some neat sounding ideas.  I'd say, "Shut up and take my money," if I had any!

[Lumi Kløvstad]

Sterling...
Seraph...
...
...damn, those are some neat sounding ideas.  I'd say, "Shut up and take my money," if I had any!

So would I. I'm very proud of this idea, and what better way to finish off the series once and for all than with a game the reimagines the stories we're well familiar with at this point so that everything old is new again, and provides closure?

Just for grins, you could set my game in 1999 and star JULIA BELMONT as the hapless grad student doing the investigating, and the person who finally puts Dracula down for good.

[X]

I kind of imagine him being like a dessicated body, crawling along the ground as his legs are no longer useful, chasing her while she tries to escape.

They kinda did that in The Terminator. But it would definitely be spooky.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

They kinda did that in The Terminator. But it would definitely be spooky.

Deliberately the imagery I was attempting to conjure, except in this case it's because he's been asleep so long he's little more than a shrieking bitey corpse trying to chase you fresh out of the coffin while not even fully able to control his own body (like a MUCH scarier and far more villainous version of post-reawakening Gabeula at the beginning of Lords 2). Of course, if he gets to you, he drinks your blood and regenerates, and you get treated to a game over montage wherein Dracula is shown (through a bunch of rapid still images) taking over the world.

[TatteredSeraph]

Deliberately the imagery I was attempting to conjure, except in this case it's because he's been asleep so long he's little more than a shrieking bitey corpse trying to chase you fresh out of the coffin while not even fully able to control his own body (like a MUCH scarier and far more villainous version of post-reawakening Gabeula at the beginning of Lords 2). Of course, if he gets to you, he drinks your blood and regenerates, and you get treated to a game over montage wherein Dracula is shown (through a bunch of rapid still images) taking over the world.

That sounds fantastic.  It's sort of reminding me of Elizabeth Kostova's novel 'The Historian' as well, which is a fantastic read, if you haven't already.  It's a sight-seeing tour through Europe, trying to put pieces together in a puzzle surrounding a mysterious book with a dragon map that seems to have some sort of connection to Dracula.

Sterling...
Seraph...
...
...damn, those are some neat sounding ideas.  I'd say, "Shut up and take my money," if I had any!

Thank you, you're welcome!   The idea sort of keeps playing through my head, and writes itself like a very long film/ tv series, acting like an alternate reality restart of the Belmont clan, who are both like and unlike their games counterparts, as they are them, even though at the same time, Castlevania exists as a games series (including Lords of Shadow) and the movie that they were in.  When Alex believes that he's become a full vampire, he looks like a cross between his Adrian Tepes self and his 'Trevor-card' from LoS vampire self, and that makes it much stronger as an illusion, because he's aware that the LoS Alucard is another version of himself.  Thanks to St Germaine's meddling, combined with Alex's soul deciding that being a dhampir is his true self, an amount of bleeding over of the realities happens, making for interesting events happening.  Meanwhile, Alex and the gang, especially Alex, are learning to deal with having two sets of memories, due to having gone into the Castlevania reality (there would have been an amount of merger for the time in which they were facing Matthew/Dracula and Shaft).  One of the big differences in my head for the characters being somewhat different is that Anna/Annette is able to look after herself, and has done things such as martial arts.

  A big theme in this all is that it's about finding oneself.  Alex had a very violent and nasty side to himself prior to going into Castlevania because it was the vampiric aspect of his soul trying to be expressed without being able to, as he was completely human, essentially, while also feeling like he was missing part of himself.  But once he becomes dhampir, that issue sorts itself out.  He also becomes a lot more grounded thanks to the good influences from Cate, Rich, and Anna (with Rich and Anna living next door to Cate and Alex). 

  Amongst all of this vampire hunting, the gang trying to find how to live as normal people again in a sense, as they're refinding themselves.  They've all quit acting, following the experiences they had making the SotN movie, with Alex and Rich both deciding that stuntwork is probably a better route.  They can also both use their found abilities from the Castlevania-'verse selves to good use.  Calling the stunt group company VK Stunts refers to both Rich/Richter's Vampire Killer and Alex/Alucard's status as a 'Vampire Knight' of sorts.  Meanwhile, Alex and Cate have the fun of introducing each other to their families, and trying to have them not get suspicious of the fact that Al is part vampire, etc.  At some point, the gang go on a holiday to Romania, and end up vampire hunting there.  I think that one of the big images that sticks in my mind which defines Al's acceptance of himself is that the day after he and Rich get back from Castlevania is that he stands before a mirror, wearing his long coat (the LoS Alucard one he acquired after facing the Mirror of Fate, which is the same as the Mirror in LOS), together with black jeans and a red t-shirt, with long combat boots.  He doesn't bother hiding behind an illusion guise, just donning a pair of sunglasses to shade his sensitive eyes.  He then goes down to meet the others, all of them heading to the pub.

[TheTextGuy]

Just for grins, you could set my game in 1999 and star JULIA BELMONT as the hapless grad student doing the investigating, and the person who finally puts Dracula down for good.

Have the game end with her seeing an eclipse and then she falls down, knocks her head and gets amnesia (/sarcasm)

Anyways, I'm pretty sure I'd be panicking too if a shambling corpse just jumped out of a coffin and wanted my blood.  How would Dracula dies and would he be located inside a realistic version of the castle keep (aka it's not floating with just a measly staircase supporting it, but it's actually a tower whose peak is reminiscent of the classic keep)?

[Lumi Kløvstad]

Have the game end with her seeing an eclipse and then she falls down, knocks her head and gets amnesia (/sarcasm)

Anyways, I'm pretty sure I'd be panicking too if a shambling corpse just jumped out of a coffin and wanted my blood.  How would Dracula dies and would he be located inside a realistic version of the castle keep (aka it's not floating with just a measly staircase supporting it, but it's actually a tower whose peak is reminiscent of the classic keep)?

I imagine Dracula might only die because the main character gets lucky and manages to get him to be impaled on  something in the open, and the sun rises and kills Dracula before he can dislodge himself on account of his weakened state.

As for the Castle Keep, I'd want to keep [pun not intended] it as a lofty throne room high above the castle, but architecturally sound. Though that does open the door to Drac being impaled on a flagpole of one of the towers or something -- he'd have trouble pulling off of one of those even on his best nights.

[zangetsu468]

If there ever was a 3rd sorrow game I think it would be awesome to see Castlevania (or its replica) fall by Hammer's hand. The guy was in the military, he could easily have loaded the place up with C4 before Julius or Soma ever set foot inside it.

In the ending Arikado could be asking "I don't understand why the Castle imploded..."
Here comes Hammer crawling out of the woodwork with the detonator in hand "Let's just think of it as our insurance policy "

[Lumi Kløvstad]

If we have any Source, Unity, or Unreal Engine 4 experts among us, I would love to see them make this Sorrow sequel and my game idea into a reality.

[Crying Freeman]

It was E3 '09 I think where we got a teaser for a 3D CV staring Alucard, was gonna be for the PS3 and 360. I'm extremely curious what that would've been like.

[TatteredSeraph]

Apparently it was meant to follow on from SotN.  It's a shame that it got stuck in developer issues, and then Konami gave the series to Mercurysteam...  Now if only Iga had been given a better budget and more time...

[Crying Freeman]

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.

Something we really should've gotten. We had the action-adventure from CV2 that SotN built on(plus metroid and zelda obviously), the different paths were expanded in RoB by making them hidden ones that you found in levels, but after CV4 tried to revolutionize the series in terms of controls, the devs never tried to build on.

Sure it made the player too OP, but they could've done all of the suggestions everyone on this forum has thought of, the most obvious being to reduce the length and power. Plus I'm sure we miss the style and world that CV4 went for: The grittiness CV3 went for but more fleshed out thanks to new hardware.

If that ever happened, I'd like a sequen to CV2's good ending. I did make a theory that Haunted Castle could be considered a sequel to CV2, but officially HC is a retelling sooo yeah. That ending was never brought up again, could make for a good narrative driven CV.

[Crying Freeman]

Apparently it was meant to follow on from SotN.  It's a shame that it got stuck in developer issues, and then Konami gave the series to Mercurysteam...  Now if only Iga had been given a better budget and more time...

Such a shame. It'd be so awesome to have Alucard waking up again for whatever reason, runs into Maria again, or a descendant. Something I loved about Alucard was how you can tell he was constantly tormented by his dhampir-ism, the eternal life, and his having to fight his father, but he never bitches or moans about it like almost evey character like that. He's so accepting of everything, like his dialogue at the end of SotN

(click to show/hide)

"It must've been painful for you" "Indeed" and "The blood in my veins is cursed. Twould be best for this world I was to disapear forever." Instead of making his problem everyone's problem like so many characters in media do. Something else I like was when I beat SSotN it was my first time hearing the Japanese dialogue, and the emotional tone he has when you beat Dracula hit me cus I wasn't expecting it after his calmness throughout the game.

He also isn't a generic quiet protagonists, where he's cool cus he's quiet and mostly unemotional. He's like that because of what he's been through and what he has to face. He's accepting of it and numb from it. I might be looking to deep into it, but Alucard has so much potential for future games.

Now if Iga was behind another 3D game, I feel like he would've finally found the right stride. In a 3D game, to keep the world interesting you have to make it feel like a world, something CV64 did so much better than LOI and COD IMO. The levels  felt like spaces in a world. The only level that doesn't do this as well is the Tunnel, but I'll cut some slack because it is a tunnel afterall. The IGA 3Dvanias followed the metroidvania level design too closely IMO. The map system was well executed, but the level design felt like it was meant for a 2D game but forced into 3D. Having too many repeated rooms and "shapes" of the rooms can get boring in a 3D game because it feels more like mindless arena running. In the 2D games, it felt more natural because of the 2D nature and the platforming. If the stages were smaller and didn't reuse as many rooms, I think they'd be MUCH better. With the better hardware, maybe Iga could've found the right blance between CV64's level design and SotN style design.

[zangetsu468]

Now if Iga was behind another 3D game, I feel like he would've finally found the right stride. In a 3D game, to keep the world interesting you have to make it feel like a world, something CV64 did so much better than LOI and COD IMO. The levels  felt like spaces in a world. The only level that doesn't do this as well is the Tunnel, but I'll cut some slack because it is a tunnel afterall. The IGA 3Dvanias followed the metroidvania level design too closely IMO. The map system was well executed, but the level design felt like it was meant for a 2D game but forced into 3D. Having too many repeated rooms and "shapes" of the rooms can get boring in a 3D game because it feels more like mindless arena running. In the 2D games, it felt more natural because of the 2D nature and the platforming. If the stages were smaller and didn't reuse as many rooms, I think they'd be MUCH better. With the better hardware, maybe Iga could've found the right blance between CV64's level design and SotN style design.

I'm sort of pissed that LOD wasn't remade like Starfox/ Lylat Wars was for the 3ds.

The camera issues and a higher framerate with more solid graphics would have solved ALL of the 64 titles' issues imo.

The issue with Castlevania in 3d is that gaming became more geared toward casual and/or blockbuster title players.
In CV64/ LOD if you fell from too high or down a pit, you died, period. Even by the time of LOI in the few pitfalls they had you'd simply lose life. Even though LOS wasn't the most easy game on the harder setting, it went down the "checkpoint" route which is okay for longer stages, but having this employed for different forms of bosses makes me shudder every time.

Castlevania is the one series I believe where the first instincts (64 iterations) were basically the best and got it right. Sure some things could be ironed out, but mostly those games suffered from an at times awkward camera and slightly stiff gameplay which LOD improved drastically upon imo. These issues could've been solved and in terms of gameplay in the grand scheme, all the characters were missing was a backdash imo. You're right that if they'd continued down this line they would've made a winner.