Richter B: Once again, thank you for all the info! Some great finds, very interesting about Mummy-chan. I recognized "Nerichagi" as something Kim Kaphwan in Fatal Fury/King of Fighters does (and says), it looks like it is of course a type of kick in Taekwando:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xx_-9EMdgdA So while she's pretty clearly not Coller 2, this was interesting none the less. It would have been interesting to see her as the boss of maybe the Tower of Ruins, as I am coming off of that and the Tower of Art feeling like they needed a boss, a cutscene, or something. Tower of Ruins stood well enough on its own I think with its focus on puzzles and exploration, though Tower of Art, pretty and an interesting idea idea as it is (and I love Sinking Old Sanctuary, despite how much you hear it in Circle of the Moon), came off as feeling more gimmicky this time than the last time I played this.
I agree with your observations about Coller's stuff, including the scientist vampire from the concept art. I always wondered what his deal was, and that's a pretty good explanation, though I still question how good he would have looked in this game, with how serious it is (biker skeletons aside), and with the N64s rendering capabilities. I also very much agree with the Towers, which would make it more impressive that they were able to develop two brand new tower levels (Art and Ruins) in that amount of time along with everything else they did, that they wouldn't have had before the release of Castlevania 64 (as i originally had suspected). Tower of Science most certainly fits with Coller, I think, not just because it's sciencey, but because of it's extra gritty nature.
Speaking of Tower of Science, I just got through it with both Carrie (in Castlevania 64) and Cornell, and boy what an experience that was. I'm not actually certain I went through it with Carrie in Castlevania 64 before, as I'm not even sure I got all that far with her or even played her quest in it (I played her Legacy of Darkness quest for sure). First things first, those electric beams at the start of the level were kind of the worst, as it is not only hard to tell when they are actually firing with how they flicker, they also appear to have a random pattern that goes between two sets, depending on the RNG when the level loaded, I suppose. Either they can be on for three seconds, and be off for a decent amount of time, or be on for like FIVE seconds and barely be off for long at all! This is a problem because of the setups, and how you're supposed to tackle certain jumps, and mistiming things will result in an instant death by falling. This is very obviously fixed in the LoD version of that section, where not only do they look different, they are much clearer about when they are on and when they aren't, and the firing rate problem seems to be gone. Also, the spiked blocks (very gritty, much science, wow!) are destructable in LoD, at least for Cornell. Beyond that, the rest of the tower is one hundred percent different (worth noting, for those unaware, that the versions of the levels used in Carrie and Reinhardt's quests in LoD are the same as those in Cornell and Henry's, so the old versions of their levels aren't present at all in LoD).
The next part for Carrie is made fairly worse than it would be normally, because the slowdown in the room full of turrets and sciency things in giant vats of green liquid is really intense. Normally it's just something I've been able to shrug off pretty well, but it is really quite annoying here. The is a section with lots of jumps you need to time well too, although the funny thing is, there is an odd section of platforms with some overhead turrets pointed directly at you. They try to fire at you, and anywhere else in the room, they would have been able to hit you, but for some magic reason, their bullets stop short here. It essentially seems as though the developers knew they had made something pretty rough and annoying, so they took pity on the poor player here. In Cornell's section, of course, this part does not exist. While it's pretty obvious why, I would be curios to see how LoD's engine would have handled it, being that they largely fixed the slowdown and framerate (on the low setting, anyway).... though there was a bit of slowdown later on for him, so perhaps best not to push it there. Of note, there is a neat section with a bunch of wall turrets that you can make use of your slide and look cool sliding under all those bullets. Lastly, there is actually a boss in the LoD version! Not a very hard one, but it's appreciated all the same, as it had been two stages without any sort of boss or cutscene for Cornell. Again, while it's all (mostly) still quite fun, the section from Tower of Art to tower of Execution feels very dry in terms of stuff actually going on, due to lack of bosses and cutscenes. Oh well, this was developed in less than a year, after all. I'm not honestly sure I prefer one version over the other either, despite my complaints about the CV64 version, because while it does work in the context of Cornell's quest, it does feel like it's over pretty quickly for Carrie's.
I very much intend to check out Hybrid Heaven, and have taken note of how cheap it is cart only on ebay. I may even pop for a box and manual, as it actually does look nice (got the manual for Castlevania 64, but early CGI Reinhardt does not excite so much. I don't typically collect N64 boxes anyway). And I had noted Survivor: Day One when reviewing what N64 games konami released (or was planning to release) for my previous post, so it is nice to get some more info on it. It definitely seems like the N64 had become a pariah to them at that point, a mentality which continued on with Castlevania Resurrection. Interesting that it may have ended up influencing Lament of Innocence, I think Iga definitely should have given the N64 games a look instead (rather than just retconning them and pretending they never happened until Castlevania Judgment). While as a whole, the God of War series is sort of looked back upon as a big glurg of saminess, the original God of War ended up doing what Lament of Innocence wanted to do with combat, but better. This is something that was apparently brought up in an interview with Iga, and it embarrassed him. =P