Topic: Do you like IGA?

[Aridale]

I dont have anything against the guy personally (and if Shanoa really was based off his wife hes a very lucky man) but I want him to be done with CV and let someone step in.

[warfreak]

In Reply To #74

Soma Cruz is the reincarnation of Dracula. Is that really so bad? He isn't exactly Japanese either, judging from his name and the fact that the localization team added the whole "foreign exchange student" thing..

[Ciel]

 
 I'm not really sure why CV catches so much flak for "ripping off" Metroid. Even in professional reviews they use the term "Metrovania". It seems a little weird that adding the two fairly broad concepts of free-range exploration and permanent powerups makes it in any way related to Metroid. There were other games on the NES and SNES with such features. Metroid just allowed you to get more health and new weapons. Castlevania has a more fully-featured RPG system with comprehensive stats and a large variety of equipment. It really isn't as if the two are so similar as to conclusively posit that one is derived from the other. Even the Megaman series - starting at ZX - has included free roaming rather than linear stages. Why isn't anyone calling it a Metroid rip off?

 Speaking of Megaman, games like it and Zelda are far worse offenders where rehashes are concerned. Every Zelda game has the same main character doing the same story, getting the same weapons in mostly the same order, and the same dumb elemental temple dungeons. I stopped playing Phantom Hourglass a quarter way through because it was just so boring doing it all again. I sort of realized that my payoff for trudging through those samey puzzles and boring enemies would be just another dumb Zelda ending, and no longer saw the point of playing. I completely lost interest in Megaman games after MZ4.

 So, while the Castlevanias have not been huge departures from their respective predecessors, I think they are hardly deserving of the scorn they get for being similar.

*writfest hesis on vidoe gmas...*

 

[cecil-kain]

In Reply To #78

Most of the older game franchises would benefit heavily from a reboot.  Miyamoto is an excellent game designer, but he has FUBARed the Zelda mythos beyond repair --because he builds his games without a story in mind at all.  Whereas IGA approaches the story first and designs the game around it --and that's the way it should be now.  Video games have outgrown gameplay for its own sake --even casual players want a good storyline to motivate them.  Are any of IGAs storyline hokeyier than Mario running around collecting stars --again?

Megaman Powered Up and Maverick Hunter X were an excellent opportunity to revive the megaman series, but again...  The suits at Capcom put these games on the wrong system at the wrong time --resulting in poor sales and ultimately near failure...  I'd be playing their sequels by now if someone had approached these reboots with the fanfare they deserved.

[The Last Belmont]

In Reply To #74

Soma Cruz is the reincarnation of Dracula. Is that really so bad? He isn't exactly Japanese either, judging from his name and the fact that the localization team added the whole "foreign exchange student" thing..

Yeah I don't know where people get the Japanese thing, just look at his cloths, every other asian person has asian cloths, he wears jeans and a t-shirt.

[Long John Silver]

Yeah I don't know where people get the Japanese thing,

from the original japanese manual and intro obviously.

[The Last Belmont]

from the original japanese manual and intro obviously.

in the intro it just has him at the shrine and living in Japan, it never says he is japanese and I didn't know the original intro said he was, that's weird.

[A n t r a x x]

In Reply To #78

Most of the older game franchises would benefit heavily from a reboot.

[Alexc2808]

In Reply To #74
No, but throughout everything Dracula involved, reincarnation has been a HUGE theme.  Even in Vlad Tepes Dracula's real life, but more so in the novel by Bram Stoker.

[Azmodan]

The difference here is that you're not supposed to take Mario's world very seriously at all. The series set itself up a long time ago with the gerneral freedom of Miyamoto's mind.... in mind. Miyamoto and crew design games around fun first, and ask questions later.

I dunno...CV1 and HC were far from anything serious. Especially HC. It played out like a cheesey 70's Vampire/epic hybrid film.

Anyways, CV's always been about the action.

[cecil-kain]

Could you explain how it's FUBAR?  He builds the Zelda franchises with select, oppurtunitive stories that exist within themselves. But you could still tie the games together in a timeline of sorts. The difference here is Link is a different incarnate of himself in just about every game.

Aside from what was mentioned earlier in the thread...  Zelda has a seriously flawed continuity that leaves even its most hardcore fans scratching their heads.  Zelda games function very well as a self-contained stories, but they don't have anywhere near the cohesion we see in Castlevania (thanks in part to a few retcons)

The NES Zelda's are cohesive from a story-telling standpoint, although AoL introduces a needlessly complicated backstory in its plot.  A LttP distances itself from the NES installments and presents a plausible prequel to the existing mythos, but complicates a critical element of the AoL backstory.

Supposedly the sleeping Zelda from AoL was the original Zelda --implied to be the first in a long bloodline of Zeldas.  LttP makes no connection to AoL's backstory, but this was easily overlooked, until OoT took the prequel concept one step further...

OoT set to flesh-out LttP's backstory --the "imprisoning war" where Ganondorf was sealed away in the Dark World by 7 sages.  According to LttP Ganon had obtained the COMPLETE Triforce and threatened to conquer all of Hyrule with its power, but at the end of OoT we see Ganon sealed away with ONLY the Triforce of Power.  OoT also progresses with Link traveling between 2 points in time (somehow retaining his child and adult forms for each respective time period) --and ultimately ends the game in a paradox-like state.

Then we have Wind Waker where Ganon somehow manages to escape the Dark World, ravages Hyrule, and draws the wrath of the Gods to flood the land...  Sadly Wind Waker's ending did nothing to reconnect with the continuity established in LttP or even resolve the main conflict of its plot --Hyrule remains flooded --as it does in Phantom Hourglass...

I'd like to go on, but I have not yet played Twilight Princess --and getting into the oracles games just doesn't seem worth the time...

Bottom line is this --IGA's sloppiest story-telling really isn't that bad in light of what Miyamoto has done to Zelda.

What, like other companies haven't done this? Some companies design the music first, then the story then the game.

Nothing wrong with taking a gameplay idea and building a story around it, but it would be nice to see franchise games (like Zelda) working within the established framework and respecting its own canon.

The first part of that sentece makes no sense at all. If you're playing a videogame more for its story than the game itself, watch a damn movie. If the gameplay is good enough, you don't need ANYTHING else to motivate you. But it's nice if they manage to add a good, belivable story on too.

Most modern video games revolve around characters --and those characters need a story.  No matter how simple the story is, the character needs motivation.  Like --go out and save the world --or whatever...

Personally, I think AoS is one of the best things to happen to Castlevania, because it broke new ground in storyline as well as gameplay.  I remember telling a couple friends of mine about Dracula's absence and they thought it was a joke --because his resurrection had become one of the oldest cliches in all of gaming.  And it got old for quite a few players.  When I actually showed them the game, they both went out and bought it for themselves.  Bottom line: great gameplay isn't likely to be discovered without a good story to lure the player in.

The difference here is that you're not supposed to take Mario's world very seriously at all. The series set itself up a long time ago with the gerneral freedom of Miyamoto's mind.... in mind. Miyamoto and crew design games around fun first, and ask questions later.

I really shouldn't complain about Mario --it is what it is.  Solid gameplay wasted on children who haven't been around long enough to be bothered by all the cliches.

I agree on Megaman Powered up. It was a fnatastic remake of the first Megaman and the level editor has an insane amount of flexibility. The entire original Megaman series needs to be remade too, as it's the absolute best era of the Blue Bomber, IMO.

... Sorry for off-topic banter.

I really can't say enough about how well done these games are --anyone that owns a PSP should go digging for these gems.

[crisis]

The only thing that was missing from Maverick Hunter X.. was the original game as a bonus!! 

[cecil-kain]

In Reply To #87

True, that...

There was enough rearranged that it would have made for sensible content.  Too bad.     Vile mode rocked nicely though.    The replay value was almost like....  --Castlevania 

[TRON]

I am no Zelda scholar or anything like that, but I've found Twilight Princess to touch some points of A Link to the Past. You still get a world of shadows, Ganondorf's imprisonment in the dark realm (TP) by the sages, without the Master Sword you are a cursed beast in the dark realm (TP) and you have an animal counterpart on both games.

The timeline in Zelda is not that screwed up, considering what happened during the events of Ocarina of Time (Nintendo, if you are reading this PLEASE REMAKE THAT GAME FOR THE Wii, I'll PAY IN GOLD FOR IT IF I HAVE TO, I have the N64 version and a game of such greatness must go into a great console as well).

Anyway, the Castlevania plotline is fair as it is, surely it has a mixup here and there, but it is not that shrouded in mystery as the Zelda timeline is. My main complain about the recent games is the lack of feel:
- The whip, oh that? It was given to the Belmonts by an alchemist without having to endure a great test (killing your fiancee with it? meh, overused. It should have been a test in blood for the Belmonts)
- Daddy left me and died and didn't teach me to use the whip, I hate him. Hey Vader, are you Luke's father? Oh, and I'm not a kid. (Portrait of Ruin)
- Soma and Mina, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g! It's not like that! (Dawn of Sorrow)

We need more good moments, like in Aria of Sorrow, when you discover you are Dracula, or when die to Chaos. Or moments like when Brauner broke his walking stick, that kind of drama was good, but the moment was set up wrong. Or like when Ralph C. Belmont was stabbed in Curse of Darkness.

Too many bland moments in Castlevania. I want my storyline with more horror, more sacrifice, and less kiddy stuff. I want it all dark.

And speaking of Metroid and Zelda. Those two series made it to 3D without any trouble at all. What is wrong with Castlevania? Metroid Prime rocks. Ape Metroid again? Or Zelda?

[The Last Belmont]

Ocarina of Time (Nintendo, if you are reading this PLEASE REMAKE THAT GAME FOR THE Wii, I'll PAY IN GOLD FOR IT IF I HAVE TO, I have the N64 version and a game of such greatness must go into a great console as well).

it was released for the gamecube alongside a master quest version. You can still find this once and a while and movie trading company and gamestop though it's expensive what they really need to do is give the game a complete graphical overhaul and make it look real. The game has considerably aged graphicswise as you can see all the polygons that make everything up. They need to give it the Twilight princess treatment and make it look real like an interactive movie. This game is so good and is suppossed to be nintendo's crowning achievement zelda wise it would be a disgrace to leave it with oldschool 64 bit 3d graphics. as the first game in the timeline (or second if you put minish cap before it) and the game that starts the ongoing conflict with ganon and link as the hero of time this game should be close to the  top on nintendo's priority list.