Another DS Castlevania on the way

[JusteZero]

To me, it feels like Igarashi did the right thing by letting KCEK work on another game (the team behind Circle of the Moon, arguably the best balanced Metroid-style Castlevania), but his signature flashiness hindered their work. Well, I hope this arrogant sexist redeems himself with the next one.

Isn't it obvious KCEKs pressence is what brought PoR down? Thats gonna be my opinion on the matter, just to play devil's advocate of course.

And whats the deal with Iga being sexist? I'm pretty sure the retarded story cooked up by KCE Nagoya was the reason Legends was retconned, not because Sonia Belmont was a girl.

Oh yeah DXC tomorrow baby!!!
Still deciding if its worth it to preorder the Japanese bonus version as well, I'm real torn on the issue.

[Vexorg]

Another brief interview with Igarashi here:

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/10/23/joyst ... -igarashi/

Nothing too earth shattering, but the possibility of a new Castlevania on a next-gen console is mentioned.

[CIT]

I'm getting the US one this week to play, then in two weeks I'll get the Japanese Konamistyle edition at which point I can sell the US release.
CIT <3 Castlevania o_O

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

False for #2. I ain't buying any mediocre Castlevanias anymore. I'll try that new game on my flash card before I pay a cent.

In any case, I really prefer them to concentrate on other aspects like tight gameplay, good atmosphere, good scenario, interesting characters, instead of having the staff redrawing everything.

It's just like 1up's review - everyone complained SOTN dialogues were terrible, and now - Surprise! the new one isn't apparently any better. With the sprites is the same, the worst sprites in DOS were the newer ones.

A lot of the new sprites in DoS are very good. If they give a damn, they can make them good. So how about I say they should redraw everything and give a damn. It's not that they can't or anything like that. Every Zelda game for example, has completely new graphics for the most part.

[JusteZero]

Theres also much longer development cycles for Zelda games.

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

That's because they give a damn and skip the yearly releases.

[BrianC]

What? POR a cake-walk? They finally invent the MAX lvl.1 cap and people still complain?

... it's a cake-walk. They lazily tried to solved this problem by throwing in a ton of tacked-on extra modes and level challenges.

I really don't appreciate cheap resorts at making games difficult. They should have made the base game more challenging.

The main thing that makes the non-linear Castlevanias easy in the first place is the leveling up. The last few had hard modes that didn't make the games hard. Putting a limit on the level ups makes sense. I don't feel it's tacked on or lazy. Carry overs aren't required for starting on a harder level either.

[JusteZero]

That's because they give a damn and skip the yearly releases.

Exactly

I think the suits won't give Iga the development time he wants, probably because they want to turn around a quick profit. Castlevania is not a guaranteed 5 million copies sold or anything.

[MathU]

I would love to see another traditional Castlevania some day, but the low-level modes are the same game with a level cap on them. The game was not designed around this. It's not the same thing as a well-designed, challenging normal game.

[JoshF]

Get rid of the level system altogether.

[Herr Schatten]

Portrait of Ruin was practically a rushed beta release.

Quoted for truth.

Parts of the game had horrible placeholder graphics for backgrounds, or at least they looked that way compared to most of the other areas. Some of the level design also screamed "preliminary". Add to that the ton of glitches and the sheer amount of recycled sprites and it becomes clear that the game was rushed out the door a good half year before it actually was finished.

After DoS, PoR was a must-by for me. However, it made me lose my trust in the developers, so I won't buy the next one unless it gets raving reviews from people I trust.

[Turrican]

A lot of the new sprites in DoS are very good. If they give a damn, they can make them good. So how about I say they should redraw everything and give a damn. It's not that they can't or anything like that. Every Zelda game for example, has completely new graphics for the most part.

Ugh, yeah, perfect example - completely new graphics and completely shallow since WW. Call me a retarded hardcore, but I wouldn't change the latest CVs for Zeldas. If you care so much about sprites you should shake in tremors at the thought of a Minish Cap-like CV game.

However it's awesome to see so many DOS supporters. The plot was non-existent, the character design mediocre, the stylus seal thing very annoying, and in general it felt like Aria all over again. I guess it must be the early DS adopter's charm.

PoR got the dual character gameplay mostly right (a thing I would have never believed myself), had more action, more difficulty options, Yuzo Koshiro, Charlotte... And it gets bashed for glitches and reusing sprites (slightly) heavier than usual... I'm with CIT, people just need a reason to complain always.

[Turrican]

I would love to see another traditional Castlevania some day, but the low-level modes are the same game with a level cap on them. The game was not designed around this. It's not the same thing as a well-designed, challenging normal game.

PoR is more challenging than Harmony and Aria on default. Probably more challenging than Dawn if you take into account the Arena stage. The lvl cap is just the icing on the cake.

And let's not forget that the most praised game in the whole series has a completely broken difficulty setting by today's standards. SotN becomes a stroll halfway before the end, and heaven forbid that someone drops you a Crissaegrim...

[MathU]

You're right; it isn't a cake walk. I pulled that out of my ass. It WOULD have been a cake walk if they hadn't tweaked enemy damage absurdly high to compensate for a lack of challenging enemy design.

And I do not support Symphony of the Night in any way. I think it's one of the most overrated 2-D games of all time, and an excellent example of all style and no substance. Second-worst game of the series, next to Harmony of Dissonance.

[Turrican]

SotN is a timeless masterpiece, and HoD the game that more got closer to recapture its spirit and therefore my favorite post-SotN CV. (if you don't consider X68k Chronicles of course).

That said, even going by your logic, you should've appreciated a lot the fact that PoR almost returns to a Circle level of challenge, after years of no challenge whatsoever.

[MathU]

I did appreciate it, until I realized what little effort was actually put into game design. Circle of the Moon is my favorite Metroid-style Castlevania, and, like I said, I think this could have been the best one yet if the developers had put less effort into pleasing people with "bonus content" and more effort into the actual game.

[Arvandor]

PoR felt like the least atmospheric Castlevania I've ever played. The bright colors I think mostly did it, but somehow the music didn't seem up to normal Castlevania standards either. I enjoyed it because I'm a sucker for these games, but it's my least favorite handheld castlevania of all the ones I've played (Didn't play Harmony of Dissonance or any of the GB games).

[Frederik]

Get rid of the level system altogether.

Oh, yes please. I felt very dirty after hours of leveling up Richiter in PoR just for the retarded "level up" chime, it was boring as hell yet so hard to stop. Leveling up is a real gamebreaker for me, Castlevania would be MUCH better without it, because instead of killing Minotaurs for the next three hours after not being able to kill the boss in one go, you would be forced to actually try harder to beat him. You COULD always do the latter, but I always tend to use the easier route in games, because I don´t see the point of trying hard if it isn´t REQUIRED.

Leveling up is one of the stupidest concepts in gaming ever, replacing real skill with mindless enemy grinding. Imagine what WoW would be like if it actually mattered how skilled you are instead of how much free time you have.

On Circle of the Moon, it did have a nice gothic atmosphere (whereas PoR somehow was lacking exactly this dark romantic touch), but I found the controls too awfully sluggish and stiff to play it after the first three bosses or so.

[CIT]

The level system in Castlevania is designed precisely for those players who lack skills, or interest in figuring out boss patterns, weapons tactics, etc.

Personally, I never found it necessary to spend a lot of time levelling up in any Castleroid, other than the EXP you gain automatically by just playing the game as is. They're all very beatable without deliberately levelling, There's even many superplays of people beating them without any weapons or magic at all. Methinks, if they got rid of the level system you'd probably be complaining about the difficulty level then.

Well, you should have fun with the original Chi No Rondo then, make sure to play with Richter, it'll give you a real run for your money!

[Vexorg]

Quite frankly, I can't stand to play CotM for any length of time. The controls suck (whose bright idea was it to require you to double-tap the d-pad to run?) and there's never any context to tell you where to go next, which usually means spending a lot of time lost and miles from where you're supposed to be.

[MathU]

I can never understand why so many people complain about the double-tap for running. Plenty of other games have it and nobody complains about it in them (i.e. Symphony of the Night's Richter). And you can't complain about lack of direction without complaining about every single other Metroid-style Castlevania...

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

However, it made me lose my trust in the developers, so I won't buy the next one unless it gets raving reviews from people I trust.

Wait for my official Seal of Approval .

[Vexorg]

Because in SotN, at least Richter is fast enough that it won't take all day to get around if you don't use it.

[Turrican]

Because in SotN, at least Richter is fast enough that it won't take all day to get around if you don't use it.

It's not just that. The environments in Cotm are flat and dull. With no interesting furniture, curious spots, weird rooms and so on, one wonders why going with the metroidesque formula. CotM would have been excellent material for a classic go-left-to-right stage-by-stage Castlevania.

[Specineff]

Quite frankly, I can't stand to play CotM for any length of time. The controls suck (whose bright idea was it to require you to double-tap the d-pad to run?)

Uhm... Golden Axe? TMNT 4 SNES? Xmen COTA arcade? Battletoads SNES? Cadillacs and Dinosaurs? Captain Commando? Knights of the Round?