[Shapermc]

Castlevania is a series which has been discussed on these forums (including its previous installments at Insert Credit) ad infinitum. Some people have even said Eric-Jon’s Harmony of Dissonance feature is one of the best on the site. Needless to say, we like the game a lot.

The series, by many accounts, has gone downhill since the current curator, Koji Igarashi, took over the franchise with the Gameboy Advance title, Harmony of Dissonance. The same fools continue to buy game after game of the series which won’t die. Sometimes it’s because we’re spurred on by bonus items (such as the extravagant coffin box with Portrait of Ruin, which included a soundtrack CD, art book, timeline, DS game holder, and stylus all within gorgeous packaging). Other times because there’s just not much else on that particular system (Dawn of Sorrow). What ever the reason we keep doing it.

Like last year, in Japan, game publisher Hamster released a Playstation 2 port of the arcade game Haunted Castle. This is the only original Castlevania game that had yet to be ported to a home console. Hamster was loving enough to not only include the game, but also a soundtrack, and “super-play” where the person playing is not really super, and even dies halfway through the game. I think we should ignore the fact that the port is also fairly poor in terms of speed and reproduction.

Also, announced last year, Symphony of the Night will be coming out for the Xbox 360’s Live Arcade. More recently it was stated that the game will break the XBLA space requirement for download size (which was in place to make sure games could fit on a memory card). As a sign of good faith many people will be re-buying this game come February who have already purchased it at least once or twice for the Playstation 1, and many of which still own it. Let’s let alone the fact that this could have been a much greater game release by including the added elements and playable character of the Saturn version, which has never seen the light of day outside Japan, and just be happy that we can buy a game we’ve played to death again, in HD.

Konami and Nintendo must know something about Castlevania fans and how much they can’t restrain themselves from re-buying Castlevania games. This past christmas Nintendo lovingly wrapped up and delivered us all fodder for our most compulsive of instincts. Super Castlevania IV was released for the Virtual Console in wonderful 480p, and against all attempts to restrain ourselves, the cumulative internet frantically scrounged up enough Wii Points in order to re-buy, and re-play, Castlevania before we all go and do it again next month. Luckily there were enough component cables going around by this time.

Looking into my crystal ball by grabbing my most recent issue of EGM (number 212, yes the one with the infantile interview about Zelda: Twilight Princess) and finding the side bar titled “Second Symphony” next to an interview with Koji Igarashi (trust me, there’s nothing good in the interview except him saying that people in his office got standing ovations for clearing PoR in hard mode). If you hadn’t guessed what the rumor is to be based on the title of the side bar, here’s a quote:

[Persona-sama]

As a fan of both, your last line really cuts me to the core, Shazper. ;_;
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[dementia]

Any word on a PoR Arrage Soundtrack?

Ugh, there's that castle-sumerism again. And I hated PoR.

That IGN retrospective sounds a bit like the 1up one.

[Mr. Mechanical]

Man, as much as I want to believe that a new SOTN-style game will be great, the last three or four that I've played haven't done much to dissuade me from the nagging feeling that it won't be all that and a bag of chips.
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[diplo]

taking into account por, i am exceptionally fearful for the quality of a game that will be added to the rob arc. the team had better get their asses into gear. a little extra time wouldn't hurt, either.

edit: also it's "miserable little pile of secrets"
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[The Drunken Samurai]

HOD was a boring pile of crap.just saying guys.

hey rud13,didnt you say you hated it too? or am i thinking of someone else?
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[Broco]

Wait, CotM wasn't an IGA game? That explains certain things...

This place turned me into a Castlevania fan. I'm not even exactly sure why; I don't even particularly love gothic/undead-style things. I guess it's mainly because it remains a pretty solid 2d platforming franchise at a time when all the other longrunning franchises for one reason or another no longer appeal to me.

[v84j3gs2uc7ns4]

[aerisdead]

Rondo of Blood is very overrated.

(I particularly hate the boss rush later on in the game.)
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"Did you read that mr. ignorant new games journalist? YOU JUST DON'T FUCKING GET IT. "
-Alex Kierkegaard, better known as "Pikachu", irrationally responding to the wonderful gentleman who wrote the post you just read.

[The Drunken Samurai]

[diplo]

no actually it's just terrible

man i wish iga's team would hire me to do their level design ;__;

[Moogs]

[Shapermc]

[aderack]

[Rud31]

[JamesE]

[Triton]

Well, the modern Castlevanias might be pretty terrible Castlevania games, but I think they're pretty good action RPGs. I certainly wouldn't mind it returning to it's roots, or at least as far back as Bloodlines.

[Dracko]

Off-topic, but that image you posted Shaper, is for an upcoming direct to DVD Castlevania cartoon drawn by James Jean and written by none other than Warren Ellis.

[JamesE]

[Mr. Mechanical]

I'll just say this: If they put Rondo of Blood on XBox Live Arcade I would totally play it.
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[Renfrew]

I really like Curse of Darkness, too. The combat is really fun.

[BotageL]

[showka]

Every IGA game since Symphony, and every Castlevania game since Circle of the Moon, seems rushed.

Dawn of Sorrow was a pretty kick ass game the first time through; however, the moment you beat it (and really, for a few hours before the end) you realize that huge chunks of it are just bland as fuck. That’s what sucks about Castlevania these days, is how a lack of time is making them boring. There's some cool monsters here and there, the occasional new sprite, but none of them have match Symphony and its all because none of them have had the amount of time, production or care put into them as Symphony.

Really, its a damn shame the IGA handheld games have all sold so well, because its just convinced Konami to keep shitting out Castlevania games before they're ready. We the fans have been cock-teased for a decade now about how the next installment will finally be the one that puts Symphony of the Night to shame, but it never is. Tragically, they could've made that game in the GBA era if IGA had worked exclusively on one GBA Castlevania game instead of two, and Konami had poneyed up for a 16 MB cart. All we really needed was a game or a similar epic scope, a game that tried to show us new things about the Castlevania world while staying rooted in just enough tradition to keep it familiar. They didn't, so what we got were two games that are both pretty fun in their own right but were short and lacking the kind of audio greatness that is sadly no longer a trademark of the series. Dawn of Sorrow is even worse, because there are places where the game is lush with detail (like the opening area where you can see Big Foot in the background) and there you can really see a glimpse of what the next, real Castlevania game that would've been if Konami didn't know its fans were gullible enough to buy a watered down product (think back to how unplayable and dull the topmost floor of the Castle is in Dawn of Sorrow).

The second thing Konami could try to do is let someone else do something with the series. IGA is fucking out of ideas, and has been since Aria of Sorrow. But I think the bigger problem is that his take on the formula is way too damn rigid, so the new games feel just like the last game you bought while you're playing through them. None dare say it, but Castlevania is an ass hair away from turning into Megaman. Remember Symphony of the Night? Each character felt different, so much so that the game actually felt fresh when you re-played it through with Richter, or Maria. But more importantly, the game felt fresh even when you replayed it with Alucard, because the castle itself was always an exciting place to be. That got lost when Konami stopped giving the developers the time they needed to design Castlevania itself, which is in many ways the most important part of Castlevania as a series.

But what developer worth his salt would want to work on Castlevania these days? Just imagine it: IGA propositions you, and shows you some footage that looks the exact same as the game they just released. And you can tell the artists traced over the walk animation for the protagonist in the last Castlevania, just so it would feel as similar as possible. How could anyone who ever had dreams of doing something exciting or new want to work under leadership like that?

[Toups]

You know Showka, I do believe you are completely 100% dead on with that post. Every game Igarashi has made has shown signs of great promise and competence -- the man knows how to make a good boss fight, an interesting level layout, etc. The ideas are just spread so thin and there's shitloads of filler in every game.
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[JamesE]

[JamesE]

[Broco]

I think one point of praise that IGA's handheld games deserve is that aside from HoD (which had too damn many to polish them properly) they have had very awesome bosses. My favorite is AoS's Death; he has a randomness in his movements that makes him transcend the usual boss patterns -- every battle against him is different. One of the things I like to do with AoS is start it up on Hard and go through it as fast as possible, use the edge-of-platform trick to sequence break into the garden as soon as I have the double jump, and then rush up the clock tower and fight Death with an underleveled Soma. Makes for a truly epic fight.

There are lots of other great bosses, too. AoS's Balrog (love the Vampire Bat bait-and-switch there), PoR's Medusa, etc. Gotta love when you fight Belmonts, too. It's a nice twist on the old "fight a clone of yourself" cliche.


showka, you are right though that they are rushed. The release cycle is really short. This isn't likely to change, unfortunately. Working on games on a "when it's done" basis only works for huge sellers like Half-Life.

[JamesE]

I remember the build-up to Legion being amazingly sweet in Aria of Sorrow. The ghosts and the moaning. Aria is very polished, feels very complete. The hidden area is awesome. It was my first Castlevania.

Most Castlevania fans seem to have already decided in their heads what the series absolutely must be and this prevents them from enjoying the new ones. It is a sad thing to behold. Endlessly sad, like DonMarco talking about Mario 64 sad.

[diplo]

[firenze]

[firenze]

[Broco]

[diplo]

[Broco]

Man, who knows. All kinds of things can happen in a dev cycle. Staff changes, realizing that a given feature takes longer than anticipated, changes in toolsets that slow down your team, unexpected crippling bugs, late changes to the design forcing redoing stuff...

Anyway, there's no reason why the first area that the player sees would be the first created. Might have been one of the last ones created, when they had more experience working with the DS. Must've required quite a bit of effort to have those 3d houses in the background.

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

firenze has convinced me to get drunk on cocoa and finish my proposal for the Battle of the Holy Perfect Selection.
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[firenze]

[Laurel Soup]

Coincidently I picked Curse of Darkness back up today. About two hours in when I hit the skull-lined basement of the monastery it stopped feeling like a generic 3D adventure game set in a bunch of generic hallways and started to feel like one of the metrovanias, where the backgrounds of each area dripped with atmosphere. Remember that kitchen area of SotN where the purple wolf thing from Rondo was being carved up, or the bizarre giant bone-filled hellishness of HoD or Legion's area in AoS? Maybe they suffer from "monsters on a shelf" syndrome (which I understood as a concession to the RPG side of the games and the wandering monsters of that genre), but damn if that shelf isn't beautiful. These are games named for a setting, and recent entries have really brought that setting back into focus. Knytt pulled this off wonderfully as well.

I just hope that catacomb bit wasn't a fluke, although it probably was.
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[boojiboy7]

i enjoyed Curse of Darkness. not a great game, but fun enough that I beat the hell out of it.

[Toups]

[Shapermc]

[Rud31]

Castlevania hasn't been big in Japan for a long time. None of the GBA games sold well.
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