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[OmegaDL50]

yes... concept.. i said that.

The point is, I think it's unrealistic to have expectations of the concept art to be indicative of as quality of the finish product.

The developer can only HOPE to actually reach that goal. If they do manage to reach it, great. If not, at least it was a nice goal to work towards.

That doesn't mean Mn9 finished product was downgraded. It still looks nice and respectable of the goal it was striving towards. A Mega Man clone without exactly being Mega Man.

 

[Holy Order Sol]

But yes, using the "You don't know that!" argument is certainly absolute, however, I can use it just as well to discredit any claims that the ports wouldn't affect the project's scope. See the flaw of that reasoning?

I'm not the one questioning official word.

 

[duckroll]

It's probably not going to look like Xrd. That's not something you just "do". It takes hard work/great artists/lots of time.

Yeah I'm glad no one is expecting Inti-Creates to put in hard work, have great artists, or want to spend lots of time on something. That would surely only lead to disappointment.

 

[Istaerion]

I'm not the one questioning official word.

Questioning official word? Oh, you mean that I'm questioning their promise of an uncompromised product in all factors?

Well yes, then I suppose I would be wrong in that sense. We might as well never question anything because someone said something would definitely not happen.

C'mon.

 

[Theonik]

Yeah I'm glad no one is expecting Inti-Creates to put in hard work, have great artists, or want to spend lots of time on something. That would surely only lead to disappointment.

Inti-creates is a changed company. I'm sure they won't hurt us no more.

 

[KiraXD]

The point is, I think it's unrealistic to have expectations of the concept art to be indicative of as quality expectations of the finish product.

The developer can only HOPE to actually reach that goal. If they do manage to reach it, great. If not, at least it was a nice goal to work towards.

Why though? its what they used to fund the game. its what they used to get money from ME to make a game... why is it unrealistic for me to expect something close to what they show?

 

[Holy Order Sol]

Questioning official word? Oh, you mean that I'm questioning their promise of an uncompromised product in all factors?

Well yes, then I suppose I would be wrong in that sense. We might as well never question anything because someone said something would definitely not happen.

C'mon.

I'd take that over everyone trying to be an expert actually.

 

[Sciz]

But it didnt have to LOOK cheap.

Looking better than your budget in 3D is a pretty rare trick. The only developers I can think of offhand who've pulled it off did so by keeping a laser focus on a comparatively small scope (e.g. Xrd), or by straight up being a technical and artistic cut above the rest (e.g. Frozenbyte).

It'd be great if it were a looker, but we're talking about a developer working outside their comfort zone, on new technology, for peanuts.

 

[Istaerion]

I'd take that over everyone trying to be an expert actually.

Whelp, apparently I'm trying to be an expert for providing reasoning as to why people would have concerns and why they're reasonable. Nevermind everyone else claiming a bunch of things as to why no compromises or whatever could ever possibly be made; that's totally okay.

This is why you're seeing less discussion regarding the subject. It's not because of console wars, it's because the very discussion is pointless and gets nowhere when you're the one being attacked and accused of god knows what. I'm actually surprised I've even bothered to go on this long despite stating the exact same thing moments before.

I'm out. Have fun all!

 

[Sword Familiar]

Yeah I'm glad no one is expecting Inti-Creates to put in hard work, have great artists, or want to spend lots of time on something. That would surely only lead to disappointment.

Hah.

This isn't "something" though, it's "one specific thing". I'm sure they'll put in the hours where it counts. On eating, for instance.

 

[Crocodile]

Unless it's proven absolute certain that all the additional funding gained since the Wii U and Vita port announcement was in fact due to customers of such platforms, it's a bit silly to say the development for said port jobs was covered by said pledges. It could have attained this amount without said stretch goals or it could not have; it's uncertain.



I'm very aware most, if not all, Kickstarter game projects don't release on time. That's why I'm concerned regarding the idea of porting the project to two platforms with very uncertain futures as it stands let alone by the time the game releases.



That's the issue in the first place, everyone seems to be assuming that I'm guaranteeing these issues are 100% when I'm presenting them as possible consequences and scenarios hence why I believe people being concerned with the project is very reasonable.

It's others who believe 100% that the project will be butterflies and rainbows that are being quite unreasonable. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's very odd to see that perspective loved and encouraged and then have people voicing certain concerns despite how reasonable it may be trash-talked and run out of the thread.

To discern explicitly between correlation and causation would require us to poll every recent backer (as well as anybody who changed their pledges recently) which is something we can't really do. However, if you spend two seconds on Kicktraq, you can clearly see that the rate of funding has increased since a Wii U stretch goal was announced and again when the Wii U port was confirmed and the Vita stretch goal was announced. I expect it to increase again (or maintain pace) when the Vita port is confirmed. I mean, one of the points of the platform goals is to get more pledges. To argue they have NO effect is contrary to reality.

Also, yes, anything could happen but there is a difference between realistic and unrealistic fears and concerns. It's not a matter of believing in unicorns and triple rainbows. Many aren't convinced your concerns are realistic based on what we know right now (which is different than just possible).

Why though? its what they used to fund the game. its what they used to get money from ME to make a game... why is it unrealistic for me to expect something close to what they show?

A) That's the definition of concept art. It rarely is a perfect match for the final product
B) What they promised they would deliver and what they actually delivered are actually pretty damn close

 

[stan423321]

I think the whole issue stems from a rather interesting development philosophy difference between various Kickstarter users. Shovel Knight devs, Yooka-Laylee devs, and a lot of other teams launched their campaign with a prototype ready to show and discuss. Meanwhile MN9, Bloodstained, and Broken Age launched with nothing working, though to give credit where it's due, the last one was very transparent about it by not showing anything new either.

So naturally, when you have Shovel Knight releasing and looking exactly* like the thing they have shown during the campaign, people think it's not that unreasonable for other developers to have their projects releasing in a form at least resembling the style of detailed concept art. And no, MN9 does not look like its devs were aiming for it with regular surface shading of all things.

* Somebody is going to point me to some differences I guess, but you know what I mean

 

[charlequin]

That's the issue in the first place, everyone seems to be assuming that I'm guaranteeing these issues are 100% when I'm presenting them as possible consequences and scenarios hence why I believe people being concerned with the project is very reasonable.

Having an actual, concrete issue, which you can back up with a plausible case for how it will happen and how likely it is, is entirely reasonable. Being "concerned" about things that you aren't saying will happen, just that they could, even though "could" is some tiny chance you don't work out, is not. There's a thing called "concern trolling," and this type of "concern" is the reason why.

Almost any ludicrous scenario you cook up might have some chance of happening, so for a concern to be reasonable it needs to stand out well above the background noise in terms of likelihood. Could IGA run off with all the money and never deliver anything? Could he lose a foot in an industrial accident and have to drop from the project? Could Microsoft leave the console industry in 2016 and stop licensing new X1 games? I guess on some theoretical level yes, all of these things "could" happen, but they're so unlikely and so unsupported that talking about them as serious concerns is absurd. In this case, the chance of the game being rushed out the door unfinished just to satisfy Vita owners -- by Deep Silver, the publisher who just delayed MN9 to spend money adding extra features and polish -- is similarly absurd.

Essentially, you have to be able to back up vague, ominous concerns with something more concrete than "well it COULD happen!"

 

[Y2Kev]

On top of that, the game is likely to be bad anyway because it's by SHITga! /duckroll

 

[mrpeabody]

As for Wii U and Vita not being valid platforms by 2017, I don't think that is as much a concern for the Wii U version compared to the Vita version since if push came to shove, they could end up releasing an NX version instead that is on par with the PS4/XB1/PC version. With Vita, Sony's not likely to release a successor handheld to it, so what's going to happen if Vita is dead as a doornail?

The Vita version won't sell, but it doesn't matter. The extra costs -- doing the port, producing more physical rewards, certification -- are presumably included in the stretch goal. A physical release for Vita is extremely unlikely. And they'll have plenty of revenue from the three big platforms, and from the backers.

 

[OmegaDL50]

So I brought it up before but it was probably missed during all of the commotion about the port discussion.

Castlevania had candles as it's breakable object and dropped hearts for MP / Sub-weapon ammo usage.

I wonder what the breakable object and collectable will be for Bloodstained. I don't think they can re-use the candles = hearts mechanic it might be hit a bit too close for comfort.

I considered the idea of them possibly using floating orbs of stained glass and when shattered they drop crystal or glass fragments which serve the same purpose as Candles giving out hearts.

Also in regards for Sub-Weapons. I don't think we are going to get a identical setup to the Castlevania traditional standard of Dagger, Axe, Holy Water, Cross.

But we will probably get something similar but different. I wonder what they will use.

 

[Sword Familiar]

A crystal wine glass as a sub-weapon would be neat. It would make Miriam yell "Have at you!" (or "what is a man") everytime she uses it, and make a shattering sound when it hits the ground/target.

Edit: It's pretty hard to speculate how the systems will work with so little information. We might know a bit more after the next "Ask Iga", which about "Special Attacks".

 

[Psxphile]

So I brought it up before but it was probably missed during all of the commotion about the port discussion.

Castlevania had candles as it's breakable object and dropped hearts for MP / Sub-weapon ammo usage.

I wonder what the breakable object and collectable will be for Bloodstained. I don't think they can re-use the candles = hearts mechanic it might be hit a bit too close for comfort.

I considered the idea of them possibly using floating orbs of stained glass and when shattered they drop crystal or glass fragments which serve the same purpose as Candles giving out hearts.

OG Ninja Gaiden had a similar system: the first employed a different "slashable" object on each stage keeping with its theme (mosquitoes, street lights, torches, tiny hovering birds, etc.)... the rest just used a generic floating orb.

 

[~Kinggi~]

Fairly big boost last two days in numbers. Slightly abnormal campaign this has been.

 

[Creaking]

Fairly big boost last two days in numbers. Slightly abnormal campaign this has been.

Maybe it's those Wii U fans, lending their support now that their preferred version is confirmed to be happening. Or Vita fans, still believing that Vita means life.

 

[Theonik]

Maybe it's those Wii U fans, lending their support now that their preferred version is confirmed to be happening. Or Vita fans, still believing that Vita means life.

But Vita IS life.

 

[charlequin]

Fairly big boost last two days in numbers. Slightly abnormal campaign this has been.

This is pretty normal when campaigns get late platform stretch goals, in my experience.

 

[Sword Familiar]

It's probably duckroll adding money to the campaign in an attempt to add as many ports as possible, detracting attention from the main build.

 

[Theonik]

It's probably duckroll adding money to the campaign in an attempt to add as many ports as possible, detracting attention from the main build.

And after they promise them. Yoink, he puts his pledge down to $1 in the last minute.

 

[OmegaDL50]

Maybe it's those Wii U fans, lending their support now that their preferred version is confirmed to be happening. Or Vita fans, still believing that Vita means life.

I still just think the thirst for HD Igavania is real.

It's been 18 full years since we had a original console release of a Metroid-style Castlevania title. The last one being Symphony of the Night, it was also the last one ironically as well.

While yes this game is getting a Vita release, considering the main platform it's being developer for is console. Having a successor to a console version of Igavania that fulfills the role of a modern day Symphony of the Night, that is some very big shoes to fill.

There is also the fact that while SOTN only had to borrow some of it's monster and enemy designs from Rondo of Blood and the rest was entirely new assets. The GBA and DS games borrowed heavily from SOTN in terms of monster sprites and whatnot.

In the case of Bloodstained though. It's entirely clean slate. They have nothing carries over to work from, which is why it's a very interesting challenge.

To have a Castlevania-inspired title with all new assets, all new monsters, new characters. It's an appealing prospect to look forward to.

 

[mrpeabody]

Let's be honest -- Bloodstained is at the beginning of development. A lot of the design is still up in the air. Giving them your money now requires a certain amount of faith.

If you need an ironclad guarantee that the game will be good, or look a certain way, you should probably wait for retail. There's a long road between where they are today and a finished product.

 

[Delusibeta]

Honestly? If you're doing a WiiU port, might as well do a Vita port, considering the platforms are roughly comparable in terms of power.

 

[foxuzamaki]

Honestly? If you're doing a WiiU port, might as well do a Vita port, considering the platforms are roughly comparable in terms of power.

I dont know if im taking the bait or not. But not really.

 

[Escalario]

Honestly? If you're doing a WiiU port, might as well do a Vita port, considering the platforms are roughly comparable in terms of power.

 

[VariantX]

Honestly? If you're doing a WiiU port, might as well do a Vita port, considering the platforms are roughly comparable in terms of power.

They're not that close. Otherwise borderlands 2 vita wouldn't have ran consistently in upper 10's to lower 20's in scenes where there was nothing going on while the console ports at least sat at 30 consistently until major action started going down. Both injustice and mk9 wouldn't have had to make massive sacrifices to visuals just to get them to run at 60 fps. Of course, Unreal 3 is the common thread here, and there maybe other engines better suited for them to use that could yield much better results and much more faithful versions of the game when its ported.

 

[sechsterangriff]

They're not that close. Otherwise borderlands 2 vita wouldn't have ran consistently in upper 10's to lower 20's in scenes where there was nothing going on while the console ports at least sat at 30 consistently until major action started going down. Both injustice and mk9 wouldn't have had to make massive sacrifices to visuals just to get them to run at 60 fps. Of course, Unreal 3 is the common thread here, and there maybe other engines better suited for them to use that could yield much better results and much more faithful versions of the game when its ported.

Do we even know what engine the game will be built on? Also, will it be strictly polygon based, sprite based or both?
Games like Dragon's Crown prove there's little to compromise when it comes to sprite based games on the Vita.

 

[InfiniteNine]

Do we even know what engine the game will be built on? Also, will it be strictly polygon based, sprite based or both?
Games like Dragon's Crown prove there's little to compromise when it comes to sprite based games on the Vita.

Unreal 4 in with things modeled in 3D with a 2D perspective. (2.5D)

 

[sechsterangriff]

Unreal 4 in with things modeled in 3D with a 2D perspective. (2.5D)

Yeah... Unreal Engine doesn't have a great track record on Vita... Let's just hope Unreal 4 is better optimized for mobile
I guess in a worst case scenario the Vita and/or WiiU versions will be farmed out to a different developer to be ported to a different engine. The same happened to Mighty No. 9, I think.

 

[Game Guru]

Pic looks pretty damn close to the concept art to me.

They will probably release it on Vita anyways, dead or not. Vita will probably become a platform still supported way pay its "death" like the Neo Geo or the Dreamcast since it has fans that are really dedicated.

You know what? I wouldn't be surprised if Vita is supported until a Nintendo Handheld comes out that matches it in specs.

 

[Parsnip]

snip

All I meant was that they should stop the goals at the orchestral score, not literally adding a goal to "make the game better." Asynchronous online multiplayer already feels like an odd addition to this type of game, and it makes me slightly worried about further goals.
I hope they don't feel like they need to add more goals just for the sake of adding more goals.


Maybe that's just me though.

 

[OmegaDL50]

The amount the stretch goal listed has little to do with what the stretch goal states is on offer.

Stretch goals are an incentive to get more pledges for the overall project. It's not piece meal. What they're really aiming for is as high a budget as possible for as much creative freedom as possible, able to spend extra money just on making what they DO have nicer.

I'm quoting myself of course.

If the entire project reaches the supposedly claimed Orchestrated soundtrack in 2 to 3 days from now.

That meaning hitting the 3.75 Million mark and there is still 9 days of campaign to go. I don't think they are going to just simply stop with Stretch Goals, hence their purpose to entice people to continue to pledge and throw more money at this project.

It may sound misleading, but don't be surprised for them to list something as a stretch goal they had intended to include regardless if it was a stretch goal or not, just to continue to have that lure of people to continue to provide pledges for the project until the very end of the campaign.

 

[charlequin]

All I meant was that they should stop the goals at the orchestral score, not literally adding a goal to "make the game better." Asynchronous online multiplayer already feels like an odd addition to this type of game, and it makes me slightly worried about further goals.
I hope they don't feel like they need to add more goals just for the sake of adding more goals.

K, I feel like we're on more or less the same page then. I kind of went off on a huge tangent from your post, heh.

 

[ZeroTheShadow]

Yo I'm done! LOL! That's it. Holy shit! LOL!

 

[Maxrunner]

Honestly? If you're doing a WiiU port, might as well do a Vita port, considering the platforms are roughly comparable in terms of power.

If by roughly tou still mean a lot then yeah..

 

[Valkyri von Thanatos]

Let's just hope they never even consider a 3DS port. There is literally no way Armature could downport to that aside from making an entirely different "retro version" out of sprites.

As for Vita, I will be happy to play it on it eventually, even if there is no way it would not affect things. To quote just a very small portion of my post from the 143rd page that was clearly too big for its own good:

(Stuff about Project Cars' development team having difficulty bringing the game to Wii U, seemingly hoping to be able to bring the game to the "NX" because they arent sure they can port it)

I find it unlikely that IntiCreates will take any chances at breaking such a promise when developing this game and consequently must put more effort into ensuring the game's gameplay and relative visual parity than most people here give them credit for. Despite a majority of the load of dealing with programming on two different engines being lifted by outsourcing this Wii U version to Armature, there is no actual way for them to go completely "hands off" with it. To actually go without constantly considering "can Armature actually manage this on Wii U?" and working closely with them to ensure parity would be hugely irresponsible.

(...)

I trust these developers to keep their promises, and to do their best to make the game the best it can be on both platform sets, this trust extends however to IntiCreates not employing a "hands off" approach. Such an action would actually be very worrying for me, as both companies will have to have close co-operation to make this come to fruition. Naturally I understand people's worries that this co-operation will cause snags during the games development, and I wouldn't expect loading times or graphics to be unaffected on Wii U, but I doubt the core of the game will have to be sacrificed to appease Wii U development so I don't share these exact concerns.

This of course is exemplified by the Vita port, so we can absolutely not expect this game to match up to a PS4/XBOX ONE/PC native project, but the truth is that it probably never would have. What matters more is its gameplay, which is less likely to be compromised by all these ports. Honestly, if the game looks like a mid to high end Wii U game (see Nintendo's frst party output, Bayonetta 2, etc.) and is appropriately scaled on the other platforms (1080p/60 on PS4/XBOX ONE, whatever you want on PC, and 30fps and probably some acceptable sub-native resolution on Vita) I'd be very happy. What matters for aesthetics most is its artistic quality, which will probably be well expressed regardless of tech. The game was always going to be heavily based on SotN in terms of the scope of the gameplay, so sprawling areas that wouldn't fit in the Vita's RAM were probably unlikely to begin with.

 

[Maxrunner]

Let's just hope they never even consider a 3DS port. There is literally no way Armature could downport that.

As for Vita, I will be happy to play it on it eventually, even if there is no way it would not affect things. To quote just a very small portion of my post from the 143rd page that was clearly too big for its own good:



This of course is exemplified by the Vita port, so we can absolutely not expect this game to match up to a PS4/XBOX ONE/PC native project, but the truth is that it probably never would have. What matters more is its gameplay, which is less likely to be compromised by all these ports. Honestly, if the game looks like a mid to high end Wii U game (see Nintendo's frst party output, Bayonetta 2, etc.) and is appropriately scaled on the other platforms (1080p/60 on PS4/XBOX ONE, whatever you want on PC, and 30fps and probably some acceptable sub-native resolution on Vita) I'd be very happy. What matters for aesthetics most is its artistic quality, which will probably be well expressed regardless of tekch. The game was always going to be heavily based on SotN in terms of the scope of the gameplay, so sprawling areas that wouldn't fit in the Vita's RAM were probably unlikely to begin with.

I would take a 3ds port with pixel art link symphony of night all day. This looks too clean...

 

[Valkyri von Thanatos]

I would take a 3ds port with pixel art link symphony of night all day. This looks too clean...

Well, I'd love it too, but its not on the cards. Such a "port" would take a pretty vast amount of work to match anywhere close to the original, and this isn't because of hardware restraints. It would just be a massive undertaking in terms of manpower, and would require a pretty large sum of cash I expect. Plus I'm pretty sure Armature has little experience with pixel-art. Personally, that's still what I'd want a Vita version to be (Wii U can probably handle a 2.5D version fairly handedly as I think I expressed above), but the Vita would be best to make with sprites.

Ideally IMO, Armature could make the game out of sprites by doing what Mortal Kombat used to do and using pictures as sprites, except this time obviously pictures of the game's own assets. Like just recording every model and animation variation for all the enemies and characters as sprites using a high quality version of all of the models, maybe with the shaders intact as an actual calculation that changes these sprites with lighting changes in the still fully 3D environment. I guess this is a process known as "digitization", though again, I'd like to stress that I'm not talking about digitizing real life actors, but the game's own 3D models, lol.

The only problem is the aforementioned storage concern on Vita, as it is the first of the consoles with versions proposed that can in no way match up to the storage capacity of the other consoles, as the Wii U has a disc of 25GB, but Vita games should at most not exceed much higher than 4GB, which would still leave a few people with 4GB memory cards out of luck.
No way is there enough space to cram everything into a set of pictures so small as to be an acceptably sized Vita game.

 

[Zombegoast]

I asked this earlier but wouldn't it be better to make the Wii U and Vita version through Unity 5? It's much more powerful than UDK and those "downgrades" on the Wii U will be pretty much be gone.

 

[Sectus]

This has probably been talked about a bunch, but I just realized they've got Robert Belgrade to do voicework for Bloodstained, and that's quite super awesome. It'd be neat if they took an extra step and got the Dracula voice actor too.

And speaking of which, I might as well link this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkDwXB5RROk - I made a birthday video for a friend which is just a spoof on the SOTN intro. Maybe someone here can find it amusing (and make the many hours I spent on it worthwhile).

 

[Alo81]

This has probably been talked about a bunch, but I just realized they've got Robert Belgrade to do voicework for Bloodstained, and that's quite super awesome. It'd be neat if they took an extra step and got the Dracula voice actor too.

And speaking of which, I might as well link this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkDwXB5RROk - I made a birthday video for a friend which is just a spoof on the SOTN intro. Maybe someone here can find it amusing (and make the many hours I spent on it worthwhile).

That Gar backwards is Dracula line was real dumb in a way I love and appreciate lol.

 

[Alastor3]

That's about what people should have been expecting from the very start. It's the same developer!

Same dev but not same director

 

[Valkyri von Thanatos]

Same dev but not same director

How much is/was handled by Comcept then?

 

[CamHostage]

I asked this earlier but wouldn't it be better to make the Wii U and Vita version through Unity 5? It's much more powerful than UDK and those "downgrades" on the Wii U will be pretty much be gone.

Somebody already talked about how UE4 is probably the wrong engine overall for what they're talking about trying (M3d10n talked about the technical drawbacks of UE4, which us regs kind of don't think about when a new engine version has a new number instead of a new name, we just figure it makes everything "better", but they're different things) and so unless IntiCreates either has more experience with UE4 than expected or has plans to deliver something different from the target render or just has to lock into UE4 as a choice, maybe that'll change anyway?

I was going to guess that Armature would port it over through their own engine, but these guys have worked with so many different engines that maybe there's something to this job that plays to their strengths.

 

[Sciz]

unless IntiCreates either has more experience with UE4 than expected or has plans to deliver something different from the target render or just has to lock into UE4 as a choice, maybe that'll change anyway?

It's probably safe to assume that most of the staff on this game will be carried over from the MN9 team, which is on UE3, ergo they're sticking with UE on the basis of familiarity.

 

[M1ch04c4n0]

I really hope now Armature does a hell of a job and the WiiU ends up being the best version to play (locked and high FPS, no bugs, no need to wait for patches in order to progress, that little details that were a given in better times).

When did NeoGAF (or part of it) decided that the fabled "NX" is a home console? Logic dictates is the successor of the 3DS.

Day one, of course. Igarashi is guarantee of an enjoyable adventure.