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Castlevania Community Thread | What is a man?!

killatopak

Gold Member
I know this may be port begging so forgive me but is there any chance that Castlevania: Harmony of Despair will come to the Vita?
 
J

Jotamide

Unconfirmed Member
I know this may be port begging so forgive me but is there any chance that Castlevania: Harmony of Despair will come to the Vita?

As long as Iga is still locked in a coffin deep in Konami's basement, you won't see anything Castlevania that isn't Lords of Shadow or a new reimagining of the franchise. David Cox is in charge of Castlevania as of 2013.

Speaking of port begging...are the Rebirth games from the Wii VC available on the 3DS eShop?

No. I guess we'd be lucky if they are ever ported to the Wii U.
 

killatopak

Gold Member
As long as Iga is still locked in a coffin deep in Konami's basement, you won't see anything Castlevania that isn't Lords of Shadow or a new reimagining of the franchise. David Cox is in charge of Castlevania as of 2013.

Why?

I can't see it happening at this point. Shame really, this kind of game would be perfect on the Vita imo

I agree. Playing it on the go would suit it far more than consoles IMO.
 

jaosobno

Member
A supposed social media manager from Konami commented on this last year in a thread about Igarashi. Basically he said the franchise is in the hands of Konami Europe and MercurySteam. So it doesn't look good for people hoping for another Iga game.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=84579261&postcount=147

If I'm not mistaken, LoS2 should conclude the story (kinda expected a trilogy but duology is a nice change of pace). Is it possible they give series back to IGA after that?

Frankly, I've played LoS on PS3 and I thought the game was good. But that's all this it was; good. It doesn't excel in any way. Metroidvanias on the other hand are among the best and most fun games I have played in 23 years of gaming career.

I remember buying NDS just so I could play Castlevanias there (before and after that, I have absolutely never bought a platform just for a single franchise) and I loved every second of those games (I even bought Circle of the Moon and finished it on NDS).

I play to buy 3DS XL in a month or two and I am dying to see Castlevania there. Most of all, I'd like for series to reboot. Dawn of Sorrow took things too far into the future and I'd like timeline to go back to the dark ages.
 
Yeah, I remember seeing multiple times LoS2 is Mercurysteams last entry with the series.

Hopefully that's the case and they can give it back to Iga or make us some proper Classicvanias again.
pr both.
 

Retro

Member
Sounds like Rondo you're suggesting, and I'd be quite happy with another game like that. Worked great with Richter and Maria, so something similar would be great.

Rondo or Dracula's Curse, yep. Having multiple paths, but linear levels would qualify as a "Classicvania", but with a secondary character who can gain items or skills to progress and reach sections of the levels that the Belmont could not.

I've always wanted to see them expand on Rondo's idea of rescuing people hidden in the castle, but have the prisoners become playable after released. Give each prisoner a different play style and means of exploring the castle and it could get really interesting.
 
I'll be getting the game next week when it gets discounted can I join your guys party (PS3?)?

EDIT: Anyone feel free to add me my PSN is DracoBlade712

May I as well? My PSN is the same as my GAF name, add me! :3

Oh, we need to do this. My PSN is RanmaBelmont

<3

I'm down to play Harmony at some point, especially with that sale soon, meaning even more people to get in on the fun



I'd be okay with this
Man that's almost a full party including myself. Will be adding all of you when I get home
 

Sgblues

Member
Rondo or Dracula's Curse, yep. Having multiple paths, but linear levels would qualify as a "Classicvania", but with a secondary character who can gain items or skills to progress and reach sections of the levels that the Belmont could not.

I've always wanted to see them expand on Rondo's idea of rescuing people hidden in the castle, but have the prisoners become playable after released. Give each prisoner a different play style and means of exploring the castle and it could get really interesting.

Yeah I always liked in games like Dracula's Curse of Rondo where you got to play as different characters, for me ideally I wanted to see something more like Order of Ecclesia where, you can explore the countryside going to familiar and unfamiliar places fighting monsters and bosses, liberating towns and finally can head towards Drac's castle and that itself is large and expansive with all the usual areas(clocktower, library, underground cave/water sections etc) but with each character they would have things like alternate and optional sections and bosses to deal with.


And yeah I would be down to playing Harmony of Despair, just gotta remember to buy it.
 
I have a feeling I'm going to play through Super Castlevania IV another 450 times when it comes out on Wii U. When it came out on Wii, I remember playing through it three times in a row the day it hit the shop.
 

DMiz

Member
Was jonesing to complete my collection of Castlevania stuff, so I managed to get my hands on Castlevania: Lament of Innocence (starring the most handsome Belmont) and Curse of Darkness last week.

Haven't really made any head-way into either one of them, although I will say that the copy-paste nature of the hallways in LoI is getting to me. It does, however, have the prettier graphics - 2 hours into both games, anyway. Didn't CoD come out after it?
 
J

Jotamide

Unconfirmed Member
Alrighty, added you guys.
Also, when did they put up LoI on PSN? Been waiting for it forever.
It's been there for like a month now. I haven't grabbed it because I'm gonna get the LoS collection first.
 
Was jonesing to complete my collection of Castlevania stuff, so I managed to get my hands on Castlevania: Lament of Innocence (starring the most handsome Belmont) and Curse of Darkness last week.

Haven't really made any head-way into either one of them, although I will say that the copy-paste nature of the hallways in LoI is getting to me. It does, however, have the prettier graphics - 2 hours into both games, anyway. Didn't CoD come out after it?

Ya Curse of Darkness came out after Lament of Innocence, I've only played Lament but I've heard Curse is the better game.
 
It's been there for like a month now. I haven't grabbed it because I'm gonna get the LoS collection first.
Ohhh, I guess I didn't see it since I've been on my Wii U and 3DS alot.
Also, my GT is the same as my name for those I added amd those I haven't gotten a chance too.
 

kunonabi

Member
So, when does Lords of Shadow get good? The OT made it seem like an overlooked gem, but I'm just into chapter three and it just seems like a pretty mashup of God of War, Uncharted and Shadow of the Colossus. The titan fights were awful and I'm getting sick of tracking down shards to move on to the next area. Does it ever turn into something half-way resembling a Castlevania game or am I just wasting my time?

It never really gets good. It's a medicore game with some great art direction and a decent puzzle or two. The story had potential but they botched it pretty badly too.
 
Man that's almost a full party including myself. Will be adding all of you when I get home

Cool, added you back and adding the others. When do you guys want to play? I'll be online tonight if any of you want to play some.

I'm down to play anything, although I'm farming Miser Rings primarily, I love stages 9, 10 and 11 as well.
 

Retro

Member
Yeah I always liked in games like Dracula's Curse of Rondo where you got to play as different characters, for me ideally I wanted to see something more like Order of Ecclesia where, you can explore the countryside going to familiar and unfamiliar places fighting monsters and bosses, liberating towns and finally can head towards Drac's castle and that itself is large and expansive with all the usual areas(clocktower, library, underground cave/water sections etc) but with each character they would have things like alternate and optional sections and bosses to deal with.

I like the idea of having multiple characters in Castlevania because it vaguely recalls the narrative structure of the Dracula novel where multiple first-person accounts are arranged to tell the story. It could also help bridge the gulf between the two styles of game the series has become.

In my wildest fantasies, Konami hands the series to Vanillaware, who reboot Castlevania as a gorgeous, hand drawn 2-D platformer. The game would star Simon Belmont in his mission to defeat Dracula, while along the way rescuing a variety of side characters who become playable afterwords. Simon's path would be linear stages with a few alternating paths, ala CVIII, but the other characters would be able to explore sections Simon skipped, so that you play through it as "Classicvania" as Simon and "Metroidvania" as others. Simon's stuff is straight Castlevania IV-style twitch, but the other characters can have some of the RPG elements and such that the series has picked up over the years (which is another reason why I like Vanillaware; they've come up with some really quirky, interesting gameplay concepts over the years).

After you finish the game, you unlock "Simon's Quest", which would be an ultra-difficult non-linear romp through Transylvania as Simon, several years after the main game (allowing you to see how the characters you rescued got on too). Sort of a Master Quest + epilogue thing.

Also, I would love to see them take a more Dark Souls-oriented approach to the storytelling. I was watching the AVGN video someone linked earlier, and he has a point about the game getting more text-heavy as the years have gone by. I'd like to see the story told through atmosphere, gameplay and item descriptions. People get the gist of Castlevania, there's no need to go much deeper than "Dracula needs to die" and then build on that with gameplay-driven narrative.

For example, when I was a kid, I always thought the Ghost Ship in CVIII had a little intentional story of it's own; Medusa and the Cyclops are Greek and the mummies are from Egypt, so I wondered how could they end up in Transylvania? I thought the idea was that a haunted ship sailed all over the world, collecting monsters or evil magic wherever they could find it and dragged it back to Castlevania. It made perfect sense when I was 8. Playing through SotN later, I thought that'd be a nice explanation for why there's foreign weapons all over the place (Katanas, Chakram, etc.).

It kind of tells a story without being blunt about it. Maybe one of the playable characters is a stowaway on the ghost ship, and their foreign nature sort of drives that point home. A different continent's equivalent of a Belmont or something.
 

Marz

Member
I'm going to get the LoS Collection before I make an opinion on those games, but from what I tried of the 3DS demo...its probably going to be a chore to finish.

They need to just let IGA make 2D titles on PSN/E-Shop so they don't have to worry about a large budget and the hardcore fans can get what they want.
 
Cool, added you back and adding the others. When do you guys want to play? I'll be online tonight if any of you want to play some.

I'm down to play anything, although I'm farming Miser Rings primarily, I love stages 9, 10 and 11 as well.
It's cool. I'll be on in just a bit if you are on now.
Just send me a PM on psn when your ready.
 

Tizoc

Member
Anyone else enjoyed Curse of Darkness?

I don't remember ever beating it but I enjoyed what I played of it.
 

dubc35

Member
After spending most of the weekend looking around to find good Metroidvania games on the systems I have, I decided to say fuck it and bought a DS off ebay. I already have AoS from several years ago so that’s going to be first probably followed by DoS.
 
It's cool. I'll be on in just a bit if you are on now.
Just send me a PM on psn when your ready.

aw man did I miss a session yesterday? Damn, I was stuck downloading BlazBlue and didn't want to play anything online to pause it. Send me a PSN message if another one's up in the future, I shouldn't be downloading any big games for a while
 

Yazuka

Member
Anyone else enjoyed Curse of Darkness?

I don't remember ever beating it but I enjoyed what I played of it.

Yo!
I really enjoyed it, was and is one of my favorites. I think it got a lot of shit, that it didn't deserve. Oh, sure it's not a masterpiece not by a longshot. But I like it.
 

F0rneus

Tears in the rain
Anyone else enjoyed Curse of Darkness?

I don't remember ever beating it but I enjoyed what I played of it.

I love it. It's got horrifically bad level design (plain dull corridors and copy pasted rooms over and over) but the incredible soundtrack, and the rich gameplay more than make up for it. Seriously, CoD had one of the best gaming OSTs ever.
 
aw man did I miss a session yesterday? Damn, I was stuck downloading BlazBlue and didn't want to play anything online to pause it. Send me a PSN message if another one's up in the future, I shouldn't be downloading any big games for a while

No probs. I probably won't be free til late at night today and tomorrow. The rest of the days I should be good so if your on I'll let you know.
 

Vanillalite

Ask me about the GAF Notebook
I'd LOVE LOVE LOVE a sequel in the vein of Simon's Quest, but we will never get that. OOE trended towards that, but lacked the free flowing connected world without going back to the world map. Plus it only had 1 town, and lacked the day night thing.

I know most people don't have overtly found memories of Simon's Quest like I do though. :p
 

Creaking

He touched the black heart of a mod
Anyone else enjoyed Curse of Darkness?

I don't remember ever beating it but I enjoyed what I played of it.

Absolutely. The bad environment design is made up for against the huge challenge you get when fighting on the "Crazy" difficulty. And yeah, that soundtrack.
 
I never liked the Metroidvania games at all. They are all so ridiculously easy.

I love classic Castlevania though. Unless you count the Gameboy games. Those games are fucking garbage.
 
You know the thing that always baffled me with Harmony of Despair was the freaking character balance. Soma get's a soul ability from every enemy basically and Shanoa has like five spells >_>

I know they gave her a few dlc spells but it's nowhere near what she had in OoE.
 
You know the thing that always baffled me with Harmony of Despair was the freaking character balance. Soma get's a soul ability from every enemy basically and Shanoa has like five spells >_>

I know they gave her a few dlc spells but it's nowhere near what she had in OoE.
Yeah, unfortunately the entire game was made around Soma for the fact that Soma fans moaned and complained that he was underpowered or other characters where getting to powerful. Tis why Charlotte, Alucard, and Shanoa where either nerfed or didn't get enough love.
 

F0rneus

Tears in the rain
Any Gaffer that's down for Harmony of Despair, can add me on XBL or PSN. I own the game and the DLC on both platforms haha. One of the best Castlevanias ever IMO. Id same as username on both too haha.

PS. Have a mic for 360, but none on PS3 T_T
 
J

Jotamide

Unconfirmed Member
GGs spyhunterzero, sorry for lagging behind all the time, today was my first time playing the game. Is it just Shanoa that is so miserably slow compared to the rest? Might have to switch character. :(
 
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