Question of the Month

 

"How would you bring the series into the world of 3D?"

Answer #1 | Answer #2 | Answer #3 | Answer #4

Answer #1
By vagrantcharly

Let's cut right to the chase: I've put up a list of things that would definitely be welcome in the next 3D installment of Castlevania. So here we go:

- Realistic atmosphere: Remember Legacy of Darkness...? A few game flaws aside, no other game in the series has managed to capture the desolate atmosphere of Castlevania like this game did. We need more of that. Oh, and if the game's gonna be based on present/future day events, PLEASE don't give the characters japanese names. And please don't let it take place in Japan. I mean, Japan's all well and good but, c'mon, Yoko Belnades...? Genya Arikado...? At least our hero was properly named. Stay in Europe. Please. It doesn't take much to see through your fan-service attempts.

- Fun, intuitive combat system: Keep it simple, yet flexible. No predefined combos, please. LOI's combat system was too on-rails for my tastes. What about combining different weapons and techniques in order to create our own set of fighting styles...? Whip + Sub-Weapon, Whip + Magic, Whip + Sword, Sword + Innocent Devil, Sub-Weapon + Sub-Weapon...? That way each player could find the style he/she prefers and actually sit through and enjoy the game.

- Death to the RPG system: It worked for SOTN and COTM, but after that, it quickly became an uninspired, worn-out design... LOI did good to stray away from it, but failed in replacing the system with something of equal scope and value. Assign bonuses to the player as he performs different actions and finds stat-boosting items. Or even simplify the RPG system, where EXP Points no longer matter and all you need to do is find that next, well-hidden piece of armor to boost your defense just enough to bear the next boss fight.

- Menacing foes: Let's face it, pattern-based fights should be a thing of the past. Even games of previous generation consoles featured several forms of simple, yet reactive AI. Turok 2 comes to mind... Enemies should react to your attacks, just like you react to theirs and even make decissions on the fly, like change the direction of their fireball if you're about to move and such other intricacies. They should form legions of undead, struggling to land the first blow and sometimes even working together. A game like Castlevania should pose a good challenge, but not the cheap Haunted Castle-like system some games seem to embrace, where the player's skill doesn't even factor into the whole scheme.

- Realistic characters: Cartoon ghosts and other such nonsense (points to LOI) just won't cut it. We want monsters, not muppets. It CAN be done... Look at Vagrant Story and TELL me it can't be surpassed with current technology.

- Decent voice actors: Fortunately, we're getting there already. How hard can it be to find someone talented enough to voice our favorite characters...? The game's producer's supposed to oversee the quality of the final product, so please, PRODUCE!

- The itty-bitty details: If someone cuts your head off in a single strike, or slices your body in half with a big-ass sword, you should die. Works both ways too. We could call those "Critical" hits. Of course, this shouldn't happen all the time, but it would give the game a sense of urgency and keep those hearts pumping when facing the all-powerful first boss. Immersion!! Make the screen blur in a red, bloody haze, show off a few drops of sweat when looking around in first person mode, disable your character's ability to run after having fallen from high above, maybe even make a few bones snap here and there until you get to a save point. Let the player's clothes become soaked in blood, get ripped during combat, catch fire, who knows...? Make us feel every little thing counts, make us feel the game.

- A massive adventure: I know this is rather hard to gauge when designing a game, but no adventure game should be beaten in less than 20~25 hours the first time around and call itself decent. Throw in a decent amount of stages and a good challenge (as mentioned above), coupled with a few nice little puzzles here and there and you got yourself a game that's set to give players a run for their cash. Who knows? You might end up creating the next classic in the series. A well-rounded, rewarding game will always be appreciated.

- Bonus or burst!!: Secret characters, hidden weapons, extra features, boss rush, a "making of" video, specific challenges to earn cheats for the next play-through (infinite Hearts, increased speed, greater health, and what have you...). Make the player come back for more and make it worth his buck.

There's so many things I'd like to see in the next game, I wish I were there, working on the game myself, that way I would actually know I gave it my all in order for it to happen... I just wish...

So that's it. The rest are a given for all games nowadays: a decent camera system, mind-boggling graphics, awesome soundtrack... One thing I'd like to see as well is a new character designer and maybe a new composer behind the project... I mean, I love both Kojima and Yamane's work, it's truly good, but I feel the series has become sort of stagnated in that regard as well. It kind of feels tired and worn-out when compared to the freshness that was SOTN. I don't think any of the succeeding games managed to capture my imagination like SOTN did, both visually (enough with the shemales, already) and aurally (does Yamane's style seem to be loosing its luster?). We need some fresh talent behind the game. Maybe even a new Producer/Director. Oh, that would SO kick ass...

Answer #2
By Tyler Rietze

Basically, do almost everything different than before. What really is needed is brand new everything, with some of LOI's and SOTN's music (all hail Michiru Yamane).

Let's start with the little stuff, well the more important things in reality, the enemies, and boss battles. What we really need is HARD. We haven't had an actually hard Castlevania in a long time, and I feel one is needed, and in 3D. Enemies should have more moves, all different, and RANDOM. If you can predict what's going to happen, you can prepare and use a strategy, what if that was gone? Fun eh? Well, frusterating, but hard. And when you throw a knife at them, they should grab it, and etc. In simplist forms, realistic-ness.

Next on the list of targets...destiny. I'm sure you've all played Resident Evil 4 by now. Well, we need MORE of that. Castlevania if you think about it, is a horror/survival game, or atleast COULD be one, it can be a more Horror/Action game. Just think about it, Ghosts, Zombies, Demons, the perfect set up. I'm just suprised that it isn't more like that. I would make it more or less like Resident Evil 4. But Castlevania-ized.

Next, the hero. ALUCARD! That's all I have to say about that. Or, as what I suggested for the Nintendo DS question of the month thing, play as Dracula. That said, let's go into gameplay.

Because it's 3D, you can summon demons to certain areas. Set it up like the Hellfire spell, minus the teleporting. This beam of light surrounds you, and you have a few seconds to move it somewhere else. Also, Sword choice. Make it like LOI with the whips. None of them (omit the Vampire Killer) were better than the others, but were in different situations. I suggest doing that, but with swords, so there aren't any "useless" weapons, that aren't going to be used often. And finally, simplisity. Nothing should take long when deciding what to equip at a certain time. And definately NO combinations where wearing a certain thing boosts another. Which can be abolished by removing majority of the quantity. Though other games have excelled in that, this game should stay simple, but yet innovative.

Sound. As mentioned before, ALL HAIL MICHIRU YAMANE. The best thing that ever happened to Castlevania's music. But the sound fx. Realistic much? No, not really. We need to be able to FEEL the knives pierce the enemy.

I will finish this off by commenting on the packaging. Konami, please please PLEASE pull a God of War and package in LOTS. I mean Artwork, Secret Links, Demos to upcoming CV games or something, Making Of stuff. What I wanted in SOTN was a boss rush mode, and there was none. Replay value. Nuff said.

While this may be asking abit much of Konami, but Koji, we need you. You've made masterpieces, LOI works, now it's time to improve on it. So Koji, if you're listening, make up for the KOBE division's flaws!

Answer #3
By R1kxtra

The castle needs to be huge and not a game with a number of courses like in games 1-5. It needs to be continuous like SoTN. Its need to be really immersive. Imagine playing SoTN, with all its layered backgrounds that really bring you into the experience, put into a 3D world. The game should be like Zelda 64 CV-style, inside a really, really huge castle.

The game needs to be super long, and difficult as well. You should have the subweapons, but also a lot of magic moves like in SoTN and AoS. And bring back the thing from SoTn where you could cast spells with your sword, but no combo moves. The moves also shouldn't mean that things easy but they instead add to the challenge. You should also have a lot of moves like in the rpg-type games: double jump, super jump, wall jump, and more should be present. If you're using a whip, it should be as good as Simon's from CV4 but in 3D.

The bosses need to be tough and really cool. They should try to use some bright graphics, like in AoS and SoTN, and not just make it all dark and depressing. There doesn't need to be spider webs in every corner. Enemies should be cool, too, with good AI that requires strategy to beat. Try to take out the level system to add strategy, and make tons of weapons and armor, none of which should make the game too easy, but ot should require strategy when using.

I think keeping things a little complicated is a good thing, as it adds to strategy. There needs to be huge vertical towers, long creepy hallways, large rooms requiring a lot of platform skill, etc. I think that about covers what I had before, so yeah, thats what a 3D CV should be like.

Answer #4
By MrChup0n

Ah, the third dimension. Where today's gamers relish the open-ended, real-time rendered, camera-swept worlds that lead to all-too-generic-without-being-fun gameplay when done wrong (75% of the time), or masterpieces that last a lifetime's worth of memories when done right (the other 5%). The other 20% is filled with fun but ultimately lacking games that are good for a buy or an extended rental, enjoyable - yet - left wanting.

Castlevania: Lament of Innocence falls in this 20%, and the N64 Castlevanias are on the fence between that 20% and the dreaded 75%. So what's a Castlevania fan to do?

Answer Mr. P's question of the month and make a damned fine 3D entry, that's what.

First let's examine what the lackluster 3D franchises borne of striking 2D gold did wrong enough to fall outside of the coveted top tier. Sonic Adventure brought the sense of speed into the third dimension, but wasn't as tight - in fact, loose to the point where the speed was uncontrollable and unruly. Super Mario 64 was a great game but transformed the platformer from a test of skills and reflexes into a silly scavenger hunt to collect 100 of each item you could possibly imagine. And Contra - dear, sweet Contra - went from a tightly wrapped, cohesive bullet-fest to a generic, dumb if not mildly amusing hold-down-the-button-and-sit-back title.

And before we move onto positives - what did Lament of Innocence do wrong? It's simple: long rooms filled with enemies and not much else connected to other long rooms filled with enemies and not much else coupled with cheap switch-hitting gameplay. Call it the Halo of Castlevanias with its repetitive scenery, or the Gungrave of Castlevanias because of it's all-button-mashing motif and truly not much else.

So what games got it right, and what did they get right? Prince of Persia took the slow but acrobatic and stunt-oriented gameplay and created... well... a fast, acrobatic, stunt-oriented gameplay with Sands of Time (let's not talk about the crappily-mainstreamed Warrior Within). For the complaining I did about Mario 64 turning the platformer into a collectathon, it did add superb acrobatics and a sense of superhuman ability to the main character. 3DRealms took Apogee's Duke Nukem and turned the 2D shooting spree into ... well ... a 3D shooting spree. Mario could do tons of crazy stuff. Backflip, triangle jump, butt stomp, yadda, yadda and yadda. And Metroid Prime - possibly the finest game in history - took a creepy, exploration oriented, cohesive adventure and... kept everything - simply putting it into a 3D world.

Notice a trend? The great ones either added something truly enjoyable and of variety, or took the core strengths of the series and blasted it into the 3D realm - doing their best to keep the old core intact. Lament of Innocence nearly ignores this, though the core combat can be fun for a while. But LoI lacks what made the Castlevania series so strong in 2D in either era (the pre-Iga era vs. the Iga era).

Pre-Iga:

Castlevania was about three things:
1) The Punishing-yet-fair Difficulty
2) The Action Platforming
3) The combination of skill-, reflex- and memorization-based gameplay

Lament of Innocence is not challenging enough. Lament of Innocence's action is limited to fun but one-hour-burst-suited button mashing. Lament of Innocence requires little skill to play.

Iga: Castlevania is now about three different things:
1) A cohesive, explorative environment
2) The drive to uncover every nook and cranny of the game world
3) Role-playing elements

Lament of Innocence is like many 3D platformers - a central hub breaking out into separate, distinct areas. Lament of Innocence's areas get so boring and monotonous that there is no interest in exploring everything. Lament of Innocence has but the most rudimentary role playing elements.

So I guess one out of six ain't bad since LoI is enjoyable in spurts, but it ain't good either.

Let's blend the best of Castlevania with the best of 3D. First, let's make our hero acrobatic, capable and formidable. Bring back Simon's Bionic-Commando-esque whip swinging ability, not the simple "whip this post to gain more out of your jump" mechanic from LoI. Rayman 2 did it. Metroid Prime did it. And they both did it very well.

Second, let's bring the challenge back. None of this hordes-of-mindless-enemies surrounding you business. Either make the hordes present at least some challenge (quick attacks, quick movement, or both) or lessen the amount of enemies and make them intelligent and skilled. Because we're in 3D now, our hero has a much wider range of movement - so we have to make our enemies respond in kind. Enemies should be more duel-like and less zombie-like. Force you to attack, or force you to defend. No simple standing there, raising an arm slowly, then swiping.

Third, let's find a way to make running around interesting. 2D platforming can be interesting without any combat - the fear of missing a jump is more amusing when you can easily gauge distances and your success is judged solely on your ability to press the buttons in an appropriate, skilled manner. The fear of missing a jump is more frustration than fun when it's based on your ability to decipher where a 3D camera will point next, or just how far a platform is because you can't easily judge it in 3D, or whatever. So, heavy platforming isn't that great of an idea. So how about, at the very least, some interesting level design that has you doing stuff that CAN be done with skill? Jak and Daxter has some really cool jumping sequences that work in 3D. The chain-combo design of extreme sports games like Tony Hawk and Aggressive Inline are just so fun to run through because you have to be quick on your thumbs - let's have some exciting level sequences that combine those aspects with Treasure's finest level designs (see Super Castlevania IV and Gunstar Heroes). Level design that you can, nay, MUST run through at breakneck speeds without making a big mistake -- but can be done after some practice (see Ninja Gaiden and any other non-Iga Castlevania). A series of whip-swinging hooks followed by a 3D rendition of Castlevania IV's rotating rooms followed by a series of hanging clotheslines that you slide down while jumping from line to line - yeah, it can be done, and it can be done well.

I don't need the cohesive explorative environment, nor do I care for the role-playing elements if we're going to have so much action. In fact, after Dawn of Sorrow I'll probably be sick of Iga's Metroid-rip-off. But I do want the drive to uncover every nook and cranny. Secret rooms with treasure and power-ups - again, see Castlevania IV and the various weird secrets of Castlevania 1 and 3. Upgradable, different whips are a must as well, to keep your capabilities fresh.

If you're noticing something here, it's probably this: "Hey, all he's doing is taking Castlevania IV and putting it into 3D!"

If you did notice that, then I have one thing to say: Welcome to the perfect 3D Castlevania.

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