Question of the Month

 

"How should Konami utilize the DS?"

Answer #5 | Answer #6 | Answer #7

Answer #5

By MarcKal

Well, the Castlevania on the DS could take place as Julius Belmont in 1999 as he tries to take down Dracula.

There is also another player, who is either related to or is a good friend to Julius. He/she is controlled by a second player or the first player (meaning you'd have to leave each player in a safe room or save point).

Both characters specialize in different kinds of weapons. What I mean by that is that Julius could have whips and the other character could have swords.

Instead of a soul system, they could gain abilities by simply watching an enemy attack a certain number of times (in a row without getting attacked).

Modern weapons such as machine guns, handguns, etc could fit in as miscellaneous weapons meaning either Julius or the other character could both have them.

When the two are near each other, they can swap items or abilities and maybe even go into a sparring mode.

Both players can fight one boss together or two bosses at totally different spots.

If Julius dies, the game is over, but if the friend/relative dies, maybe there could be a bad ending or something like that.

One-time use weapons such as bombs and magic missiles could come into play.

ALSO, both characters can find "plain" weapons which can be customized and powered-up (similar to augments in Fable). Same goes with armor.

To save, though, you need either both characters in the same "safe" room or in two different ones.

Answer #6

By MrChup0n

This idea for the DS Castlevania discusses purely technical gameplay aspects -- nothing in the realm of story and such.

I would prefer either pure 2D visuals, or at the very least 2D gameplay in the style of Viewtiful Joe or Spiderman DS.

Preferrably, gameplay would take place on the top screen so the player wouldn't obscure his/her own line of sight of gameplay while using the touch screen. The touch screen can be used as a vehicle to bring back, and improve upon, the "free" whip found in Castlevania IV and Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance. This would allow the player to not only whip in more than the standard 8 directions, but also freely control the whip. This would allow you to whip behind you, on command. Or, similar to the five-point kicks found in many martial arts movies, you could quickly flick the whip at different enemies that surround your hero. Of course, the whip itself could be constructed using three-dimensional data, so as to facilitate the proper physics of a real whip.

Alternatively, one could imagine that you use the touch screen for gameplay, so that you could simply tap the screen where you want players to whip. Personally I feel that this would make combat way too easy, but perhaps it would be more intuitive and less awkward. The player should be able to choose this in the options screen. An argument for using the second mode, whereby the action takes place on the touch screen, would be a cool ability (whip-only) that allows players to coil an enemy in the whip -- tap on the enemy, and when the whip is about to make contact, use your finger in a circular motion to "wrap" the whip around the enemy.

In this second mode, any touch screen on-the-fly-actions functionality (for example, using a potion or casting a magical attack) would have to be relegated to a smaller corner of the screen and possibly this would limit the versatility you have for such actions. (Less screen real-estate means less room for options.)

This, of course, leads into the discussion of on-the-fly actions. As you can imagine, this would be achieved by simply placing an action "belt" (similar to Diablo) which is touchable by your finger or thumb. Spells, item usage, even special weapons could utilize this function. One can imagine a scenario where the hero can carry the Cross Boomerang, Holy Water, and Axe all at once. Simply touch the weapon you wish to throw. If you want to get fancy, you could touch, then flick in the general direction to facilitate backwards throwing. Of course, major changes -- like throwing upwards -- would defeat the much of purpose of having different weapons. (Why have an axe if you can throw a boomerang upwards?)

With the dynamics of the touch screen playing an integral role, it might make sense for jumping to be available on the traditional face buttons -- but also on the right shoulder button. This way a player could jump and whip diagonally behind him or her without fumbling to take the thumb off the jump button and scramble to use the touch screen.

In a nod to the Peter Molyneux's Black and White PC game, perhaps magical spells can be cast by drawing as opposed to selecting them from a menu or scrolling through a menu. This would be similar to Alucard's abilities in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, where fighting-game-esque commands were input. This eliminates either the need to pause the game, select a spell to "equip" (Harmony of Dissonance), and use it, or to scroll through a list of spells that appear in a "spell box" on the top of the screen (Advance Guardian Heroes, numerous other action titles).

Quite obviously, the second, non-gameplay screen could be used for maps and vital statistics. If the non-gameplay screen happens to be the touch screen, the "action belt" would also appear here.

Answer #7

By Brad

The new game would feature a new Belmont hero, Roger Belmont, father to Christopher. In the vein of Simon's Quest, this battle wouldn't really be fought with the physical form of Dracula, it would be sort of a "Dracula Ghost", or possibly an astral projection from beyond the grave. Anyway, Roger feels a deep sense of chaos and destruction descending upon the world, and decides to take up arms and head to ole faithful CastleVania.

Gameplay would be very similar to SOTN and SNES' Super Metroid. Castle structure and item placement/use would be identical to SOTN, but character graphics would be more like Super Metroid (larger character graphics, larger corridors, halls, etc.). And yes, of course, it will be a strictly 2D game, because we all know how wonderfully CastleVania translates to 3D...

The real draw to the DS would be the touchscreen. That would be on at all times showing the map of the castle, as well as having 2 buttons for on-the-fly use. One would strictly be for "use only" items such as potions or food. The second would be for an in-depth inventory screen. You will equip all your gear and weaponry on this screen, as well as view your current stats. The reason I chose the Super Metroid type graphics would be because I want this Belmont to actually show the armor that he's wearing. Putting on bronze armor would result in the character graphic changing to a reddish-orange chest plate. The inventory screen would show Roger standing still, and each piece of equipment you put on will show up on the model. When you go back to the game, the weapons/armor will be equipped on the smaller in-game character graphic.

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