Why did they take a step back with Dawn of Sorrow?

Why did they take a step back with Dawn of Sorrow?

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castlevania:_Portrait_of_Ruin
web.archive.org/web/20070928131358/http://www.playmagazine.com/index.php?fuseaction=SiteMain.showJapanPage&Japan_ID=57
youtube.com/watch?v=QXay1pdfQpI
youtube.com/watch?v=UDy8OE_P_Zc
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

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Who was in the wrong here?

They had to put a gimmick in the game because it was on the DS exclusively.
The gimmick fucked the progression because you needed to draw seals as a gate instead of just having abilities themselves unlock gates. The game was still great, but I really didn't like that you had to spend unique boss souls to get all the equipment which mandated NG+ grind for full completion.

Aria of Sorrow is the last GBA game I have to beat before I move on to DoS and the rest of the Castlevania games. The art style in the portraits really pisses me off.

Dawn of Sorrow is great and basically you're a huge faggot.

>autistically playing all the games in a franchise

Fuck you, OP. Dawn of Sorrow might be the greatest Castlevania, second if anything to Symphony of the Night.

Both sorrows sucked.

>dude grinding for souls lmao

>my autistic need to grind for shit makes the game shit.

>needing to grind
If you can't beat the game with starting equipment and nothing but mandatory progression souls then ur a casul.

Please buy Bloodstained.

There had better be a hard mode that cuts down on the telegraphing.
There were some serious delays on some of those moves.

Please buy Bloodstained. I don't want to live in a box. The next game will be better I swear!

No, fuck you, you killed classicvania with your metroidvania garbage.

No

I wonder how he feels about the Castlevania netflix series, now that he gets to experience it as a fan rather than producer.

It killed itself. The reason he made Metroidvania was to save a dying series whose games were ending up in bargain bins.

No way. That looks bad and there's waifu trash as the MC.

At least Aria of Sorrow you just needed one of each soul.
Having to collect 9 rare souls in a single enemy in DoS sucked.

Rumor has it that Konami at the time wanted to kill off the Castlevania series. Of the last 3 games, only Aria of Sorrow was a "winner" and even then it was still niche and went almost completely unnoticed. Iga, however, loved the series and wanted to keep it alive. So they told him that they would keep it around but only if he and his team would produce 3 titles for the newly launched DS, and basically gave him a year for each title. It was basically an almost impossible task that they fully expected Iga to fail at.

This is the reason why there are a lot of quality drops in the DS title, why there are a shitton of reused assets, anime art, literally copy-pasted rooms, low platforming challenge, etc, in the DS titles compared to before. Iga was taking a lot of shortcuts to produce games that were long enough for the fans, while also trying to bolster sales for the higher ups. Despite the herculean efforts, Iga was basically let go when sales didn't meet "expectations", especially on the more expensive title Order of Ecclesia. That's around the time Konami started to fuck over Mercury Steam and their tragic downfall.

I remember reading, probably on Sup Forums, that the budgets for each game was slashed significantly, with the last one being the lowest. I think I remember 500,000 for Order.

Eh, sounds baseless.
Konami also gave him a budget for a PSP remake, two PS2 titles, and a Wii fighting game.

>all 3 DS games are great and among the best in the series
Nice job iga

if this game was animated in 2D then nobody would be complaining

It would probably look at lot better in 2D so I agree.

The level design still looks boring and toothless as fuck

Dawn of Sorrow was the better game of the two, it just had a shit artstyle and the touch control mechanics sucked ass. Both can be fixed with mods if you emulate the game iirc.

All of them budget titles. Lords of Shadow was the first Big Budget Castlevania title.

True, but it still shows Konami had some faith in Iga's Castlevania.
They never sold over a million, but it looks like Konami had a nice "small budget, small returns" with the series.

I went through Dawn of Sorrow recently. The magic seal drawing was kind of annoying on top of the souls but it's still alright. Julius mode is fun too.

Provided you're not going for 100%, with AoS at least you can mainly do with what you get on your way, with only two really needing some grinding. DoS is definitely a bit more obnoxious about it with them required to upgrade gear and needing multiple to max out their ability, though.

i'm starting to feel bad for iga

he took a series that was pretty much dead and revived it; maybe he doesn't deserve all the credit but that's a different discussion

then he wants to make sequels, but gets fucked over while doing so because businessmen are idiots, still manages to do so

now is trying to make spiritual successors and instead just gets compared to giant fucksticks like inafune and schafer, simply because he tried to use a (what seemed like a viable option) kickstarter, which only really became the malignant fuckwhistle comletely separately from his own project

he's trying to make a game within a sensible budget, and so can't waste time making intricate 2D pixel art just to appease elitist gamers because he knows 3D is going to be cheaper and more or less produce the same result

still gets compared to con artists like kojima

cut the dood some slack, fuck

He got a couple million for his game. I'm not going to cry for him.
Wait for his game to come out to judge him.

Iga got shuffled to the Mobile/social division of Konami, but left because he hates making those kinds of games. He's /ourguy/.

that's my point my dude - wait til the game comes out. barely anyone is doing that, and instead its just a bunch of whiny screaming about MUH 2D

> toothless
post "toothy" castlevania design then you fucking buzzword faggot

Are Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia any good?

>he's trying to make a game within a sensible budget, and so can't waste time making intricate 2D pixel art just to appease elitist gamers because he knows 3D is going to be cheaper and more or less produce the same result

Lecarde Chronicles 2 uses original sprites and 2D art and is fucking free. Bloodstained is just the result of poor management.

Yes.

Not him, but toothless is a perfectly viable word because I got the meaning immediately when he said it. Mostly because I'm not retarded.

Order has an interesting approach with the town and map screen but the level design boils down to straight corridoors or extremely linear paths and ultimately doesn't have anything in common with Castlevania gameplay except the combat.

Portrait is closer to Dawn of Sorrow but falls really short qualitatively.

> "Toothy hallway"
> still can't define it
> only attempt at explanation is to ad-hom
classic Sup Forumstard

looked it up, those animations are pretty shit and LOOK like a fan game

i'm not saying you don't have a valid point, but come on, you know it's not as strong of a point as it could be

Portrait is maybe about a C+ game at best. It has a decent story and some decent boss fights, especially the best Dracula and Death fight in the series, but the worlds are way, WAY to copy and pasted to mean anything. The castle layout is largely forgettable.

Order of Ecclesia is about a D. Initially, you don't feel this way because the gameplay is smooth and the art direction brings back lady-kojima so it stands out way, way more, but ultimately the gameplay is repetitive and boring. The game is literally just hallways in small areas with nothing memorable about them, with boss fights that just tank damage forever, and one of the worst Dracula fights in the entire series. Also the story is shit as fuck and not even really Castlevania.

Fuck you Dawn of Sorrow is still the best Castlevania

>you're playing as an anime grill

go away

>He still doesn't get the comparison between toothless and "toothy".
You're an idiot for speaking so arrogantly when English is clearly your second language.

In English, we have an expression, which is a bit old timey, but one you'll probably hear in a movie. Someone being toothless. A toothless adversary is a foe with no danger. He is without bite. Perhaps even "All bark and no bite". Tooth and nail is even used to describe someone fighting desperately as a contrast to a toothless adversary. This doesn't necessarily refer to physical capability either, but more towards a metaphorical sense. A warrior who has lost all resolve to fight despite being strong and trained in weapons is still someone without bite in the metaphor.

So let's think through this, shall we? If a toothless adversary is someone who poses little threat or danger, then a toothless hallway is...?

Ah okay, so you're saying the user who looked at a single screen and declared his opinion that the "level design is toothless as fuck" was wrong.

> more ad-hom
do you know how mad you were going back there?

Lecarde Chronicles 2 looks like ass

But surely both of them are better than HoD right

>Why did they take a step back
>with the best Castlevania they have ever made

>Ah okay, so you're saying the user who looked at a single screen and declared his opinion that the "level design is toothless as fuck" was wrong.
No, actually, that was never stated. I merely posted a "toothy" hallway to appease your third-worlder autism. I don't know which rooms he was speaking about, and you're moving the topic away from the usage of toothless relative to game design discussion by trying to declare him as wrong. Again, these are things that we just pick up naturally through speaking English with higher than double-digit IQs.

Also, you can't really declare ad-hominum when there was an actual argument stated. And no, nobody is mad other than you. More context clues a naturally speaking English speaker would pick up on.

Pffft, fuck no. Harmony of Dissonance is largely unfairly shat on. I can understand WHY it might be hated simply due to the discordant tone of the sound design and the art style, but HoD has one of the best castle designs, fastest gameplay, and longest non-repetitive game design in the series, and YES, that is including the second castle. The only thing holding it back honestly is the below average boss fights that are largely forgettable. I'd put it at a solid B.

The main games are alright with OoE having the best bosses in the series. But they both have really amazing level 1 hard modes that are by far the most fun I ever had in Metroidvania. It changes them from mindless games about exploring and loot to really intense action puzzles where you have to use everything at your disposal.

I thought the magic system was kinda fun to dick around with and Juste was pretty nice to control, but I didn't like the sheer amount of cockblocking that went on. The furniture thing was weird though

There were no features removed from the previous game. So how was it a "step back"

You had all the old items/abilities plus new ones.

I’m pretty sure he likes anything castlevania like

You can't just take the level design philosophy from an arcadey action platformer and use it an action-adventure game with much larger levels. It would make exploration a total chore. Levels in action-adventure games are made easier so the player focuses more on navigation and exploration rather than survival.

Which game has the best system of enemy drops?
like when they drop items/souls/etc

I was just showing user what a "Toothy" hallway looked like and have no relation to the first user in that chain who said the level design looked toothless. For the most part, I somewhat agree with you.

Symphony, because it doesn't force that shit on you for completion purposes and lets you play the game however you want.

May as well ask, but why is the Castlevania series so unpopular? Prior to it's existence the only time we saw the idea combining famous monsters together was in lame stuff like C-Movies about Frankenstein Meets Wolfman or Scooby Doo and the Ghould School. Castlevania grabbed the concept and made it much more enjoyable. Unless of course shit like Hotel Transylvania is more profitable.

Castlevania is just niche, not unpopular.

It's more about unlocking the cooler effects of different souls, which facilitate different fighting styles

Looks really great, but i'm poor so i'll pirate

Pre-ordering is only 28 dollars. Iga desperately needs the money.

>the idea of combining famous monsters together
I think people see this as generic. Not an interesting idea but rather devoid of creativity.

I don't feel that way, just explaining.

I'll say it again dude
I'm poor
My toaster probably won't even run it

They both got really screwed by budget.

Portrait has those cool painting worlds but then they make you go through them recolored versions later on.

Ecclesia does the same thing but this time with areas that are literally just corridors.

>May as well ask, but why is the Castlevania series so unpopular?
In the west, where it's the most popular, there is a problem with branding and icons. The Classicvania games are incredibly hard an inaccessible to a wider audience, especially with stiff controls that the majority of the public will just pass off as flawed. Consider that the most widely popular Classicvania is Super 4, because as James Rolfe puts it, "You could finally whip in all directions!" which not only ruins a lot of the design and intentions of the game, but also makes all other sub-weapons fairly useless (one of the few correct analysis that Arin somehow managed to trip over without intending to). However, after 4, there aren't many other Classicvanias and what few there are go back to stiff controls, so the public quickly loses interest in the "flawed" game design.

Then comes Symphony of the Night, the next big leap in the series. This is where Castlevania shoots itself in the foot pretty hard. First they switch the series from an almost entirely Nintendo-only game to Playstation 1, so fans of the series who go to the N64 most likely never even knew that SotN existed. I sure as hell didn't, and neither did James Rolfe, partly due to the fact that SotN's advertising was non-existent. Then they switch the gameplay to the first instance of Igavania, combining elements of Castlevania with Legend of Zelda (NOT Metroid like many people assume), creating an entirely new genre of gameplay, which alienated fans who wanted Classicvania action. The cherry on this shit sundae was the fact that this was during the late 90s, where the 3D craze was huge. Nobody wanted to play a 2D platformer when you could have the likes of Super Mario and Crash Bandicoot.

cont.

>animated in 2D
Exactly. That's the only reason I don't like it.

Sure you can. The problem is that it takes some creativity from level design and power ups (see the awesome backtracking through Castlevania 3's clocktower) instead of making empty hallways without much thought put into how the player navigates them and cookie cutter uninteresting power ups that don't interact with the level design.

cont.

So basically, almost the entire Castlevania fanbase up to this point is either playing a "shitty" exploration game they didn't want or expect that starts up with "THE FINAL STAGE" and makes references to a game that they never heard of with bad voice acting, or they're playing CV64 which wouldn't be fixed to be half-decent until Legacy of Darkness came around which was already too little too late by then.

Castlevania basically shifted gears way too hard at this point without examining the market, their title, or the previous titles. Going forward, for it to have any success, it basically has to rebuild it's entire fan base from scratch with people who got into SotN FIRST. Which was already a small base because SotN had next to nothing in terms of advertisements. I myself didn't even hear about it's existence until I picked it up at a video rental store on the cheap when it was being cycled out. Imagine trying to get a steady pool of fans out of a group that basically hears about SotN through only word of mouth, and you can quickly see the problem.

>Why doesn't Japan like Castlevania
It was never popular to begin with because Japan thinks the artwork is too "western". Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin were shallow attempts to get the Japanese to love it because it began to falter in the west.

Wrong, mate
Dawn and Portrait have animay artstyle because Kojima was busy with Curse of Darkness

SotN was considered a side game, and the main game was still Castlevania 64. So blame the failure of Castlevania 64 rather than the success of SotN.

SotN fugging bombed though
Not sure about 64

>Rumor has it...
no

Ecclesia is fucking great, especially on a LV1 Hard Mode run- feels like it was made for that 2bh. Bosses are a definite highlight, requiring you to pay attention and rewarding you for it (no-hit runs are relatively easies to pull off than in some of the previous games, but you can't just tank through shit like in Symphony, Harmony or Portrait). Portrait is decent but feels and plays too much like Dawn, with lots of recycled sprites/enemies.
Both games have very linear and unimaginative level design, although to be fair no """IGAvania""" after Symphony has actually engaging level design so it's just a matter of Portrait and especially Ecclesia being more streamlined than the rest.

That's a rather weak excuse and I'm inclined to believe you just made it up on the spot. I mean, Kojima is great and all, but she's hardly irreplaceable. They managed without her just fine on Ecclesia.

>The anime style of artwork was retained from Dawn of Sorrow, which Igarashi had switched to in the previous title to appeal more to the younger demographics of the Nintendo handheld systems.[29][30] Portrait of Ruin's development cycle took roughly the same amount of time as Dawn of Sorrow did. Koji Igarashi stated that the schedule became tight due to Nintendo Wi-Fi difficulties, considering it was their first online enabled game.[citation needed]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castlevania:_Portrait_of_Ruin
Where it says "younger audience" really means Japanese audience, but I'm too tired to dig up the sources that suggest that they were trying to appeal to Japan more because CV was largely a western game.

>SotN was considered a side game, and the main game was still Castlevania 64. So blame the failure of Castlevania 64 rather than the success of SotN.
SotN is a direct sequel to Rondo of Blood. While Igarashi uses the "something of a side story" wording in an interview, it's hard to believe that SotN was a gaiden of any sort. It's also quite hard to believe that 64/LoD were intended to be main entries when the ties to the previous storylines were so...tenuous.

Igarashi and others call it a side story for a few reasons:

1. Made by them and not the main Castlevania team.

2. A non-belmont character

3. New gameplay style.

They were given tremendous freedom because of that to experiment.

I'm too busy so I can't find sources, but it's more than just Igarashi.

There's nothing wrong with this.

>feels like it was made for that 2bh
Wouldn't go that far, more of a happy accident than anything. The bosses can drag on way too long, Eligor takes something crazy like 8 minutes to beat while repeating the same few patterns. I suppose level 1 hard mode was made with NG+ in mind though it's not nearly as good then.

Even if it was, it would still be largely irrelevant to the point, considering that CV picked up from SotN, and 64 was widely considered a disaster.

Seems like a mix of both
>Why the change to a more anime-style look for Dawn of Sorrow?
>A couple reasons. First, Ayami Kojima is brilliant but she's not very fast (laughs). Since Curse of Darkness was under development at the same time, I elected to have her concentrate on the PS2 game. Also, even though Aria of Sorrow was very well received, a lot of lesser titles did much better business. I think with Aria we may have missed our target audience a bit. Younger gamers tend not to like Miss Kojima's more aesthetic style so much, so we went with a more general anime look for Dawn.
web.archive.org/web/20070928131358/http://www.playmagazine.com/index.php?fuseaction=SiteMain.showJapanPage&Japan_ID=57

Happy accident sounds more like it considering it's IGA we're talking about, yeah.
Eligor doesn't really take that long to beat if you save up hearts for the final phase, but it is the most frustrating fight on a LV1 run, I agree. Most screw-ups are mitigated by using weapons that make the bow thingies rewind (not all glyphs do IIRC), but the final phase can still fuck you over if you're unlucky. I suppose its novelty makes up for that somewhat. It was refreshing the first time through.

Well yeah Kojima was unavailable, but the switch to generic animu shit is entirely on Konami and/or IGA's team (I suppose the former in all likelihood). It's not like Kojima's the only decent artist around.

because the ds isnt as powerful as the ps1. they tried to make as good of a game on the gba also but it just couldnt handle the graphics. dawn came the closest to symphony but still fell short. aria is a close third.

Aside from the seal thing and broken luck stat it was a downright improvement. I'll leave the bitching about the anime style to angry kids.

>because the ds isnt as powerful as the ps1
>runs super mario 64 with better graphical enhancements flawlessly
Yeah no they have no excuse

>super mario 64 was on the ps1
>the n64 was more powerful than the ps1

The textures in SM64 are better
SM64DS just had better character models, which makes sense as Nintendo was hitting new ground with the original and most people then didn't know how to model worth shit.

>>the n64 was more powerful than the ps1
It was you neanderthal. If the ds can handle a n64 title you can bet it could handle a 2d game like SotN

CV64 was supposed to be the main game and SotN was the side game. Yet, history remember sit the other way around. And remember, 3D was the big thing and 2D was considered yesterday's news. This isn't like the revitalization of 2D taht we're seeing today.

Had CV64 been successful, the entire series would be wildly different.

Unpopular opinion: I like Soma's outfit in Dawn over his one in Aria.

His clothing in Aria made him look like some cheesy 1970s rockstar. His clothing in Dawn actually looks more like a holy knight.

Dawn is still shit though. Way too much grinding required for you to even feel remotely powerful. All your weapons and abilities feel like shit unless you have the souls maxed out.

Go play Order of Ecclesia now then. It went back to the old portraits and was the best of the three DSvanias.

Who is the best soul in both Aria and Dawn, and why is it Axe Armor

Oh nice. A Castlevania thread. What's Sup Forums's thoughts on Portrait of Ruin?

A lot of people seem to hate Portrait of Ruin, but I honestly think it's the best of the DS titles. It has the best boss roster, the most diverse level design, the most weapon and spell variety, the best soundtrack, and just in general the most content of all the DS games.

You can play as Jonathan and Charlotte, Richter and Maria, and Loretta and Stella. These are three completely different modes. Richter in POR is arguably the most overpowered and mobile he's ever been in a Castlevania title. He's far better in this game than he was in Symphony of the Night.

Also, Charlotte is best Castlevania girl, alongside adult Maria.

>implying

You're forgetting someone.

I think it's pretty good as well.

>That cross.
youtube.com/watch?v=QXay1pdfQpI

the ps1 has more computing power while the n64 had graphics, almost exactly mirroring the ps2 and gamecube. not to mention bigger storage on ps1 v. n64, also like ps2 and gamecube. symphony is a 2d game but it has alot of effects and moving pieces onscreen at times and im not sure the n64 could have handled it without some downgrades. i mean just look at the horrible saturn version. more items but at such a shitty cost.

Good point, Completely forgot about the Old Axe Armor.

Beating the game on LV1/Hard with each of the characters is so satisfying.

Vid related. Not me, but someone doing that with Old Axe Armor
youtube.com/watch?v=UDy8OE_P_Zc