Updates on upcoming Castlevania titles (DS/PS2/Xbox)

[KamaItachi]

Games are fun (http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=5356) has some new info on the up and coming Castlevania titles Dawn of Sorrow (DS) and Curse of Darkness (PS2/Xbox).

Dawn of Sorrow:

-All versions of the game are finished (Japanese, US, and European).
-"Combining the touch screen with the action-oriented gameplay was tricky."
-The touch screen will be used for drawing seales to finish off bosses, clearing paths, opening doors, and teleporting. An "advanced" technique one can do is targeting an enemy by touching it with one's finger and then pressing a button to use a spell/ability. It would be too hard to use the stylus (and switch back and forth).
-The game will take about 10 hours to complete ("as usual").
Curse of Darkness:

-Igarashi says they've maxed out the power of the PS2 with CoD.
-Innocent Devils will include a bird, a stone giant, a fairy (all previously seen), a witch type, a wizard type, and a devil type, so there will be 6 in all. Only one can be used at a time.
-The Innocent Devils' AI has been much improved since E3.
-The staff wasn't happy with the game's camera at E3. There will be two different camera angles in the final game. "When the player is moving, the camera is closer to the player and angled further down towards the ground. In battle we pulled the camera out more and it’s angled higher to the ground." R2 locks the camera, and the right analog stick rotates it. L1 positions the camera behind you.

Igarashi also has some interesting comments on 2d gaming and the next generation consoles. Check out the full article at the above link.

I'm pretty psyched about Dawn of Sorrow, but never got into the 3d versions, how have they fared generally?

[dr_qwandry]

-Igarashi says they've maxed out the power of the PS2 with CoD.


interesting
we'll see if that's true when compared to God of War or MGS3

[Kamalot]

The 3D versions have all sucked. Quite a shame really.

And who would come up with Curse of Darkness?

It spells COD.

[Adam Blue]

I enjoyed C64 and LoD, but LoI was boring and repetitive. Still, the 2D ones are the best. I want a full blown 2D console version with 20+ hours of gameplay.

[Worldcrafter]

-Igarashi says they've maxed out the power of the PS2 with CoD.

Yeah...haven't heard that one before...Does that mean the game looks really sweet and plays well, or do they just have crappy programmers?

[TrackZero]

I enjoyed C64 and LoD, but LoI was boring and repetitive. Still, the 2D ones are the best. I want a full blown 2D console version with 20+ hours of gameplay.

It's good to see I'm not the only one with this Castlevania fantasy. They need to go back to their roots, the gameplay just doesn't work right in 3D.

[IndependentGMR]

Yeah...haven't heard that one before...Does that mean the game looks really sweet and plays well, or do they just have crappy programmers?

I think they might be blind. The screenshots I've seen for Curse of Darkness look wretched. Although, I don't think Lament of Innocence was all that bad. I had fun with it, despite its faults.

[Wyrm]

Looks kind of cool

[danhoo]

LoI was ok, but it didn't feel like a Castlevania game, it felt more like a standard 3D fixed-camera beat-em-up, like the recent Rygar game. Oh, and whatever level designer decided to have those pitch-black platform jumping rooms where you're jumping blind needs to be fired.

[Rafer]

I thought Lament of Innocence controlled okay, my problem was that the level design was so dull, like they were nicely detailed but it was like square room, hallway, square room, hallway... I never felt like I was exploring a real castle. Can't remember any of the bosses either.

I guess everyone's heard that Hideo Kojima wants David "God of War" Jaffe to work on a Castlevania game. It would surprise me if it happened because you'd think he'd want to concentrate on his new franchise.

[Adam Blue]

Why would Hideo Kijima have anything to do with Castlevania? I know it's all Konami, but IGA has had a hold of the franchise for a while now, and will in the future.

I'd actually like to see some more of the original devs back, like some of the Treasure guys. Their last one was Circle of the Moon, and was A LOT better than HoD, and just as good as AoS. They even did the N64 3D Castlevanias which were far superior to LoI in keeping with story, setting, etc.

Also IGA has been shafting other Castlevania games not made by his team in order to do what ever he wants with the series, which PISSES ME OFF. It's like if a new dev at capcom decided to say that Resident Evil 2 didn't happen, and make a whole new game and story that fucks everything.

[Superunknown[GP]]

Who cares about the 3-D ones? The AoS sequel puts funny feelings in my pants.

...now, if only we could get a new SotN...

[Adam Blue]

']Who cares about the 3-D ones? The AoS sequel puts funny feelings in my pants.

...now, if only we could get a new SotN...

Well AoS was pretty close, just a tad shorter and smaller. The seuqel seems to be very close to SotN in terms of graphics and and possibly length.

IGA says that CoD is very much like a 3D SotN, where you have a giant castle to explore and outlying areas that require certain puzzles/keys/items to progress, or just the innocent Devils.

I care about the 3D ones because like I said before, each game has a unique story that ties them all together. The N64 ones were good, but that was a different dev team than IGA's.