Newest Build Footage Shown at EGX London

Oh, I certainly wasn't suggesting there should be any Metroid Fusion-esque climbing animations added or anything like that. I think what I and some others were noting was how there's a difference between presenting a solid platform and a platform that either has some manner of gaps in it (like a board with a hole and grate with spaced bars) or else is spaced enough from the back wall (like the hammocks and masts) so that you could theoretically fall or rise behind/around it. But what we're unfortunately seeing, as far as I can tell, is Miriam falling or rising "through" some platforms regardless of their shape, placement, or spacing. I think this is one of those things that may have to be ignored as a quirk of the transition from 2D to 2.5D, but Dracula X Chronicles seemed to get it right (well, for the most part) despite using some 3D assets. I agree that the current situation is not ideal for a modern entry in this genre, but I can understand how it could have been overlooked in the development process, as it involves the layering of the assets and consideration of how level design will vary depending on scenarios. Hopefully it could be touched up, but I imagine it's probably too late. I don't know much about programming, but I imagine you'd either have to replace the platform assets that look more unnatural or else change how Miriam interacts with them. I think they're mostly all programmed to act the same right now. The easiest solution for many of the problematic ones would probably be to have Miriam pass over them (which creates the illusion of climbing or jumping off something in the background), as seen with Soma in Aria of Sorrow below. Sometimes it makes sense, other times not...(images appear when logged in)

Media members' familiarity with Castlevania is almost always more casual and/or selective. Super Castlevania IV, Symphony of the Night, the GBA games, or the DS games are the ones people are most familiar with, but few played all of these and even those who did did not necessarily linger on any of them to understand what makes them tick or different/similar from other Castlevania entries or other action-platformers/adventure games. Castlevania has such a strange "Rorschach test" reputation based more on memories than experiences because it hasn't had a consistent presence of notoriety in media/popular culture outside of Japan (and maybe inside Japan as well, though I don't know those specifics). But speaking for North America: Super Castlevania IV was about the last game of the original era of Castlevania that was received with some fairly heavy fanfare. Right after the well-received 1991 Super Castlevania IV, there was a bit of a crisis--Rondo was largely an unknown commodity outside of Japan in 1993 that you perhaps only caught a glimpse of in a wistful magazine article or import catalog; Bloodlines was mostly overlooked on Genesis in 1994; and Dracula XX was too late to the party in 1995. That's around 6 "lost" years as a franchise before SotN then garnered critical notoriety, becoming the new standard-bearer in 1997, and changing the expectations of how Castlevania should play. But that had consequences. Legends was a blink-and-you-missed-it Gameboy title in 1998; the N64 entries were more spoken of than people recall, but were still controversial and largely misunderstood in 1999; Castlevania Resurrection for the Sega Dreamcast was cancelled despite a fair amount of buzz in 2000, and Castlevania Chronicles was seen as nothing more than a side novelty in late 2001. But in mid-2001, there was a game that started to get more attention, and that was Circle of the Moon on the GBA (a launch title for GBA, in fact). That led to IGA coming back into the fold for the rest of the GBA entries in 2002 and 2003, setting a new baseline and reference point for the series returning to some public reputation. (Although worldwide sales for HoD and AoS together were only about half of what Circle of the Moon did, showing the uphill battle for consistency Castlevania has with the public's consumption/retainment.)

But between these, Lament of Innocence and Curse of Darkness in 2003 and 2005 failed to move the needle very far on the home console market, which limited Castlevania's reach amid the rise of games like Devil May Cry and God of War--which these Castlevania games sought to emulate to some extent, especially with their combo systems--and which were considered the modern replacements for Castlevania along with the rebooted Ninja Gaiden in 2004, despite their combo-driven gameplay and limited platforming. Already, you see major confusion brewing over what Castlevania is. The DS games, 2005-2008, semi-stabilized Castlevania for a limited audience, but did so in a very specific way that kept the franchise bottled up. (Their worldwide sales numbers were better individually than IGA's two GBA games, but none of them got anywhere close to KCEK's Circle of the Moon numbers, despite the DS having a strong install base. They became seen as a cyclical thing to be taken for granted, perhaps, like during the NES era of Mega Man.) Dracula X Chronicles in 2007 was made with the best intentions but was sort of just a glorified "legacy collection" on the limited-audience PSP; meanwhile, well-intentioned but really left-field experiments like Judgment (2008) and Harmony of Despair (2011) were not very well received, and there was a [rather biased] perception that Castlevania works best (or solely) as a portable 2D series in a Metroid-esque formula. Period.

2009's Castlevania: The Adventure Rebirth was mainly overlooked on WiiWare, partially because it was a semi-"budget title" on Wii and partially because it wasn't a Metroidvania, since there had been such a push to brand Castlevania in that mold, even going back to the N64 titles, where people complained they weren't the same as SotN, forcing the franchise into a tiny box. The Lords of Shadow era tried to broaden Castlevania in an almost desperate way between 2010 and 2014--combining and even force-feeding "modern/popular" elements from stuff like Uncharted and Shadow of the Colossus--and this actually did bring in new fans, but there was too big of a gap between releases and too much discrepancy between what direction it should take, resulting in more rifts, confusion, and another crash for the franchise.

Within that muddled "soup" of a history, which doesn't have the same steady reputation as something like Zelda, it's no surprise that there is no mainstream consensus on Castlevania, and many people are only finding out about it through Smash Bros. now.

As for myself, Bloodstained is turning out better than I could have hoped thus far, even before the Classic Mode is detailed. It's main mode is blending (and even highlighting) some of the more intense action-platforming and environmental hazards of older Castlevania games into the exploration and character-building that has taken center stage in many later Castlevania entries. I like how it's deliberate in how it's doing this, and in a sense, it is blending Classicvania and Metroidvania as much as it can without alienating the fans that lean more toward post-SotN than pre-SotN. But few know or care about Classicvania these days, and Metroidvania has been defined for many not by SotN now, but either memories of SotN, newer things like Hollow Knight, or some combination of the two superimposed over each other in their mind's eye.

I dislike the one-size-fits-all mentality that's gotten into gaming in recent generations. It doesn't always have to play faster and more flashy. I think that the reliance on flashy, repetitive combos have hamstrung 3D action-platformers and player-based ingenuity, for one. But I digress...

I have my nitpicks, but overall, I'm pleased with what I've seen and played so far.