inherit
7
0
Jun 28, 2019 21:35:13 GMT -6
1,291
CastleDan
1,514
May 28, 2015 9:50:13 GMT -6
May 2015
castledan
|
Post by CastleDan on Jun 28, 2019 21:33:00 GMT -6
Revenant while not tough might be my favorite boss. one of the creepier designs and it just felt so classic IGA. So clearly a dead Belmont in a sense and.....I love how it has the classic belmont movement. Even it's entrance comes through a thing very similar to the doppleganger from SOTN.
|
|
inherit
7
0
Jun 28, 2019 21:35:13 GMT -6
1,291
CastleDan
1,514
May 28, 2015 9:50:13 GMT -6
May 2015
castledan
|
Post by CastleDan on Jun 27, 2019 12:16:18 GMT -6
The floaty comments were silly from day 1 people were judging with their eyes not with playing it. This is how IGA games feel and it's nice to be validated that those complaints kinda died out once people got their hands on it.
|
|
inherit
7
0
Jun 28, 2019 21:35:13 GMT -6
1,291
CastleDan
1,514
May 28, 2015 9:50:13 GMT -6
May 2015
castledan
|
Post by CastleDan on Jun 27, 2019 12:12:48 GMT -6
My brother got the last copy at a Best Buy the other day.
|
|
inherit
7
0
Jun 28, 2019 21:35:13 GMT -6
1,291
CastleDan
1,514
May 28, 2015 9:50:13 GMT -6
May 2015
castledan
|
Post by CastleDan on Jun 25, 2019 20:17:35 GMT -6
darekaIf it was Retro Boss I would understand but it was retro level It was a good boss tho.
|
|
inherit
7
0
Jun 28, 2019 21:35:13 GMT -6
1,291
CastleDan
1,514
May 28, 2015 9:50:13 GMT -6
May 2015
castledan
|
Post by CastleDan on Jun 25, 2019 13:50:13 GMT -6
I like curse of the moon but it bums me out. I'm waiting for the day we get a 32 bit SOTN level pixel game and it's always stuck in the 8 bit past :/.
Speaking of which like i mentioned earlier. Anyone else just a tad bit disappointed by the retro level? I'm glad it was included and all but coming from Curse of the moon's levels to what was in this was a big drop in quality.
|
|
inherit
7
0
Jun 28, 2019 21:35:13 GMT -6
1,291
CastleDan
1,514
May 28, 2015 9:50:13 GMT -6
May 2015
castledan
|
Post by CastleDan on Jun 25, 2019 13:30:05 GMT -6
Mana as a bigger art force seems like a smart move to me and it does seem like a given. Wayforward being involved in a sequel feels like something that could potentially happen and *definitely should* happen. The game being a bit darker and more mature like SOTN would be smart as well, as it felt the games got a bit more kid friendly going forward for w/e reason. I'd add increase the art team for the castle as one of my desires. A much more well designed castle with even more unique areas (within each area) would be golden.
Those are definitely my big wants, everything else would be gravy.
|
|
inherit
7
0
Jun 28, 2019 21:35:13 GMT -6
1,291
CastleDan
1,514
May 28, 2015 9:50:13 GMT -6
May 2015
castledan
|
Post by CastleDan on Jun 25, 2019 12:19:36 GMT -6
CielWell my personal hope is that they got WayForward for this not just to finish this up because they sealed a deal with them to work on the sequel. I think that is the best case scenario. I think they will help make a very nice game visually that runs much better.
|
|
inherit
7
0
Jun 28, 2019 21:35:13 GMT -6
1,291
CastleDan
1,514
May 28, 2015 9:50:13 GMT -6
May 2015
castledan
|
Post by CastleDan on Jun 25, 2019 11:37:24 GMT -6
CielYeah what I think is a fair thing to say is .....this game had some road blocks and they did the best they could with the time and money they had. To think they had to switch teams and then bring on a whole other team near the end. I said this before but imagine if Wayforward helped them out from the get go? Do you know how good this game could have looked visually and probably how few of problems it may have had. The dropping of a team, bringing on another team....it probably ate up the budget and they had to change some plans here and there.
|
|
inherit
7
0
Jun 28, 2019 21:35:13 GMT -6
1,291
CastleDan
1,514
May 28, 2015 9:50:13 GMT -6
May 2015
castledan
|
Post by CastleDan on Jun 25, 2019 11:24:25 GMT -6
I guess I'm the only one reading the books? Definitely not. The books are excellent for info and for lore! It feels nice that they found a way to provide info that isn't overbearing or ..." HERE'S A CUTSCENE TO EXPLAIN A GAMEPLAY MECHANIC" ..... cuz those are the absolute worse. Discovery is fun and discovery is meant to be rewarding because it is....
|
|
inherit
7
0
Jun 28, 2019 21:35:13 GMT -6
1,291
CastleDan
1,514
May 28, 2015 9:50:13 GMT -6
May 2015
castledan
|
Post by CastleDan on Jun 25, 2019 11:16:49 GMT -6
Something I think was handled excellently. The items and weapons you can get/craft/find. I haven't had this feeling in an IGA game since SOTN. They nailed the cool little details elements. From items that have weird effects that serve no purpose other than being cool. From weapons that have effects that look super awesome ( Lightning, fire, ice sword types ) ....they make you want to craft, they make you want to grind for items. The gameplay systems themselves are perfect. I wouldn't change any of them honestly. Suggestions for lore in future games.... having different files you can find like Resident Evil could be a nice expansion. Seemed like you got diary entries from a particular alchemist but maybe in further games you can find one from a villager who found their way into the location sometimes...Tackle all different scenarios. It makes for a richer story. People had complaints about the story but to me the lore files in this made this feel deeper and more real than any IGAVANIA before it. neffThat's exactly what i mean about locations. We got so many underground areas that I feel like we missed out on ideas that could have been more diverse for the castle itself. An old timey casino like location...( 1700's equivelent ).... A theater?......a living quarters?..... Maybe they just wanted to save some ideas for a sequel.
|
|
inherit
7
0
Jun 28, 2019 21:35:13 GMT -6
1,291
CastleDan
1,514
May 28, 2015 9:50:13 GMT -6
May 2015
castledan
|
Post by CastleDan on Jun 25, 2019 8:24:00 GMT -6
neff Yeah I get it's a lore reason but I didn't have a problem with the labs. I had a problem with there not being more upper castle locations. You don't need a FIRE and ICE underground section. You already got labs galore and a water section. That's the point i was making. There's so much more creative things you can do with locations to see it wasted on...oh this is the ICE EQUIVALENT to that fire location you were just at....it feels wasted. In this you had a water section, a sand section, a fire section, an ice section, two labs and literally a garden and a big garden. All I'm saying is there's plenty of upper locations they could have done that would be more unique for a IGA game. I was surprised that didn't happen.
|
|
inherit
7
0
Jun 28, 2019 21:35:13 GMT -6
1,291
CastleDan
1,514
May 28, 2015 9:50:13 GMT -6
May 2015
castledan
|
Post by CastleDan on Jun 25, 2019 8:15:28 GMT -6
CielThis is why i voiced concern a long time ago when another crew was brought on board. Michiru Yamane has a particular sound that fits so well with these games. I don't necessarily think that's the problem though. If I had to peg it down it'd be these two things: 1. Going with orchestra. If you can't afford a massive orchestra of a big production game than it's probably not worth doing. The thing is synths and the like are Michiru Yamane's bread and butter and she can make tracks using them sound so damn full and energetic. If you have a small orchestra it won't really have the same impact. 2. Variety. Just listen to SOTN's ost. Wandering Ghosts Tragic Prince Requiem for the Gods Wood Carving Partita Marble Gallery Dance of Gold Abandoned Pit Dance of Pales this is an incredibly *Deep* and *Varied* OST. you have all kinds of musical styles, all kinds of musical arrangements. You have piano centered, rock centered, Waltz centered, atmospheric centered. That's what helps give it such an impact it wasn't just nice melodies but the melodies and styles helped take you to this location and believe it. Bloodstained's OST is good and I don't want to act like I'm saying it's not but it's nowhere near not even close to as varied in sound or in arrangement. Most tracks have a heavy use of strings as the main compenent, and most of the tracks don't really give a sense of a vastly different style. The best way to describe this is..... If I never played either game and someone asked me which OST belongs to the biggest IGAVANIA castle. I'd assume SOTN's because it feels like the grander, more varied, more stylistically different, and more broad OST. Which fits the idea of a bigger game better.
|
|
inherit
7
0
Jun 28, 2019 21:35:13 GMT -6
1,291
CastleDan
1,514
May 28, 2015 9:50:13 GMT -6
May 2015
castledan
|
Post by CastleDan on Jun 25, 2019 8:02:18 GMT -6
like I said...I've always felt IGA needed to expand the art team. It seems like they're spread so thin...just a few people doing the whole castle? just a few people doing 100+ enemies? that's rough. Imagine like 10 more unique rooms in each area how much more meaningful each location would be to explore. Imagine a more diverse enemy list. Imagine a Castle that has far more unique looking locations. They would drastically improve the game. Those art design elements are what need work more than anything. The plotting of how things should look. This is a good start but hopefully in part 2 it becomes way better. Maybe Mana will be more involved in the design process, who knows. I think that's my two biggest qualms, some art design things and the music not being as varied as I hoped. There's always a sequel. The gameplay is as stellar as ever if not more so. Button input mastering is a genius idea, crafting is a genius idea, all the weapon types, all the visual changes, all the lore books. Keep that going. <3
|
|
inherit
7
0
Jun 28, 2019 21:35:13 GMT -6
1,291
CastleDan
1,514
May 28, 2015 9:50:13 GMT -6
May 2015
castledan
|
Post by CastleDan on Jun 24, 2019 14:17:14 GMT -6
Ciel Yeah, I wouldn't doubt it was a budget decision. If you can't afford some massive orchestra it'll naturally sound a bit weaker. I still don't think that excuses a lack of variety in sounds but I do think a lot of that could have been the desire to use as much orchestration as they could since it was the backer promise. I don't know I just wish we got far more varied tracks and atmospheric music too..... There was nothing that felt as downright creepy and pulled me in to this level. Maybe I shouldn't expect music on this level anymore though....SOTN's ost feels like lightning in a bottle. And regarding the lack of grotesque designs and generally ...tame visual designs and material. This is their base....Literally almost 98+ percent of the people who support IGA's games are over the age of 18. Maybe cater to them more? Not saying you should drop "F" bombs or something but go a bit more bloody, go a bit more grotesque, play up some more creepy designs. It just feels weird to have such a tame approach to a game about demons. I mean when you could be doing more creepy look designs like this
|
|
inherit
7
0
Jun 28, 2019 21:35:13 GMT -6
1,291
CastleDan
1,514
May 28, 2015 9:50:13 GMT -6
May 2015
castledan
|
Post by CastleDan on Jun 24, 2019 13:27:35 GMT -6
Thoughts on Bloodstained
Graphics -
I want to start by saying the visuals have definitely improved since a while back. Lighting, color, texture work seem to all have been improved. Some areas look great and have some really cool effects.....coughSANDcough... While I'm disappointed some of the lighting got toned down in the 1.02 patch, things overall seemed to improve. I think in a sequel I'd still like for the graphics to be a bit more stylized in terms of environments cuz some textures while improved feel very shiny and off-putting? Overall, it works well for the first game in the start of the series. The worst aspect of the game graphically is probably cutscene moments....it's super stilted and feels very low budget.
Art Design and Layout
Art Design -
Locations This is a bit hit and miss for me. I think some areas look pretty dang gorgeous. The church, the desert location, the library, and especially the underground water location.....all look really nice. Some areas didn't work for me ....the gold palace just was too much of that shiny off-putting texture stuff, the train itself felt like a missed opportunity, what could have been quite beautiful felt a bit rough visually with a boss that equally looked rough. It could have looked far more atmospheric than it did. I also really missed paintings in environments. There's a lot of backer portraits but to see some gothic looking paintings in areas could have added more life to these locations. The Retro level was a big disappointment to me. It's cool to have it but it felt less like a level and more like a hallway that they threw a couple enemies in and tagged it with a boss. This whole time I was expecting a Curse of the moon style level with at least some more attention to detail in level design and enemies.....it's still cool but that was definitely a bummer to me. It felt like a missed opportunity
Overall tho the art design was better than I expected but always room for improvement. Boss Designs This is one area that disappointed me. For a series of games that attracts mainly an adult audience why do the bosses in a *demon* focused game feel so tame design wise? A lot of them just felt odd. Where's the grotesque designs like Legion or like Beezlebub? Or just monstrosities in general? in the future it'd be nice to see more designs that really brought on more of the darker creepier elements that made some of his earlier Vania titles memorable. The game didn't feel dark enough in that regard and I loved all the light-hearted moments but a better mix would have been great.
Layout
This is one of my biggest problems with latter IGAVANIA games and I'm happy to report it was better than I expected. It's not without flaws but thankfully, for the most part, there wasn't overuse of copy and pasted rooms in each location. Floors weren't always just a box with a horizontal floor there was more to it and I'm thankful for that. I do think some locations are kinda boxed up together and think they could do a better job of organically making use of the negative space for locations to breathe a bit more.
I will say though that the later locations in the game felt far too repetitive. The Den location basically being an enlarged garden reusing a lot of assets, the ice location and fire location rarely having unique rooms within them but basically just being a series of hallways of their respective element. In a game with the biggest castle I figured they would have done far more creative locations than that. It was a bit of a dissappointment coming from the largely better locations from earlier in the game.
Music
I'm so torn on this OST. I feel like a lot of the tracks we heard from the beta turned out to be the better music, so it was a bit disappointing to play the game and the remaining tracks didn't do much for me. I felt like it lead me to be disappointed. I'm also not sure if the Orchestra direction paid off like I hoped it would. There's something thin about some of the tracks that you never got when Michiru Yamane did the old games.....listen to *Garden Forgotten by Time* for example and compare it to one of the new tracks. One feels full and has loads of energy and a lot of these feel kinda empty.
On top of that the OST lacks major variety compared to SOTN's ost. Maybe I shouldn't compare to that OST but I thought with the amount of time this game was worked on there'd be far more to bite into. Where's piano centered tracks? Where's guitar lead centered tracks? Where's completely bizzare arrangements ....ala wandering ghosts.... I feel like in the process of using an orchestra the game pigeon holed itself into mainly using strings for everything instead of doing all sorts of sounds. My favorite tracks at the end of the day were the character themes.....especially Gebel's which features gorgeous piano, i only wished the game would have done more like that itself.
I was waiting for that truly creepy music, or totally rocking music, or waltzy music and just the styles never achieved it for me. This might sound all bad but overall it's still a good OST with some awesome tracks on it.
Characters and Story
I honestly have no issue with any of this stuff. I think the characters are voiced well and have some great comedic moments. Each character was handled incredibly well at the end of the day it's not what i want out of these characters it's...do they do a good job of selling what these characters are and I think they did. Also...O.D. rules.....please give me a game with him as a lead. I remember suggesting files in the vein of Resident Evil in this game and I don't know if that was always the plan or that thread got some attention but I'm so happy regardless of that. The lore books were fantastic and made the story feel deeper than any Castlevania because of it. They were also well writen. PLEASE keep this going forward.
Gameplay
This is where the game excells and nearly NEARLY topped SOTN for me. The game has so much depth, has so many cool little secrets, has so many cool items......i don't think a game IGA's made has ever given me so many options. Is there things I want improved? sure...I'd love familiars to be completely unique and not from enemies. I'd love transformations that felt like actual transformations....but that's incredibly nitpicky. This is the games shining moment and I hope they continue to keep these elements in future games and just improve them. Don't scrap them.
The game is a 8.5 for me. if some of these issues were ironed out it'd be a 10 and the best game IGA has made but it's got it's flaws that hopefully get ironed out in a second game.
One small note:
I think an expansion to the art team would do IGA's games a lot of favors in terms of layout, art design....etc. I can't imagine how hard it must be to balance so many artistic elements with the size of team they have.
|
|
inherit
7
0
Jun 28, 2019 21:35:13 GMT -6
1,291
CastleDan
1,514
May 28, 2015 9:50:13 GMT -6
May 2015
castledan
|
Post by CastleDan on Mar 26, 2019 18:46:41 GMT -6
Man the title of this thread is incredibly rude. I don't know if I mentioned that before but yikes. Lol
|
|
inherit
7
0
Jun 28, 2019 21:35:13 GMT -6
1,291
CastleDan
1,514
May 28, 2015 9:50:13 GMT -6
May 2015
castledan
|
Post by CastleDan on Mar 17, 2019 0:19:05 GMT -6
"what is the most important thing in Bloodstained?" "Hair-movement"? That's a joke-answer. It's a nice touch but not important. I was pretty sure Miriam was covered with shards and those comes in different sizes, even particles should be able to spread, and even in hair. Making it hardened. Anyway, the most important thing in this game, what I think, is to have a fun time playing it. A huge bonus if there is replay value. I am sorry I don't see the hype like most of you guys do with things like hair-movement being that important. I just don't get it. Overall a nice update. More hyped about the revisited comparison between footage, but I know textures and lights are things you fix later on. Been saying it for some time now, finally those impatient people can see a bit of his vision more clearly this time. Sorry for rant, I just value the project differently and it makes me feel "out of place" among you guys. I mean no disrespect but this is a strange take to me. You think all of these fixes were gonna happen regardless if we were just patient? is that why they brought on a whole new team with Wayforward? Is that why they pushed the release date back from 2018 to 2019 due to a desire to address all the beta feedback ( which was mainly visual )? I think it's odd to claim these visual fixes were gonna happen automatically if people never said a thing. I just don't find that to be true at all. I think this project would be very very different had people been accepting of the visuals a longgggg time ago. I think obviously improvements would be made but to the extent that they're doing? No. As far as Hair movement, it was never a major criticism but it was something people brought up that would bring some more life to the character, and it has. You mention fun factor and replayability being the most important elements. What's there to improve in that realm? It's an IGAVANIA game at it's most basic level it'll be a fun game with replayability, they've always been that. The visuals were the main problem across the internet not the fun factor, and certainly not the replayability. So of course addressing the main flaw your game has will excite people more than confirming an element they already know is good from when they played it.
|
|
inherit
7
0
Jun 28, 2019 21:35:13 GMT -6
1,291
CastleDan
1,514
May 28, 2015 9:50:13 GMT -6
May 2015
castledan
|
Post by CastleDan on Mar 16, 2019 23:53:41 GMT -6
I'll keep this simple:
I hope they function more like SOTN. I want more personality, I want them to level up and gain new abilities, i think it'd be cool if they were unique to enemies in the game but it's looking like that's not the case.
As far as the rumor there isn't a lot in the game.... | Good..I rather there be less that have far more detail and personality than a huge amount with no personality.
|
|
inherit
7
0
Jun 28, 2019 21:35:13 GMT -6
1,291
CastleDan
1,514
May 28, 2015 9:50:13 GMT -6
May 2015
castledan
|
Post by CastleDan on Feb 18, 2019 18:40:11 GMT -6
I may be remembering wrong but I could have swore one of the kickstarter updates said they were adding in the Fairy familiar because either it almost WON and IGA liked it a lot or some other reason. I could have swore something like that was mentioned, maybe we all just forgot they mentioned it lol
|
|
inherit
7
0
Jun 28, 2019 21:35:13 GMT -6
1,291
CastleDan
1,514
May 28, 2015 9:50:13 GMT -6
May 2015
castledan
|
Post by CastleDan on Feb 18, 2019 11:07:41 GMT -6
I have a feeling one of the playable characters will be the vampire character that Robbie voices. I also think Zangetsu is a shoe in.
|
|