Looks like IGA's been pulled.  Kojima is now in charge of the next console Castlevania game (which has had Castlevania retrofitted on top of existing in development title), although he's just there to give us confidence that Konami Europe and Spanish developer MercurySteam won't screw it up.

And it has Patrick Stewart.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3174606

Aside: It appears that Konami did not announce the rumored PSP remake of Castlevania: Bloodlines.

The official trailer's up:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09 … ords/50687

Dunno, despite the top billing in terms of director and voice actors, the gameplay itself is looking largely uninspired.  It's clearly borrowing a couple of pages from the Lament of Innocence/Curse of Darkness book of action -- with a couple of stylish flourishes from God of War.  The game is going to need to go through some serious refinements or have some sort of special hook to get me even moderately interested.

Doesn't look half-bad.  I've always thought the first Devil May Cry is what a Castlevania game in 3D should have been, so the more they make this like God of War, the better (excluding QTEs, of course).  They would do well to learn from GoW's camera though.  Stay the hell away from the camera designs found in Lament and Curse.

I'm sure some people are just ecstatic about this right now - if it holds true. I personally don't have a vendetta against the man (games like LoI and CoD were fun despite being flawed) but from some of the stuff I've read in interviews the guy has written a few too many checks his tush couldn't cash.

Looks promising. I'm glad we weren't given yet another handheld Castlevania game...
The gameplay does remind me of Devil May Cry, and a little bit of Prince of Persia, but those are good games! Also, here's hoping that the storyline is a bit deeper than before (sounds like the story is about lost love and trying to bring her back to life... of course such actions NEVER turn out well)!

cheers,

-avatar!

......I am so very disappointed right now.

If there was one franchise that I love more than any other CastleVania would be it. I've played it since I was not more than 2 years old and it has continued to be one of my favorite things in this world (Super CastleVania 4 being my favorite)

I welcomed the change from IGA I really did. I wanted it and maybe even begged it for a number of years. While his CastleVania is nice I wanted a change. Be careful what you wish for...

So the trailer begins nicely with a castle in sight and some legend telling. Your introduced to the main character, Gabriel. Thats all well and fine. They seem to like high profile voice acting....ok I like Patrick Stewart. There is a warg, good news there. Now the disappointment begins, the locales visited are so sunny and so bright. The monsters while nice remind me of things that were ripped straight from Greek mythology and then put into Greek settings. I know CV uses monsters from everywhere in all of its games but c'mon it just seems like they are really layering it on thick.

A new relic....a mask that brings the dead back to life....ok. Why is your wife dead dear Gabriel? I like the whole wife story, its classic CV stuff but if his wife just died or was killed by a cult or something I will be angry.

This CastleVania is missing something important. It has an obnoxious whip fine.....I hate the cross design but whip nonetheless. IT IS MISSING DRACULA!!!! I don't know this as a fact but I am still angry inside.

I remember when LoI and CoD came out. It reminded me of Devil May Cry but it still had its own flavor as a CastleVania game. I could tell that even if DMC was a template they tried to do their own thing and they did and it was entertaining. Now I see this and it looks like generic God of War rip off with saturated browns and grittiness spiked up with at least one sunny environment and one snowy environment.

I do like that the game has a more western art direction to it, that is the main character is a barbarian looking man and not some androgynous dude with white hair and an after image.

I don't know but I already have little faith in a reboot. If its a reboot they want Dracula and Simon Belmont need to be involved. The End. Konami if you can here me just make a game that takes place in 1999 with Julius. I love that idea but you won't do it.

Does anyone else share my dread or am I crazy?

why they cannot release 2-D old-school castlevania HD-fied, that would be amazing...

Amen.

People have different taste, so you can't please everyone. As for a 2-D Castlevania, those can be great, but I personally have gotten tired of all the Symphony of the Night sequels (by style, if not by name). So far, I like how this game is shaping! Looks like high-production value all the way. Of course, the real question is how fun will it be, and we'll have to wait and find out.

As for Dracula... I hope he's NOT in the game!
After all these years, I would think they can find a new and intriguing villain. To be honest, I would be surprised if Dracula is not somehow tied in the game (perhaps the protagonist ends up being Dracula... since it is after all hinted he's not entirely pure, and he does want to bring his wife back)...

Anyway, I've never understood why people always want the same hero and villain over and over again...
For example, I think it gets rather dull in that in nearly EVERY single Zelda game you have to fight Gannon and rescue Zelda! That's probably why I so loved Majora's Mask. It was darker, the villain was very unique, and the whole story was beautiful.

I respect tradition, but new can be great. Personally, I've never felt "dread" for a video game If it sucks or you simply don't like it, don't buy it.

cheers,

-avatar!

Even without going to the fundamental differences between 2D and 3D gameplay, this is not Castlevania as I know it. I'm not dismissing it--it's too soon to make a real judgment call--but I approach it with trepidation more than anything.

What does this title mean--if anything--for that other console Castlevania featuring Alucard that was announced a while back, I wonder?

I feel that its important for him to be in it. In my opinion Dracula is more important than the people who fight him. Practically anyone can fight him and as long as they do that is CastleVania.

I'm all for new things but if you change something too much it becomes something different. For example, Devil May Cry was originally a Resident Evil. I enjoy it as its own entity. This leads me to the conclusion that Lords of Shadow may be playable or even good but being branded as CastleVania that changes everything so much really kills it. Being its own IP is far more interesting.

Another example, I would have liked to see a movie called The Spirits Within. Instead I saw Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and I was disappointed. Why? Because when you say Final Fantasy no matter how much is different you expect some things to be the same because its ingrained into it.

CastleVania without Dracula is hardly CastleVania at all.

Oh yeah Vaati is a bitch

just stating again, as I've stated elsewhere, and as I believe might not possibly ever be stated too much:

Lords of Shadow, from what we know, was originally not related to Castlevania and was under development by MercurySteam, a little known Spanish developer whose only other confirmed works are American McGee's Scrapland and Clive Barker's Jericho.

A cynic (like me) who knows this information might say, upon recent revelations, that Konami saw that the game they either commissioned or adopted was headed for trouble (either development-wise or people-giving-a-shit-wise), so they added the Castlevania name and brought in Kojima Productions to oversee production, hoping people would now look forward to Hideo Kojima's Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.

As I have not played a Castlevania since the NES entries, I lack the perspective to articulate my thoughts on the series. But this sounds about right to me.

Regardless of why (and how) Kojima's name is attached to it, I am hoping for a good game nevertheless. Could it be time for me to get into Castlevania?

This is pretty close to my own feeling.

Over the course of the 2000s, the Castlevania series has really morphed into something completely different and lost touch with it's roots in so many ways. I'm definitely not one to pour scorn on innovation and new ideas, but when it comes to things like Castlevania, a part of what attracts me to it is tradition and continuity. If it loses even that, it also loses my willingness as a long-time fanboy to glance over some of it's weaknesses and shortcomings. The fact that they just retrofitted the Castlevania name on top of it and shoehorned it into the already-mangled-beyond-belief timeline just drives the point home in a cheap way.

What the trailer shows of gameplay looks pretty OK, but not more than OK. It looks like any Devil May Cry/God of War clone out there. For that kind of game to catch my attention, it has to be really good, which I'm not sure this will be. If I'm to finish at a more positive note, I can at least say that what I've seen of the gameplay so far is miles above Lament of Innocence's and Curse of Darkness' slow and cumbersome drudgery. That said (and that is certainly not saying much), maybe its time to finally drive a stake through the heart of this series and let it rest in peace.

Well, at least some good came out of this.

Gotta agree with Daniel, I think this looks terrible. When I heard the opening narration by Patrick Stewart and all I could think of is LOTR (*sigh*). Then I see the gameplay and it's hard not to think of God of War - I mean this looks like a clone. How does this even pass as a Castevania game? Konami is feeling the bad times too?

If nothing else, this will be the first Castlevania game that I will actually be willing to listen to the English voice acting. ;-)

My own feelings after watching the trailer are more positive, especially considering the state of the series over the past several years.  A couple questions for you cynics...

Would you prefer yet another Metrovania clone with recycled enemies, another wack excuse to bring Dracula back, and some other cheeky gameplay gimmick?

Would you prefer a 3D Castlevania that plays along the lines of previous 3D efforts in the series, or would you prefer one that plays along the lines of God of War, but with a Castlevania atmosphere and story?

My own answer to the first question is a resounding NO, and given the reception the respective titles received I'm guessing for the second question most people would choose the latter option.  Is it any surprise that the next 3D CV resembles GoW when that series has somewhat defined recent action-adventure gaming and has sold a bajillion copies?

I think both the action and the graphics in the trailer look respectable and the boss encounters like good, monstrous fun (especially the one on the snowy mountain).  What I'm really happy about is the outdoor environments - Simon's Quest is one of the games that left the most lasting impression on me from my childhood (despite its infuriating shortcomings) and I've been longing for a Castlevania to give us more freedom to wander the outdoors and restore a sense of adventure to the series (which is hard for me to get being stuck inside a castle the whole game).

I wonder how the reaction would differ if the Lords of Shadow game had never been announced and this was being sprung on us as an entirely new Castlevania game.  I realize that's not the case, and that there's all kinds of potential for them to twist the series into something it wasn't meant to be, but they're still fairly early in development so I'm hoping for the best.

Oh and if it came down to a choice of one or the other, I would take a Dracula-less Castlevania with the whip over a Dracula-infested Castlevania sans whip any day.  Anyhow with this talk in the trailer about bringing one's love back from the dead I figure there's all sorts of potential to factor Dracula into the story, so don't count him (or the game) out yet.

You do have a point, Adam. We cynics whine for years about the series being stagnant and not changing, then when it does change, we whine some more about it changing. I feel the difference in your reasoning and mine stems from the fact that I've followed this series closely all it's life and played every game, while you've been more of a casual fan (correct me if I'm wrong about that).

Its nice that its moving in a new direction (that was way overdue), but what the trailer suggests is just another passable action game. My problem with this is similar to my problem with the new Silent Hill games (see the thread below). I remember a time when these games were the cream of the crop, when picking up a game with the Castlevania (or Silent Hill) name pretty much guaranteed that you'd be getting the best the genre had to offer. This is no longer the case, and in this scenario, the honourable thing to do would be to put the series to rest, let the world have the glorious memories alive without the taint of retrofitting and retconning, and focus on other projects. If they for example just released the game as the first in a new series of it's own, Lords of Shadow, all of this would've been avoided. But of course, we're talking game companies here, their guiding star isn't honour but profit (which is understandable). Thus "franchising" becomes the death of all really good series in the end - they become more and more like gutted-out carcasses, incessantly milked over and over for that last bit of cash, and we poor gamers who're loyal to our old favourites of yore and want to give them the benefit of a doubt swallow the scraps they throw our way and try to pretend that the flavour is still fresh. The reason I and many others seem so negative about this is that we feel its time to just say "screw that shit". Personally, I recognize that my own gaming heydays are in the past, and when I do sit down with a damn game nowadays, I expect no less than an awesome experience. I simply do not have the time for another lukewarm installment in a all-but-dead-at-heart series, I'm tired of tedious avarage-ness where I should be getting excellence. The mediocre and in-between games I leave for those who are still avid and regular gamers, who can put up with that crap on a semi-regular basis.

Now, there's a distinct possibility this game might turn out to be great and surprise us all, even the cynics. But, c'mon, we all know the chances are slim at best. I can smell the sewage from miles away already.

Man, I don't know. If I liked God of War at all, I'd have no problem with the way the game looks like it plays, but I didn't like God of War, so it is hard to be excited. Looks nice, and the boss fights look epic, though.

I need to get into this series, regardless. I haven't played a Castlevania since the NES days.

Hmm, for a second, I thought that was the Castlevania movie that someone said they were going to put out.

Voice actors = Top notch. Music, so far = Fuckign epic. Lords of Shadow = Most generic subtitle ever. Castlevania subtitles, up until now, have been pretty poetic, like Aria of Sorrow, Lament of Innocence, Portrait of Ruin, Symphony of the Night, etc. So that's a little disappointing.

Some of those boss fights they showed reminded me of Shadow of the Colossus.

This is part of why I liked Curse of Darkness. It's true the exploration is a bit limited but the outdoor environments were a nice chance from being in a castle all day.

....Konami not insult me by blatantly rebranding a likely C-tier generic action game by an unproven developer by sticking a 20-year old franchise name on it and associating it with their resident rock star, then sticking on big-name voice talent and selling the whole package as a new entry in the series?

Quite possibly.

Hear, hear! Well put, DK.

I have to admit, looking at it that way, this is one of those things - a string of facts - that Konami should have tried their hardest to conceal. It's a pretty ugly story for any game to have behind it's creation.

Personally, I think they shouldn't try to conceal it, they should just not have commissioned it in the first place.

Well, to be fair, it's not entirely facts - it's mainly assumptions that are pretty strongly based on evidence and previous behavior by the industry.

I'm mainly indignant because I believe that the mishandling of Castlevania can't be laid entirely at the feet of Igarashi, as many stupid decisions as he's made. The movies, the arcade games, the mobile games - I get the feeling that Konami doesn't know what to do with Castlevania, and Igarashi has nowhere near as much weight to throw around as Kojima does. He may have churned out a string of nearly identical games, each with their own flaws that range from the annoying to the enjoyment-crippling, but I believe him when he says (or implies) that Konami hasn't greenlighted the budget for the kind of games the fans have been clamoring for.

I'm just going to add my two cents here for what it's worth.  I think that a total reboot on the Castlevania franchise is a very good thing because with all the games the timeline is rather confusing.  I should note that while I have been a gamer for 24 years starting with the nintendo, I have only played Super Castlevania IV, Symphony of the Night, Lament of Innocence and (with regret) Curse of Darkness.  I mostly played rpgs and really only played the Castlevania games in October to get in the mood for Halloween.

I also haven't played many of the other games mention (God of War? Devil May Cry) as most of my gaming days are far behind me, but that is not to say that I will not be playing games again just that I am more selective of the titles as my time is divided between other things.

One thing that has held my attention to the Castlevania franchise are the soundtracks.  I love my japanese import of Symphony of the Night OST and my Lament of Innocence OST along with a few Curse of Darkness tracks.  I am very keen to learn who is composing the Lords of Shadows soundtrack and hope that if it is set in a specific time period that they have music that fits properly.  That does not mean there can't be pulse pounding battle themes, nor does that mean there can't be old favourite themes such as Bloody Tears or Vampire Killer, but I hope that the composer would at least try and transcribe the music to work with in the setting.  Just look at the amazing job Leopold Stokoswski did transcribing Bach's Toccata and Fugue for orchestra, or the piano version of bloody tears on youtube.

My other thing that I hope they do is continue to have an optional stero audio setting as I do not have a fancy set up.

Will I buy the game when it comes out .  Yes.  Will hold off judgement until then.  Yes.

Sincerely,

David

I personally feel the trailer music is balls.  Sounds like pumped in cinematic orchestral nonsense.  If they're going to revolutionize the franchise or whatever, at least give us a throwback with some familiar themes or give us some rock elements or SOMETHING that is Castlevania.  The franchise is as old as it is because it's succesful, so I don't get it.

Anyway, Kojima was very unclear about his role on the title.  He said, "You're probably wondering what I'll be doing since it's being developed by Mercurysteam and produced by David Cox.  Well, I'm helping them give birth to this new Castlevania."  So, it sounds like he's "helping out" and boosting the game's profile by slapping his name on it.

Appraising the game itself and not the legacy it's taken on, it looks pleasant enough. You can definitely see the gameplay influence of God of War (though thank goodness, the protagonist seems less of a prick, or at the very least a more penitent one) and thematic influence of Shadow of the Colossus, and it seems solid in the video. That said, I'm not sitting on my hands waiting for it, either.

To answer Adam's question, I would at least like to see a traditional Metrovania (or perhaps an older-school CASTLEVANIA - I was a huge fan of CV Chronicles) appear in tandem with this; as has been said, to completely remove the reins from the series' most loving steward to the hands of complete strangers is incredibly risky. Nintendo may have given Metroid Prime to Retro Studios, but they had the good sense to hedge their bets with an in-house 2D Metroid at the same time. And while I've yet to get to Order of Ecclesia or Curse of Darkness, I enjoyed both Portrait of Ruin and Lament of Innocence quite a bit, so naturally I feel IGA's ouster was premature (to say nothing of Yamane, Koshiro, et al).

We'll see what happens, I suppose.

nitpicky mood today (everyday)....I'm pretty sure there's been no official or even really unofficial word that IGA is "ousted" in any way - it's one of several things that are being extrapolated (along with word that it's a series reboot) that I've yet to see any actual evidence of. I think it started with a few people's wishful thinking and snowballed into "oh, this is probably what happened".

That said, I'm with the camp that thinks this might threaten the development (or promotion) of the 360/PS3 game starring Alucard, which we've heard so little about. After three games, it's probably a bit too early to announce another handheld title.

(although I've no idea if it's too early for a game-tester to leak screenshots of another DS game on GameFAQs and get fired as the result)

It's trailer music, what do you expect?  What they have in place works better than if they had thrown in a rock arrangement of Vampire Killer or the like, which would have sounded forced.

I think most would argue that the 3D Castlevanias have NOT been successful.  So they're giving it another go in a new direction.  Personally I also think the series in general has become stale.  It might still sell to hardcore CV fans but I don't think there's been anything to attract a new audience or even interest casual fans of the series, such as myself.

From a gameplay perspective, entrenching the series in the current Metrovania style, sequel after sequel, is being as untrue to the series' roots as giving it a God of War'esque turn in 3D.

More important about the series for me is theme and atmosphere.  Considering the turn recent installments have taken, what with the anime style and hooker boots (old thread, sorry), even this mid-transformation, Dracula-less Lords of Shadow is more true to the series as I know and remember it.

I think ultimately what would make me happiest is a MM9 style sequel. They have proven that they cannot bring CV into the new generation so they shouldn't. There is no reason that Dracula's Curse can't be considered one of the series apexes. I wouldn't mind returning for another go.

99% of the time these are two different things.

Still would have been nice to have a gothic feel rather than the standard Hollywood approach they went with.  "Vampire Killer" would have been much better, and I don't think it would have sounded forced at all.

And about a series reboot, people "extrapolated" that from Dave Cox, the title's producer, saying just that without those words.  "This is a Castlevania like you've never seen.  We're doing things differently."

I personally loved Lament of Innocence, so in my mind it's pretty successful.  But I was referring more to the 2D style and the gothic rock soundtrack.

The way I see it, if its not broken, do not fix it.