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Post by CastleDan on Mar 17, 2016 14:47:45 GMT -6
I get you on the minibosses, those i think may not warrant a full on closed off "boss door" area but to have a room where you cant go forward until x enemy is dead but you can leave if you feel overwhelmed (either through size or reach like enkidu and blackmore or by focusing their defensive abilities on one door like a grand une focusing her tentacles on barring the door behind her or a living wall type enemy hiding the door), and those type of fights could allow for having the savepoint further away because you are allowed the choice of "oh shit whats that! Do i stick it out and try fighting it or do i need to save? There is one tactic though that i think doesnt see much use but is supremely game changing as far as whether youre truly trapped, and thats the library card/magic ticket/teleport item, that item does effectively negate being trapped unless its somehow disabled during certain fights (and as far as i know is the only way to get true dracula and shaft in your bestiary, so i use it once there and save for full completion before i beat the game) Yeah, I think that's my argument. Not every boss needs a designated big old blue boss door. Some mini-bosses or just less powerful bosses could have that element of surprise. Like the Doppleganger. VARIETY BABY, VARIETY! Anyways, I appreciate Mana for going into some details about the castle design. I'm surprised no one really talked about INTI wanted to try make the interior accurate to the exterior design or vise versa. That was a cool little detail.
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Post by Astaroth on Mar 17, 2016 15:15:39 GMT -6
I know, i saw that and was thinking of having the best of both worlds, you have that sprawling castle layout with loading rooms to possibly break up drastic transitions, but still have the likelyhood of tightly packed clusters of rooms that share an overarching theme and flow from one environment to the next, and that the exterior and interior layout meshing could allow for those aha moments where you look out a window and realised theres something you missed before
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Post by crocodile on Mar 17, 2016 17:29:12 GMT -6
Ok there seems like there are two arguments going on here - one is how clear should the world and level design make it that a boss battle is ahead and warn the player so they can take an alternate action if need be (such as search for a save room) and the other is if the manner in which said warning should take must be a door or not. As far as I'm concerned, the former in non-negotiable. In a game without auto-saves, where you don't get to keep items/experience after death, the game needs to make it explicitly clear when a boss battle is coming ahead. It's not about coddling the player, its about challenging and frustrating the player in the right way. Yes, there is actually a right way and a wrong way to challenge and frustrate you player though that will depend on the genre of the game and the type of mood you are trying to set. Igavanias are games about exploration and encouraging you to venture out and explore the unknown. Nonetheless, the game still has to give you the tools and clues to make proper, informed decisions. Boss battles are tests - once you are in one you don't get to back out and your punishment for losing is appropriately death. Being able to leave any boss battle at any time just saps all the challenge and agency out of them and is not something you see in most games (or any Metroidvania game). So you have to be able to enter a boss battle on your own terms if you can't escape mid-battle and to do that, the game environment has to properly foreshadow upcoming events of such nature. Doing otherwise is just the developer being an asshole.
As for whether or not that warning has to be that of a door - no not necessarily. However doors are useful because they are a very clear visual clue that's pretty much impossible to miss, they are part of the natural architecture of any sort of castle - real or virtual (so I'm not sure I'm sympathetic to the view they are too "gamey"), they are a way to enclose a space in a manner that will basically always make narrative sense and they provide a sense of familiarity. With the later point I mean that its possible for a player to get the visual clue that a series of vines maybe be a prelude to a boss battle but miss that a bunch of webs are somewhere else whereas if they see a "boss door" its ALWAYS clear what is going on. As I said, it doesn't ALWAYS have to be a boss door to section off boss battles and what not but it feels like a lot of the argument against them is "just cause" and "lets switch things up" rather than "I think this will noticeably improve the player experience or enjoyment". As I said, doors to section off noteworthy sections of a castle (or any building) are pretty natural - I don't see how they would be narrative-breaking or damaging to the atmosphere in any sense. That's just how I see things.
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Post by CastleDan on Mar 17, 2016 18:23:48 GMT -6
Ok there seems like there are two arguments going on here - one is how clear should the world and level design make it that a boss battle is ahead and warn the player so they can take an alternate action if need be (such as search for a save room) and the other is if the manner in which said warning should take must be a door or not. As far as I'm concerned, the former in non-negotiable. In a game without auto-saves, where you don't get to keep items/experience after death, the game needs to make it explicitly clear when a boss battle is coming ahead. It's not about coddling the player, its about challenging and frustrating the player in the right way. Yes, there is actually a right way and a wrong way to challenge and frustrate you player though that will depend on the genre of the game and the type of mood you are trying to set. Igavanias are games about exploration and encouraging you to venture out and explore the unknown. Nonetheless, the game still has to give you the tools and clues to make proper, informed decisions. Boss battles are tests - once you are in one you don't get to back out and your punishment for losing is appropriately death. Being able to leave any boss battle at any time just saps all the challenge and agency out of them and is not something you see in most games (or any Metroidvania game). So you have to be able to enter a boss battle on your own terms if you can't escape mid-battle and to do that, the game environment has to properly foreshadow upcoming events of such nature. Doing otherwise is just the developer being an asshole. As for whether or not that warning has to be that of a door - no not necessarily. However doors are useful because they are a very clear visual clue that's pretty much impossible to miss, they are part of the natural architecture of any sort of castle - real or virtual (so I'm not sure I'm sympathetic to the view they are too "gamey"), they are a way to enclose a space in a manner that will basically always make narrative sense and they provide a sense of familiarity. With the later point I mean that its possible for a player to get the visual clue that a series of vines maybe be a prelude to a boss battle but miss that a bunch of webs are somewhere else whereas if they see a "boss door" its ALWAYS clear what is going on. As I said, it doesn't ALWAYS have to be a boss door to section off boss battles and what not but it feels like a lot of the argument against them is "just cause" and "lets switch things up" rather than "I think this will noticeably improve the player experience or enjoyment". As I said, doors to section off noteworthy sections of a castle (or any building) are pretty natural - I don't see how they would be narrative-breaking or damaging to the atmosphere in any sense. That's just how I see things. As always to each their own. I don't see the problem with having a mix, some boss doors, some visual cues, some surprises. Doesn't need to be so cut and dry all the time. I'm not saying big boss doors will ruin it for me, i'm just saying I personally loved those ...SURPRISE PUNK...boss type battles. They're were always a shock and got me amped up to fight.
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Post by crocodile on Mar 17, 2016 19:32:22 GMT -6
Ok there seems like there are two arguments going on here - one is how clear should the world and level design make it that a boss battle is ahead and warn the player so they can take an alternate action if need be (such as search for a save room) and the other is if the manner in which said warning should take must be a door or not. As far as I'm concerned, the former in non-negotiable. In a game without auto-saves, where you don't get to keep items/experience after death, the game needs to make it explicitly clear when a boss battle is coming ahead. It's not about coddling the player, its about challenging and frustrating the player in the right way. Yes, there is actually a right way and a wrong way to challenge and frustrate you player though that will depend on the genre of the game and the type of mood you are trying to set. Igavanias are games about exploration and encouraging you to venture out and explore the unknown. Nonetheless, the game still has to give you the tools and clues to make proper, informed decisions. Boss battles are tests - once you are in one you don't get to back out and your punishment for losing is appropriately death. Being able to leave any boss battle at any time just saps all the challenge and agency out of them and is not something you see in most games (or any Metroidvania game). So you have to be able to enter a boss battle on your own terms if you can't escape mid-battle and to do that, the game environment has to properly foreshadow upcoming events of such nature. Doing otherwise is just the developer being an asshole. As for whether or not that warning has to be that of a door - no not necessarily. However doors are useful because they are a very clear visual clue that's pretty much impossible to miss, they are part of the natural architecture of any sort of castle - real or virtual (so I'm not sure I'm sympathetic to the view they are too "gamey"), they are a way to enclose a space in a manner that will basically always make narrative sense and they provide a sense of familiarity. With the later point I mean that its possible for a player to get the visual clue that a series of vines maybe be a prelude to a boss battle but miss that a bunch of webs are somewhere else whereas if they see a "boss door" its ALWAYS clear what is going on. As I said, it doesn't ALWAYS have to be a boss door to section off boss battles and what not but it feels like a lot of the argument against them is "just cause" and "lets switch things up" rather than "I think this will noticeably improve the player experience or enjoyment". As I said, doors to section off noteworthy sections of a castle (or any building) are pretty natural - I don't see how they would be narrative-breaking or damaging to the atmosphere in any sense. That's just how I see things. As always to each their own. I don't see the problem with having a mix, some boss doors, some visual cues, some surprises. Doesn't need to be so cut and dry all the time. I'm not saying big boss doors will ruin it for me, i'm just saying I personally loved those ...SURPRISE PUNK...boss type battles. They're were always a shock and got me amped up to fight. I'm curious, what games have those sorts of boss battles (not regular/tough enemies)? Can you give me specific examples - I'm having a hard time thinking of some. I'm hesitant to make assumptions but I'm not going to be surprised if they are games in different genres and with different goals and moods (I could be wrong though). Breaking "rules" and bucking "trends" is more than acceptable but you have to do them for very specific and purposeful reasons. I don't think variety does or should trump properly setting gamers' expectations. Like surprises are cool but there's a difference between getting an awesome present under the Christmas tree you didn't see coming and getting sucker punched. Technically they are both surprises
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Post by CastleDan on Mar 17, 2016 19:35:00 GMT -6
As always to each their own. I don't see the problem with having a mix, some boss doors, some visual cues, some surprises. Doesn't need to be so cut and dry all the time. I'm not saying big boss doors will ruin it for me, i'm just saying I personally loved those ...SURPRISE PUNK...boss type battles. They're were always a shock and got me amped up to fight. I'm curious, what games have those sorts of boss battles (not regular/tough enemies)? Can you give me specific examples - I'm having a hard time thinking of some. I'm hesitant to make assumptions but I'm not going to be surprised if they are games in different genres and with different goals and moods (I could be wrong though). Breaking "rules" and bucking "trends" is more than acceptable but you have to do them for very specific and purposeful reasons. I don't think variety does or should trump properly setting gamers' expectations. Like surprises are cool but there's a difference between getting an awesome present under the Christmas tree you didn't see coming and getting sucker punched. Technically they are both surprises Well didn't SOTN have them? That would be the example. I loved how they were handled in that. No big surprise there though because it's my fav It worked just fine in that game so I don't see why it wouldn't work well in this ( sparingly )
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Post by Zechs on Mar 17, 2016 21:09:55 GMT -6
The way Axiom Verge used such was an entire hallway prior save/boss three-way, would have a change in tunes (music would stop and sounds would radiate as if something big was breathing) then the three way with an entrance, boss room and save room with a background showing this is a boss encounters direction.
Kind of gave you a chance to risk exploring further or guessing which way was the save. Sometimes it didn't work out the way intended. But dying was part of the story so it gave you a chance to prepare better before treking back.
Would a changed audio track with symbolic icon be used in place of locked doors be acceptable to a degree? Or inspire something else?
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Post by CastleDan on Mar 17, 2016 21:17:46 GMT -6
The way Axiom Verge used such was an entire hallway prior save/boss three-way, would have a change in tunes (music would stop and sounds would radiate as if something big was breathing) then the three way with an entrance, boss room and save room with a background showing this is a boss encounters direction. Kind of gave you a chance to risk exploring further or guessing which way was the save. Sometimes it didn't work out the way intended. But dying was part of the story so it gave you a chance to prepare better before treking back. Would a changed audio track with symbolic icon be used in place of locked doors be acceptable to a degree? Or inspire something else? Yeah, that's what I mean. There's plenty of routes they could take that don't involve a door that looks the same for every boss and signifies boss room. I think that's a cool idea though.
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Post by ghaleon on Mar 18, 2016 0:54:26 GMT -6
ghaleon mentioned about someone who was concerned over bigger castle = copy and pasting. Yes there will be some copy and pasting such as the windows and glass panels, but obvious copy and pasting are pointed out and changed during design feedback. We also try to avoid tiled pattern that isn't seamless (such as the floor pattern). Hopefully we can update everyone more when we have more information You already mentioned that I was mentioning someone and wasn't voicing that concern for myself (I wouldn't because we all know darn well no dev is gonna be like 'yeah, we're gonna copy and paste a lot more to compensate for the bigger castle!'). But if the purpose of this is to be voiced to dev team, please make sure it's apparent I didn't ask this, I don't want to be thought of as that guy that asked THAT question =P
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Post by Mana on Mar 18, 2016 1:29:20 GMT -6
ghaleon mentioned about someone who was concerned over bigger castle = copy and pasting. Yes there will be some copy and pasting such as the windows and glass panels, but obvious copy and pasting are pointed out and changed during design feedback. We also try to avoid tiled pattern that isn't seamless (such as the floor pattern). Hopefully we can update everyone more when we have more information You already mentioned that I was mentioning someone and wasn't voicing that concern for myself (I wouldn't because we all know darn well no dev is gonna be like 'yeah, we're gonna copy and paste a lot more to compensate for the bigger castle!'). But if the purpose of this is to be voiced to dev team, please make sure it's apparent I didn't ask this, I don't want to be thought of as that guy that asked THAT question =P Don't worry, this was stated way before during development and there were few other people who were concerned over this.
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Post by zoned87 on Mar 18, 2016 5:53:19 GMT -6
I think having something like a creepy cemetery area would be cool.
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Post by purifyweirdshard on Sept 21, 2016 11:07:31 GMT -6
Backer Devin Monnens posted this in the Kickstarter comments, and I thought it would be of interest to those in this thread/CastleDan :
Not sure if this was posted already, but there's a fascinating article about the level design philosophy of Symphony of the Night and how it differs from the other Castlevanias Iga designed. www.gamasutra.com/blogs/ArioBarzan/20150727/243308/Economy_and_Thematic_Structure_Symphony_of_the_Nights_Level_Design.phpEssentially, the article argues Symphony used structural variety to not only help the player mentally identify different areas while breaking up pacing and supporting the theme of the area. Essentially, the "architecture is engaged in a dialogue with itself." Have these concepts been anything the design team has considered for Bloodstained? Perhaps Iga can share more light on the difference between Symphony and the later games in this regard. I've also been using the original Castlevania and this fascinating article on Castlevania III to teach my students game design. We are currently considering narrative progression through a level and communicating story using level design. gamecareerguide.com/features/869/good_games_bad_design__episode_.php
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Post by CastleDan on Sept 22, 2016 6:47:55 GMT -6
Backer Devin Monnens posted this in the Kickstarter comments, and I thought it would be of interest to those in this thread/CastleDan :
Not sure if this was posted already, but there's a fascinating article about the level design philosophy of Symphony of the Night and how it differs from the other Castlevanias Iga designed. www.gamasutra.com/blogs/ArioBarzan/20150727/243308/Economy_and_Thematic_Structure_Symphony_of_the_Nights_Level_Design.phpEssentially, the article argues Symphony used structural variety to not only help the player mentally identify different areas while breaking up pacing and supporting the theme of the area. Essentially, the "architecture is engaged in a dialogue with itself." Have these concepts been anything the design team has considered for Bloodstained? Perhaps Iga can share more light on the difference between Symphony and the later games in this regard. I've also been using the original Castlevania and this fascinating article on Castlevania III to teach my students game design. We are currently considering narrative progression through a level and communicating story using level design. gamecareerguide.com/features/869/good_games_bad_design__episode_.php Mana should see this as I think it's very helpful in defining what makes SOTN's castle design so special. This article perfectly sums up why I think SOTN's castle has never been topped and why it's so memorable. It literally articulates ( vastly better) all the things I've been trying to say from the beginning. hell it even mentions the thing I told mana about Dawn's castle feeling like the areas are too bunched up and chaotic not allowing the castle to breathe. Something SOTN was great at doing( mind you I loved Aria's castle tho). I absolutely love the fact that their comment about Aria coming close to how SOTN designed a castle matches my exact opinion on it too. So the reasons why I love SOTN's castle are clearly things that exist in some capacity in Aria. Its an excellent write up of what makes good castle design and I certainly think it's worth a read. Thanks for posting it
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Post by Ramzo Wily on Sept 23, 2016 9:12:08 GMT -6
Backer Devin Monnens posted this in the Kickstarter comments, and I thought it would be of interest to those in this thread/CastleDan :
Not sure if this was posted already, but there's a fascinating article about the level design philosophy of Symphony of the Night and how it differs from the other Castlevanias Iga designed. www.gamasutra.com/blogs/ArioBarzan/20150727/243308/Economy_and_Thematic_Structure_Symphony_of_the_Nights_Level_Design.phpEssentially, the article argues Symphony used structural variety to not only help the player mentally identify different areas while breaking up pacing and supporting the theme of the area. Essentially, the "architecture is engaged in a dialogue with itself." Have these concepts been anything the design team has considered for Bloodstained? Perhaps Iga can share more light on the difference between Symphony and the later games in this regard. I've also been using the original Castlevania and this fascinating article on Castlevania III to teach my students game design. We are currently considering narrative progression through a level and communicating story using level design. gamecareerguide.com/features/869/good_games_bad_design__episode_.phpI tried reading the gamasutra article because I found the subject matter rather fascinating, but I ended up having to mostly give up. I have to say, the article is well-intentioned, but I just have to disagree with the vast majority of what it says. For one thing, it's making claims about level design in SotN and comparing those to HoD. That's just an unfair comparison. The GBA games had to make sacrifices to design just in order to work on the system. On the PSX you would have had much more free reign and control in how you design a game than you would on the GBA. Level design and game design absolutely cannot, and SHOULD not, work the same between the two systems. You can't try and make a game exactly like you would for a home console on a system like the GBA and expect it to play well. Level design is forcibly limited by the capabilities and experience of the system. Even moving past that though, the writer basically even admits that some things he's writing as positives for SotN appear in the later games, and some of the negative things in later games appear in Symphony. But he attempts to justify the differences. You can argue his success on how well he justifies them, but it seems to me that a lot of the comparisons he's making are more simply qualities of both, but because the writer clearly prefers Symphony of the others he is justifying them in Symphony whereas just leaving them as criticisms of others. One of his final points is about the occurrence of "Irregular" rooms in the various games. He states that Symphony has plenty while only Harmony and Aria have any, with Aria only having a single "irregular" room. What irregular means is that the room isn't either a square or box. But this point is just flat out wrong. His entire basis for this argument is the appearance of rooms on the maps. But this is more an issue with a design of the maps than the design of the rooms. That is to say, in games post-Symphony, they designed the map to almost always create squares when you've "fully" explored a room. That's not to say that there aren't any irregularly designed rooms - I've played Portrait, Aria, and Dawn plenty and I'm quite sure that there are a number of rooms that if you played them you would say most certainly fit his definition of "irregular" rooms, but in these games the map for these rooms is pretty much always designed in a square or rectangular shape so that you can "brush" by certain corners to fill out the map to the full shape. And lastly, there's the matter of "compression." The writer argues that symphony's map is better than Dawn of Sorrow's map because, and I'm completely serious here, "there's more negative space." That is to say, because less of the map area is filled in, Symphony has a better map. ....What? First of all, that logic doesn't really make sense. Just because one map uses less of the available screen for its map that somehow makes it a better design? That doesn't make sense. And here we can also see again a simple difference between the game and map design for the differing consoles. The DS had a very specific size screen that the game had to be designed for, so the map for it had to be designed in a specific way. If you look at it's map, there is still an awful lot of "negative" space that easily could've been filled in for rooms, but it wasn't. Though I have my problems with DoS, I always thought it had one of the best maps in the series. Every area worked and made sense as a part of the castle and is in my opinion the castle design Iga should be thinking about when building Bloodstained. Of course, I never considered Symphony my favorite (far from it) so maybe I'm not looking at it with quite the same passion, but to me I always thought SotN's biggest problem was the map layout. Everything is way too sprawling and wide for no apparent reason and it takes forever to do any backtracking. I'm not saying Symphony isn't a good game, because it certainly is. And I'm not saying the writer doesn't make any good points, because he does, particularly the build-up/payoff point. What I am saying is the article mostly feels like looking for excuses to claim that Symphony is better when in reality a lot of those reasons aren't all that true, and I'm concerned that only confuses the point he's trying to make and will only serve to confuse or hurt the game design for Bloodstained if they listen to him.
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Post by CastleDan on Sept 23, 2016 18:18:12 GMT -6
Backer Devin Monnens posted this in the Kickstarter comments, and I thought it would be of interest to those in this thread/CastleDan :
I tried reading the gamasutra article because I found the subject matter rather fascinating, but I ended up having to mostly give up. I have to say, the article is well-intentioned, but I just have to disagree with the vast majority of what it says. For one thing, it's making claims about level design in SotN and comparing those to HoD. That's just an unfair comparison. The GBA games had to make sacrifices to design just in order to work on the system. On the PSX you would have had much more free reign and control in how you design a game than you would on the GBA. Level design and game design absolutely cannot, and SHOULD not, work the same between the two systems. You can't try and make a game exactly like you would for a home console on a system like the GBA and expect it to play well. Level design is forcibly limited by the capabilities and experience of the system. Even moving past that though, the writer basically even admits that some things he's writing as positives for SotN appear in the later games, and some of the negative things in later games appear in Symphony. But he attempts to justify the differences. You can argue his success on how well he justifies them, but it seems to me that a lot of the comparisons he's making are more simply qualities of both, but because the writer clearly prefers Symphony of the others he is justifying them in Symphony whereas just leaving them as criticisms of others. One of his final points is about the occurrence of "Irregular" rooms in the various games. He states that Symphony has plenty while only Harmony and Aria have any, with Aria only having a single "irregular" room. What irregular means is that the room isn't either a square or box. But this point is just flat out wrong. His entire basis for this argument is the appearance of rooms on the maps. But this is more an issue with a design of the maps than the design of the rooms. That is to say, in games post-Symphony, they designed the map to almost always create squares when you've "fully" explored a room. That's not to say that there aren't any irregularly designed rooms - I've played Portrait, Aria, and Dawn plenty and I'm quite sure that there are a number of rooms that if you played them you would say most certainly fit his definition of "irregular" rooms, but in these games the map for these rooms is pretty much always designed in a square or rectangular shape so that you can "brush" by certain corners to fill out the map to the full shape. And lastly, there's the matter of "compression." The writer argues that symphony's map is better than Dawn of Sorrow's map because, and I'm completely serious here, "there's more negative space." That is to say, because less of the map area is filled in, Symphony has a better map. ....What? First of all, that logic doesn't really make sense. Just because one map uses less of the available screen for its map that somehow makes it a better design? That doesn't make sense. And here we can also see again a simple difference between the game and map design for the differing consoles. The DS had a very specific size screen that the game had to be designed for, so the map for it had to be designed in a specific way. If you look at it's map, there is still an awful lot of "negative" space that easily could've been filled in for rooms, but it wasn't. Though I have my problems with DoS, I always thought it had one of the best maps in the series. Every area worked and made sense as a part of the castle and is in my opinion the castle design Iga should be thinking about when building Bloodstained. Of course, I never considered Symphony my favorite (far from it) so maybe I'm not looking at it with quite the same passion, but to me I always thought SotN's biggest problem was the map layout. Everything is way too sprawling and wide for no apparent reason and it takes forever to do any backtracking. I'm not saying Symphony isn't a good game, because it certainly is. And I'm not saying the writer doesn't make any good points, because he does, particularly the build-up/payoff point. What I am saying is the article mostly feels like looking for excuses to claim that Symphony is better when in reality a lot of those reasons aren't all that true, and I'm concerned that only confuses the point he's trying to make and will only serve to confuse or hurt the game design for Bloodstained if they listen to him. I think it starts with which game impacted you the most in this series. So naturally you aren't a fan of SOTN so you probably don't like it's castle as much compared to a game you like more. I'd still wager majority of the Castlevania communities would vote SOTN as the best castle design if asked. In terms of negative space, it's quality not quantity. They aren't arguing so much that more negative space makes a better castle, more that SOTN uses it's negative space very well. Each area has a nice room to take up the map, whereas in Dawn you could walk through three areas in like a minutes span, or some areas are just stacked on top of each other. It directly relates to their comment about the chapel in SOTN and how cleverly it's design and with it's payoffs. It's given it's own section of the map away from things and it has room to grow, building and building up to the right, giving a sense of direction without confusing the player with box rooms stacking on top of each other. It's concise, but big, it's sprawling but cleverly designed, and it's art direction has pay off after pay off, and it's room design has interesting shapes. You can't argue that the games didn't get more copy and paste and more simplistic as it went on. I mean by Order of Ecclesia, I was basically going room to hallway to room to hallway of things I kept seeing over and over. Which caused me to look at my map more than ever before. SOTN while having copy and paste gave each area enough unique areas, and the repetitiveness never overstayed it's welcome. Aria was brought up because despite being on a weak console it still managed to use it's negative space well with areas that felt sections off enough, and with areas that didn't feel like a giant box with a bunch of box rooms and hallways throughout them. Everyone hopes for THEIR castlevania being represented in Bloodstained and we all have different takes on what it should be. The article does a good job showing HIS side of it, and it doesn't mean everyone has to agree. We know Inti are big SOTN fans though. While I personally hope they take more cues from the SOTN castle in terms of design, I in no way want the influence to be strictly from that, castle wise maybe but I think the best qualities from all the games should come together. Not to mention I just think the art design is better than what came after. A good example I used in another topic: So it's not just the level design itself but I thought the games after had more inconsistent art design. Portrait had a bad case of that, some areas looked great others looked bland, and other ones had that too. SOTN largely was beautifully designed art wise. ( This is obviously just my opinion I happen to agree with the article obviously others might not) Castlevania which reminds me of Resident Evil. It has a lot of different games with a lot of different styles, with a lot of different fans who want different things out of games. So of course there's always gonna be a LOT of debate.
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