Iga's Biggest Castle stretch goal: You want a second Castle?

I doubt Iga will be scared away from it... it's just it has been done before. I know the inverted castle was awesome in it's time but I think Iga wants to out do himself and make something completely unexpected. So no doubt he has something up his sleeves and it should rock out loud when we see what it is.

The only problem I had with the inverted castle was the traverse mechanics completely changed... I want something that feels more natural. Though don't get me wrong I love the inverted castle too, it made an old castle feel new again I wanted to explore every inch of it (and I did). I just think Iga has something new and amazeballs in store for us.

Yeah but what hasn't been done? He's had extra new areas before like the chaos realm, he's had a castle A and castle B before....he's done a bunch of different things but nothing has touched the coolness of the inverted castle. An extra area at the end would be just as similar as doing an inverted castle. Except the inverted castle is a bigger change then an extended area. I know the inverted castle has been done before but you could do a UNIQUE take of it and really flesh the idea out more.

All I'm saying is if he's gonna do something after the true ending, I'd much rather prefer something like an inverted castle where it really switches things up and gives you the whole thing to do again rather than an extra area that can be beat in a couple minutes.

You just gave me an idea. I do think that doing a inverted castle is not very fun because that has ben done before. It was a huge surprise back there, not so much now. BUT, i think that CAN be done if it is something really different than what we are expecting.

Like, you defeat the "final boss" and you met the requirements to unlock the second castle. Than, you teleport to it...and IT IS a OLD, broken, destroyed, decayed, inverted castle! Unlike Symphony of the Night that, most probably, due to budget and space limitations, the whole scenario was just inverted with few changes here and there at the looks, the Bloodstained inverted Castle COULD exist if it's looks are not only inverted, but vastly different, like:

• Overall decayed, destroyed and broken look.
• Lava instead of water at the water areas (wich would require an ability to traverse it).
  
• Some areas have broken pieces and debris that changes the acess to some areas.
• Some elements of background at the first castle are at the player area now at the second castle.
• Bosses at places that didn't had bosses before. 

While most of this is technically true, IGA hasn't specifically done the Reflection kind of secret castle before.  That, in itself, is already unique in a manner of speaking.

It's already an interesting twist to think of, that the true Castle located directly in the hellish realm that demons come from is the "reflection" of Gebel's Castle seen in the lake surrounding it.

I'd imagine that, upon entering the Reflected Castle, its "Entrance" could be sealed off for a time (until certain conditions are met), and what was previously the final area of Gebel's Castle (where the final battle takes place) is now just an area preceding this new Castle's final area.  Maybe, instead of entering this second Castle from the top floor of Gebel's Castle, the gateway to it would be at the bottom (forbidden area/catacombs, perhaps).
^
A few areas of the Reflected Castle could have hazy or "underwater" atmospheres, and other areas could literally be sunken in their entirety.  Even in the view of backgrounds outside the Castle's walls, we could see some bizarre differences from the landscape of England in our human world.

Of course, I wouldn't forget the incentive for finding "relics"/skills that would enable further exploration of the second Castle.  I would definitely hope Bloodstained does this much better than SotN's Inverted Castle (as even Castle B in Harmony of Dissonance did, what with the fact that you still needed to collect certain relics in Castle B to be able to fully explore both Castles in that game).


Despite saying all this, and finding ideas for a "Second" Castle very interesting, I still think that such a thing would be relegated to DLC.  "IGA's Biggest Castle" translates to only one Castle filled with 1,600+ Rooms, making it truly the biggest individual Castle yet in an Igavania game.

Yeah, see, we're agreeing with the same thing here. But you have to remember that when people think inverted castle they're thinking just flipped not actually reconfigured. Which is what some people don't want.

Well, I don't think anyone said do it EXACTLY like SOTN. I mean let's be honest, everyone's claiming they want a unique game but thus far it's a purely IGAVANIA type experience. If you didn't say Bloodstained I'd assume it's Castlevania. So, a lot of the elements we all know are in it, but that doesn't mean they can't put their unique spin on it like with the inverted castle. 

They could easily take THAT idea and perfect it, switch it around and do something cool with it.

I mean if we don't want repeating ideas then we probably wouldn't have shards because it's like the soul system, if we didn't want repeating ideas we wouldn't have familiars in the game, if we didn't want repeating ideas whips wouldn't be in it, or a castle wouldn't be in it.  The repeating ideas are what makes IGAVANIA games great. 

They can definitely repeat ideas but it's important to try and do something new with them. The Shard system has many different types for instance a new one being directional. We've never had a directional type of magic ability in an IGAVANIA. So just right there is a fresh spin on an older gameplay type idea.

Galamoth I usually agree with what you say, but the second castle being a DLC... well I just can't agree with that. as they have said before they don't want to spoil the "reveal" and Iga specifically did not put up the inverted castle in the kickstarter campaign because of that. I think the other castle will be part of the story.

I think the DLCs will be saved for all the stretched goals they cannot of don't finish in time.

As I said, I usually love your opinions but I can't get on this dlc boat with you.

Well, the only reason I'm saying that I can't see such an idea happening outside of DLC, is because it seems like the development team would be putting more effort into fleshing out the one Castle filled with 1,600+ Rooms.  "IGA's Biggest Castle" does seem like the focus for the main story.

However, if something like that is indeed what they're planning for the initial game's story, I'm all for it.  I'm just having some difficulty seeing it happening right now (likely setting myself up for the surprise).


I will say I was pleasantly surprised that someone else brought up the "Reflected Castle" idea again from a previous thread, though!

It's worth remembering that on the Kickstarter from day one was a faq question about an inverted castle. So it's very likely that if they have talked about doing one it was a very conscious decision for the main game to begin with and not an add on feature, cuz why else mention it at all?