Update #42: Weapons and animations!

I have to piggyback here. I'm sorry, but no, IGA is not all about making sure Castlevania is historically accurate. Electric Guitars and Baseball Bats in Curse of Darkness, Hamburgers and Hot Dogs in Symphony (and most of them to be honest), fully autonomous robots in Ecclesia (and other games. Hell CoD had an Innocent Devil which was an iron golem with a gattling gun). The list goes on. And that's before we get into trying to count the number out outfits in the games which are actually historically accurate. If his characters were period-accurate: Shanoa and Miriam would be dressed in elaborate dresses with stocking and corsets with their hair done up in buns (it was considered highly inappropriate for women to wear their hair down in public in the 1800's), and all those stylish longcoats his Belmonts wore (ESPECIALLY Leon and Trevor, probably Richter and Juste too) would have to go too. 

The series has always heavily favored style. Hell that's why we love it so much, its just dripping with "we know this isnt accurate but its damn cool".


But yeah, sorry: Castlevania has had a checklist for the "Anachronism Stew" trope for decades XD

As far as I know, Iga has only talked about time periods during Ask Iga #2

It's been mentioned in this thread already, in the form of predicting the basic properties of each weapon-type (damage output, reach, and attack-speed), but...

It would seem that someone's wish for Axes to be a weapon-type in this game has indeed come true.

On the other hand, I personally love the fact that Spears will be a weapon-type in Bloodstained.  I can't wait to skewer Miriam's enemies from mid-range!

it would be cool if you were able to skewer some enemies XD... then they would break off or just burn off... or something lol

About ammo and single or double-handed weapons. Some thoughts and questions.


ABOUT AMMO

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The update clearly says that guns will use ammo, wich is good and isn't at the same time for me, if they don't do that correctly. Let me give an example of a really old game to say that.

On Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption, a game from 2000, you play as Christoph, a crusade-turned-vampire. You play 50% of the game at the medieval times, using swords, maces and other weapons and the combat system is fully balanced into that. Then, you have a time skip and suddenly, you are at the eighties. You have acess to guns, like pistols, shotguns and such. And they all use ammo. And they all suck.
And that happens because the gameplay was fully built regarding the use of melee weapons, so, everything is just half-adapted to guns later, with guns having a low damage and a poor aiming, rendering them totally useless.

On past Igavanias, when guns appeared, they were more of a little reminder that "hey, you are on a medieveal-looking castle fightining with medieval-looking weapons, but here's a pistol, so you can remember that we are at 2035/2036".

Now, they turned guns into a whole weapon category at Bloodstained, so much that they will have ammo, wich shows how much importance they are giving to that. So, they must be fully integrated at the whole gameplay and combat system. The only good way i can see for that to happen, is by using two very simple options:

1) Guns MUST have a good damage and/or good onuses, like higher critical chances or something like that. That will make the gun a good option. If not, will anyone will equip a gun, shoot out there, spending ammo, just for the extended range? They can't be awesome, or the game will be totally broken, but they must at least have a good damage. And there is also the problem of using guns and expending ammo just to shoot candles.

2) Guns MUST use a simplified ammo system. There was an old RPG called Parasyte Eve (good one, by the way) where the main character had acess to a lot of guns, and 99% of it used the same ammo. A simple item called "Ammo Crate" that goes from 0 to 999. Bloodstained could do something similar. All itens of Bloodstained probably cap at 9 (i hope so), so Miriam could automatically get a "Ammo Crate" after she finds the first gun, and that crate goes from 0 to 99, or to 999, or any other cap they find reasonable. And you could forge ammo with materials and buy it at the game's store. 

ABOUT SINGLE-HANDED and DOUBLE-HANDED WEAPONS

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I have a real, honest question about single-handed and double-handed weapons. At the demo, we couldn't equip two weapons at the same time, but the menu screen clearly shows that the weapon area has two slots. It doesn't seem that Bloodstained will have shields.
At the update, they mentioned the animations, most of them, using single-handed or double-handed terms. 
So, we will be able to equip two single-handed weapons to use at the same time (like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night)?
And what button we will use to attack with the secondary weapon? The only reasonable button that we didn't used at the demo, was B. The same button (position) used at Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
I am right on that thought?

That's all folks!

It didn't even occur to me that most IGA games cap items at 9. so that is indeed an interesting issue regarding how much ammo the player can carry. The 1H vs 2H is also noteworthy because that could lead to 2-handed guns like flintlock rifles or even a blunderbuss, and/or it could point to dual-wielding pistols, and/or a Pistol with a 1-Handed weapon. I'd find that especially nice, since it would allow players to focus on their firearm for combat if that wish, but still have a melee weapon in the off-hand slot to break candles, secret walls etc. and not have to waste ammo on non-combat trivialities.

Another thing regarding balance will be making sure the bosses have attacks to deal with players who will want to combine firearms with ranged magic and play a keep-away game. Ecclesia did a good job with that honestly, given Shanoa could focus entirely on ranged magic too, so I don't see this being a new issue they've never dealt with before, but its something to keep in mind.

I remember Harmony and that 99 cap, though I forgot Sotn also capped at 99. It was quite unbalanced, just grind money, buy 99 potions and you may as well have been immortal XD.

Why wouldn't it be apart of the crafting system? It seems like a no brainer. Enemies drop materials, materials can be crafted into all sorts of things including different ammo types. It doesn't need to be candles at all, it'll probably be the crafting system itself.

Well it looks good but also the stance when the weapon is not in use but ready to draw also needs to be representative of the weapons equipped.

You can't use this stance for every weapon.

media.bestofmicro.com/Q/G/589336/original/bloodstained-061416.jpg

This is more suited for boots weapons.

I liked most of the weapoons animations, I want to see their airborne versions.