Post by anonthemouse on Jul 1, 2019 18:59:32 GMT -6
With the previous two of my "How they could be better" posts, I did a preamble detailing the issues with the things I felt needed changed, and then listed what improvements I would make. However, in this case I don't think I can do that. Enemies serve their roles just fine. The real problem with them is that there's not enough of them. The one thing I always felt playing this game was that the enemies didn't seem as varied as what I remembered in Symphony of the Night, so I did a count.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has 128 enemies, including bosses.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night had 146.
It may be IGA's biggest castle, but that just makes the fact that it's not as populated as his first stand out all the more. Dawn of Sorrow and Order of Ecclesia were made for handheld systems, and are only a handful of enemy types off from Bloodstained at 118 and 121 enemy types, respectively. Should Bloodstained really be just barely beating out handheld titles while falling short of the origins of the formula that created it? I know that's a harsh thing to say, but it's a question I feel needs asked.
Taking this a step further, while almost all enemies and bosses from Curse of the Moon appear in Ritual of the Night, the boss Focalor is conspicuously absent. In itself, this isn't a big deal. The two games were made by different teams, and Curse of the Moon isn't even considered canon. However, it seems reasonable that with development already begun on Ritual of the Night when Curse of the Moon entered production, that their having the same enemies isn't coincidence, but a result of the Curse of the Moon team having a design document to work from for what should be the enemies. They could still have made up an extra boss, but it seems a bit more questionable when you consider that the Forbidden Underground Waterway, a location one might expect Focalor to appear, is the only area outside of Arantville not to have a boss, and also the only time that a shard needed for progression doesn't come from a boss outside a tutorial scene on the Minerva. The impression here is that there was supposed to be a boss, and that boss was probably Focalor, but it was cut for unknown reasons.
More than that, though, I think the fewer enemy types makes for a less charming game. There's not the same sense of always being something new to discover. Overall, it just makes the game world seem smaller, and leaves me wondering if I were to compare maps, would Ritual of the Night really be IGA's largest castle? IGA and his team should have strived to surpass their old record, to have the widest variety of monsters, as befits the largest castle.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has 128 enemies, including bosses.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night had 146.
It may be IGA's biggest castle, but that just makes the fact that it's not as populated as his first stand out all the more. Dawn of Sorrow and Order of Ecclesia were made for handheld systems, and are only a handful of enemy types off from Bloodstained at 118 and 121 enemy types, respectively. Should Bloodstained really be just barely beating out handheld titles while falling short of the origins of the formula that created it? I know that's a harsh thing to say, but it's a question I feel needs asked.
Taking this a step further, while almost all enemies and bosses from Curse of the Moon appear in Ritual of the Night, the boss Focalor is conspicuously absent. In itself, this isn't a big deal. The two games were made by different teams, and Curse of the Moon isn't even considered canon. However, it seems reasonable that with development already begun on Ritual of the Night when Curse of the Moon entered production, that their having the same enemies isn't coincidence, but a result of the Curse of the Moon team having a design document to work from for what should be the enemies. They could still have made up an extra boss, but it seems a bit more questionable when you consider that the Forbidden Underground Waterway, a location one might expect Focalor to appear, is the only area outside of Arantville not to have a boss, and also the only time that a shard needed for progression doesn't come from a boss outside a tutorial scene on the Minerva. The impression here is that there was supposed to be a boss, and that boss was probably Focalor, but it was cut for unknown reasons.
More than that, though, I think the fewer enemy types makes for a less charming game. There's not the same sense of always being something new to discover. Overall, it just makes the game world seem smaller, and leaves me wondering if I were to compare maps, would Ritual of the Night really be IGA's largest castle? IGA and his team should have strived to surpass their old record, to have the widest variety of monsters, as befits the largest castle.
yey