The Tone of Bloodstained

EROTIC VIOLENCE!!! =p

Seriously im not picky. I just hope it really is chock full of gorgeous coloured stained glass with lighting effects that utilize them better than the current shader examples... I mean im not disliking the shader examples, i just wish the windows in them were more... Significant.

HIT THE LEVER

Short answer: I guess I'd like a tone sort of similar to Harmony of Dissonance or Order of Ecclesia.

Long answer: Tone is super interesting between all of IGA's Castlevania games. I'll go on record saying that I'm totally fine with the anime artstyles in Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin because they suit the tone much better than Kojima's gothic style. DoS and PoR have very low stakes in their stories: they're both about investigating sketchy circumstances rather than there being an immediate threat to deal with, like the missing characters in SotN and HoD, the stolen glyphs in OoE, or being trapped in Dracula's Castle in AoS.

With that in mind however, I really didn't grow to like Shaona a whole lot as a character for the bulk of OoE. Shanoa's lack of emotions just made her so boring, even though she did have some fun moments interacting with the villagers and her "go to hell" at the lighthouse. By comparison, I'd like to see Miriam's fuzzy memories played for laughs occasionally, or use it to flesh out Bloodstained's concepts a bit. I do think that since Gebel has summoned the demon castle the stakes should immediately be higher, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a moment to have the characters goofball a bit. Post-boss conversations would be a good start, since the catharsis of winding down after a boss and meeting new characters goes hand in hand. It shouldn't be all shits and giggles though, especially since Gebel means business; his conversations in particular should be serious.

For me, I think it simply comes down to this:

SoTN / OoE hybrid tone mixed in with the feeling of walking around inside an old cathedral full of stained-glass windows. It's about that feeling of awe from looking at the colors shining through from the natural sunlight for the first time yet having this feeling every single time starting from the point I boot up to Bloodstained's title screen.

Yeah except i'd probably say  SOTN/Aria but I'm totally fine with an OoE hybrid as well. That's exactly how i'm hoping i feel when playing it.

Well how many outright silly moments can you name in SOTN? I don't know of many at all. I think you might be confusing serious with just plain boring. SOTN is a serious game but it's a game that's full of charm and love. You can make something that's serious but because it has a load of charm it's not dull or drab. 

For instance, the librarian character isn't FUNNY, he isn't cracking jokes... it isn't needed because the character itself is just a joy to listen to. I guess what I'm saying is jokes aren't what it needs. It just needs characters that really pull you into the universe. You know?

There's a saying that goes "Anticipation of death is worse than death itself" ... that's the foreboding feeling I want to experience when exploring Bloodstained.

I remember playing Dawn of Sorrow for the first time and, as I ascended through the Demon Guest House, there was a weird sense of dread that the boss of this particular area was going to be different. There was such an odd diversity of enemies around that I didn't have the foggiest of what to expect when I located the boss door. So when the Puppet Master suddenly dropped from the ceiling like a giant four-legged spider with droning moans and rolling eyes, the feeling was total panic injected with a huge shot of creepiness. Of course, I failed a few times before I finally killed it and the satisfaction of prevailing was uplifting.

Symphony of the Night though, was one heck of an eerie game and the bosses were really nasty (Galamoth), creepy (Olrox) and, occasionally, gross like Beezlebub and Granfalloon. For me, encountering bosses like these lay at the core of Castlevania and I hope Bloodstained will have some terrifying, screen-filling bosses to crank up the poo-ya-pants meter.

With Bloodstained, I want to be enchanted by beautiful scenery, fascinated and teased by amorous but evil demons but, most of all, I want to be afraid and chilled to the bone.

For me, in any given area in a game, music+atmosphere+sound effects = tone. Lament of Innocence had all of that in spades.

Another perfect example of the tone I would like is the part of Lords of Shadow where you enter the castle and there are curtains covering the windows as the sun is setting. Part of playing that area is to pull open the curtains to allow the sunlight to stop the spawning vampires. Then later in that area, the sun goes down completely and the vampires begin to spawn again due to lack of sunlight.  (Here is the vid)


That kind of feeling is something that carries games into casual conversations. (The kind of video game talk you may have had as a kid on the playground in school.) It is also the kind of thing that you remember years after playing it. This type of feeling is the difference between a good game and a great one.

The tone isn't the only way to generate that kind of feeling. Well thought out and strategically placed game elements can also achieve the same thing. A good example is using the Stop Watch in the clock room in SotN to open a passage. Or cryptically hiding hints in item descriptions (Wear....clock....). It can also be achieved by having special conditions activate during boss fights. Go into the boss fight normally and the fight proceeds a certain way. But explore and find a special item and use that when the fight begins and the boss uses different attacks or has special abilities disabled. The players may not figure this kind of thing out until subsequent playthroughs. More examples include "Meth means death, e-Meth means life." (For all the Lament players out there...) Or even as simple as learning that Sypha could freeze hard enemies and take them out with one whack instead of 6 or 8 regular hits. Alternate methods of gameplay, traversal, and combat are always memorable.

And that is what I am getting at really. The feeling I want from Bloodstained is memorable gameplay, encounters, areas, and music. Things that really make the game stand out. Things that I will want to tell my gaming friends about. When someone asks me, "So, how's Bloodstained?" I want to reply, "Oh, man, you have to see this!" Or "There's this amazing thing that happens when...."

You get what I mean though.

It'd be like Maria discussing his vampire powers like it's a huge importance to the story. Something like this..

 Maria: Alucard you must use your Vampire glyphs to keep dracula at bay, it's the only thing that keeps him sealed in the castle.

Then some stupid tutorial that makes it even more obvious it's just a game pops up and shows you how to activate some weird unneeded Vampire Seal.

It takes whatever the gameplay gimmick is and turns it into something story oriented. Instead SOTN doesn't do anything like that and instead focuses on what it needs to focus on, the son of dracula putting an end to his fathers rein of terror. It doesn't focus on any gameplay gimmick within the story which kills off the mood/tone of the story because it makes it obviously gamey.

You know?

I want to realize that I am in an ancient era, that the Castle is full of darkness but also that it was a peaceful place before the disaster. I want the game to tell me : "You were part of this".
I hope the "glasstained" will get the attention it deserves. Basically, I know what the game is all about but I want this game to make me understand it by itself, not because someone told me to.