Cutesy-ness

[TurnBasedDude]

As much as I like anime and don't mind the cute or lighthearted stuff, I also agree that the anime artwork does not work for castlevania. Get back to the olde, gothic-style art!

[D-Rider]

Macross wannabes? LOL.

I mean, I see your point, but Haruhiko Mikimoto's artwork is nowhere NEAR as bad as the Castlevania DS artwork.

Macross is the only anime I can name that isn't Dragon Ball.  Don't read too much into it. :P

[Eusis]

Targeting a younger audience for a series that has you killing a horde of undead, demons, and other miscellaneous wild beasts?  Shut the fuck up.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure most of us started playing Castlevania before our ages could be measured in the double digits.

[D-Rider]

Targeting a younger audience for a series that has you killing a horde of undead, demons, and other miscellaneous wild beasts?  Shut the fuck up.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure most of us started playing Castlevania before our ages could be measured in the double digits.

But also to be fair, we weren't overly sheltered pussies who shied away from anything "scary".  Remember that Simon's Quest cover Nintendo Power had in the early days?  The one with the severed head? :P

[Eusis]

Haha. I didn't even realize that was a severed head until later. I also remember reading about how all the parents were calling in being pissy about that head. :P

[Prime Mover]

But also to be fair, we weren't overly sheltered pussies who shied away from anything "scary".  Remember that Simon's Quest cover Nintendo Power had in the early days?  The one with the severed head? :P

Oh, come now. You act as kids today are somehow more sheltered than we were... now that's bullshit. You see the little ones watching slasher movies all the time. I don't think our culture has become any more sheltered, in fact, I think it's become less sheltered, and more negligent. Just look at our entertainment, it's become about 10x as gory today as it was back when we were kids. Some of the things that are PG today would boarder on being rated R, 15 years ago. Still, sex is oh so much worse than violence. That's the effect of the religiosos for ya... spill gallons of blood for a holy war, but for God's sake, don't let the kiddies see a nude body!

Seriously, I remember all the parents getting upset at things like Mario Bros or The Simpsons, back in the day. I think having problems with a game where people get off on decapitating hookers, is maybe a little more reliavent than those things.

If you think games are getting more cutesie, where the hell have you been, dude? Photorealism is the THING these days, and the bloodier the better. I'll take cute over sadistic, any day.

[Eusis]

If you think games are getting more cutesie, where the hell have you been, dude? Photorealism is the THING these days, and the bloodier the better. I'll take cute over sadistic, any day.

It admittedly applies more to JRPGs and Castlevania than the industry on a whole. The west is dominating more and more, and stuff akin to GTA and whatever id software'd put out is more popular than anything kiddy, which is pretty much relegated to bad licensed games and whatever Nintendo and other Japanese developers churn out, and a few XBLA games.

Personally, while light hearted fluff is good and I prefer more vibrant visuals... I'd like more games that're /mature/, along the lines of something like Hotel Dusk, Shadow of the Colossus, or the MegaTen games. Enough of this teeny bopper-type crap you see in JRPGs all the time.

That's the effect of the religiosos for ya...

I swear you're going to destroy some topic by saying junk like that.

[Dice]

I agree to the earlier thoughts.  I don't mind cutesy0ness (ie; Trusty Bell looks freaking beautiful, along with Odin Sphere).  But only when the style is appropriate.  THe cute anime style doesn't suit the subject of vampires.

[Ashtrot]

I can tell half of you didn't play the Castlevania games before SotN.

[Dice]

Hey, Ley.  Expand on that.

I've been playing Castlevania since its days on the NES (mind you, I can't remember half of what happened in them back then).
Symphony of the Night was a game that really defined the series (even moreso the CSIV, IMO) by revolutionizing the platform genre (again, IMO).  Can't help but talk about SotN a lot in that case.

[Alisha]

I don't like the new art at all either.  It's just all of that cliched anime crap that I have seen everywhere else.  Changing it to help garner more fans may be understandable, but I wished they only did that with like...Castlevania spinoffs or something.  Not the big-name ones.  Both Portrait of Ruin and Dawn of Sorrow felt very, very dull to me, and the art style is the reason why.

I seriously hope that other series' don't start doing that.  Especially the ones with already stunning character designs, such as Valkyrie Profile or something.

i hope your not refering to valkyrie profile 2,because aside from the returning characters i hated the character design of that game when compared with the original.


a quick question about castvania. are all the post SotN ones metroidish?
also it pisses me off that they retconned the only one with a female whip user.

[Hidoshi]

He's saying the artwork for the old Castlevania games fucking SUCKED. Which it did. Also: The anime artwork is not CUTE god damnit. It's GENERIC. Use the terminology properly before I shit on you. Allow me to demonstrate the difference between cute and generic anime:



This is cute and delicious. You must eat it.



This is generic. It is made of fail.

[Losfer]

It's GENERIC.

Yeah, that's more like it.  I suppose I wouldn't have a problem with it if it was good looking anime snippets.  But the new art is just boring and seen it before.

[Fadedsun]

I think this topic just gives people a reason to bitch. :P

Despite the change in art direction for the recent Castlevania games, they were still fun games. It looked good, so I wasn't complaining. If I want to play a game that looks like SOTN, then I'll play SOTN.

[Eusis]

It just needs to be a fitting art style. Take a look at Circle of the Moon, now that's how anime-style Castlevania should be.

And while technically true, I'm getting kinda tired of Iga. Leave him to the handhelds/2D games, and find some new team for 3D games.