And I think I like it!
I don’t like the fact that I have to get this reviewed by Monday, though. I was kind of wanting to finish the first draft of the magazine this weekend, but it looks like this is another setback, eh. So much for being ahead of the curve.
Holy cow! That looks fantastic. Something very Euro PC side-scroller about the relative smallness of everything, and the resolution.
Now I just gotta get good at Castlevania games.
As long as you can unlock a playable Belmont, I can forgive the hoards of flamboyantly-colored Alucards who’ll undoubtedly be populating these castles online.
Maybe it’s because screenshots don’t do it justice, but I’m one of those people who wanted this game to be a new, fully HD 2D Castlevania and not some weird Frankenstein’s monster of old assets stretched to take up the entire screen so that your sprites are super small. Basically in my head I thought “it should look as good as Odin Sphere, but in HD.”
XBLA game, so I guess I won’t be playing it. Why developers make these games exclusive when doing so eliminates 50% of their customer base is idiotic.
Because making a game for two systems costs time and money that might not be worth it for certain releases?
Castlevania was always more popular on the Japanese systems, though. If they could have only had one, the PS3 seems like more fertile ground.
Making a game for both HD systems is not going to add that much to the development cost. We’re not talking about making a special version for the Wii. This is essentially a quick port from one HD console to the other to add another 30 million people to the potential customer base.
You guys, this debate is kind of painful to read.
Generally, when you see a digital distro game on one platform and not the other, it’s because it’s either designed around that system’s specific hardware/networking format or, more likely, because the platform owner waved some cash in someone’s face in order to get an exclusive.
Yep, all of the Summer of Arcade games are XBLA-exclusive (at least for now), which explains why Ubisoft’s Scott Pilgrim game, Monkey Island 2: SE or Deathspank aren’t part of the Summer of Arcade lineup.
I wish I was playing this right now. Might atay up until 3 a.m. my time to dl and play immediately.
ugh, STAY
I understand about the “paying for exclusivity” on the part of console manufacturers from their perspective (I would do it too if I was in their shoes). What I don’t understand is why publishers go along with it.
Does the amount the console manufacturer pay amount to more than the publisher would make if they released the game multiplatform by adding another 30 million people to the potential customer base or is the publisher taking a smaller (but guaranteed) payment in trade for exclusivity?
Not only that, but is it really the best business practice to anger half of your fanbase (the same people you want to buy your next game)?
“Does the amount the console manufacturer pay amount to more than the publisher would make if they released the game multiplatform?”
You really gotta think this one through. Castle Crashers was Summer of Arcade and now it’s coming out on PS3; Braid was quickly ported over to PC as well. So the question should really be “Does the amount the console manufacturer pay amount to enough that it’s worth it not to go multiplatform for a few years?” Clearly the answer seems to be yes.
Also, because Summer of Arcade rewards people for buying all five games (and THIS time around, just three!) it’s incredibly likely that somebody will pick up a game they aren’t even that interested in, just because they’ll get a refund for it. Even if you have a bigger audience on PS3 it might be worth it to go Summer of Arcade and port later.
It would be nice if Konami would give Igarashi some of their Love Plus money and let him make the 1999 Demon Castle Wars game he’s been dreaming of since Aria.
Yeah, considering how Microsoft tends to throw money at things, it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that the money MS doles out to gaming companies for console exclusivity can eclipse the amount of money said gaming companies could rake in publishing their games on PSN.
(It doesn’t help that the Playstation 3 still has a reputation for having a crummy online service – at least by Western standards – which doesn’t help the chances of such a multiplayer-heavy game being released on PSN.)
So, this is going to be microscopic on a 13-inch SD screen?
How is this game going to play like? I know it’s a multiplayer time attack sort of thing, but what about the items? the weapons? The skills? How do each character play like? Does Alucard get all of the abilities from SotN, or does Soma get all of the souls from every enemy?
I would suspect that people with SD TVs might be boned on this one – according to interviews, the whole idea for this game came about when Igarashi realized he could fit an entire old-school Castlevania map in its native resolution on an HD TV.
This kinda makes me want an HD remake of Faxanadu in this style, seeing as they made such an effort to have everything line up properly.
Heck, I’ll take an SD version of Faxanadu on VC, if that’s what it takes for me to be able to play that. :)
I don’t know that people will small screens will have a problem; you can zoom in to the typical “one room per screen” view.
It’s worth remembering that this game touts actually being 1080p, so it won’t just be SDTV owners who won’t get to fully appreciate the zoomed out mode. At the least the screens I looked it through the XBL interface weren’t very pretty with pixels melting together, and I have a 720p.
My wallet needs this to not be a good game.