hey Imipolex, what do you think of these two ideas? Which one is better?
* the Arena of Illusions, which exists in two "phases" - one which is in incongruously good condition given its surroundings, and one which is a ruined, crumbling building - and when you navigate it you basically only have one path to get through it and are noticeably missing parts of the area, until you beat the boss, who is Paranoia, who gives you the ability to dimension-swap and thus explore the other "halves" of all the rooms you couldn't get to earlier?
* the same as the above, except that Paranoia is a boss in another part of the game, and still gets you the ability to dimension-swap, and instead the Arena of Illusions is almost completely inaccessible (except in small teaser pieces) before you get that ability? and the Arena has a different boss (I'm not sure whom yet)
(dimension-swapping through mirrors seems like a neat idea but it doesn't have to be this i guess. though something interesting could be done with the fact that mirrors can break, hmmm)
now to think of another area to use the "accessible only in small pieces until you get a major development to unlock it" design though because i also really like that
I just realized that "Heavenly Doorway" could work with a fast-paced and/or dangerous industrial/factory area, all lit up with eerie yellow sodium lighting.
It should be in surprisingly good condition too. Not ruins, but something with mechanisms actively patrolling the place or something.
I can apparently be a little weird with my choices of music.
For example, the first half of the Death fight gets "Enchanted Banquet", the SotN boss track that is usually associated with female boss monsters. I feel that it matches Death the best out of the three SotN boss tracks -- an overwhelming, distant, organized presence. "Festival of Servants" is for a more close-quarters combat, rather than casting spells from afar (iconic example: Slogra & Gaibon). "Death Ballad", despite its name, is much more chaotic than organized (iconic example: Legion spamming a giant pile of faceless bodies).
Meanwhile, the "Clocktower - Toothed Wheel" I think could work for a quiet, focused challenge of navigating a Mayincatec "temple of doom" complete with a bunch of stonework traps, despite its classical instrumentation (organ, harpsichord, strings). The track gives off to me a picture of a dark place, lit up with a series of torches.
(TGMagus actually disagreed with this latter idea when I raised it.)
Y'know originally I was gonna use Cave Story's "Jenka 2" for the escape segment from the Power Plant after the energy core is destroyed, but I guess Castlevania 64 does have an escape segment theme.
you still need all six macguffins to get into the throne room in the fourth castle
fang (from the ultimate bat fight of all time) + eye (from Medusa) + heart (from Akmodan III & IV) + nail (from The Creature) + rib (from Death) + ring (from Olrox)
i wonder if the ring and the power plant should be optional
Boss: basically all the bat bosses. Will probably include the following: Zapf Bat (from SCvIV) + Gargoyle Bat (from Bloodlines) + Darkwing Bat (from SotN) + Giant Bat (from Cv1) + Giant Bat (Harmony of Dissonance) + Phantom Bat (from DXX) + Bat Company (from DoS) + Death Bat (from Adventure)
Music: a cross between "Simon 1994RD" from Contra Hard Corps and this track
The area also features a remix of VK2K2 as its music so I'm not sure whether this will be too much Vampire Killer, but these will be the only places the VK theme will play.
The boss is the capstone challenge of a late-game area that begins by giving you the Vampire Killer whip and dropping you into arena after arena where you have to fight a huge variety of enemies. The last opponent is...the bat bosses. All of them.
The arena will have disco lighting and a color-changing floor synched with the music.
* Giant Bat (from Cv1) - a large bat that swoops at the protagonist. blackish. * Giant Bat (from HoDiss) - obscures the arena with (harmless) small bats before gathering these bats a swarm to form itself. a very large bat that spits fire, and can form itself into a drill to drill at the ground. when not drilling, disperses into many smaller (harmless) bats after every 3 hits, then re-materializes in another location where the swarm gathers. brownish. * Phantom Bat (from DXX) - moves around, and when hit, becomes a chain of smaller bats. purplish. * Zapf Bat (from SCv4) - a slow but very hardy large bat seemingly made of gold and jewels. hitting it will cause (harmful) dust to fall off of it. hitting it many times will cause it to split into three smaller bats with similar appearance and hardiness. (or different appearance and different abilities?) * Darkwing Bat (from SotN) - a very large bat with red wingskin and black body. flaps its enormous wings to produce wind effects. uses drill-like attacks horizontally, but with much less commitment than Giant Bat. may grab and drain the protagonist's energy. * Gargoyle Bat (from Bloodlines) - a very large bat with a peach-ish color, which flies in circles around the arena. can rotate the arena. * Bat Company (from DoS) - a large swarm of small (damaging) red bats functioning as one entity. Can turn into the form of a large bat, a large hand that can grab the protagonist, and a Moai head that spits (destroyable) bubbles. * Death Bat (from Adventure) - a large bat with bird-like legs. can walk in addition to flying and swooping. an eerie yellow-green color.
Honestly fighting all of them at the same time would probably be a pain unless the arena is large enough
so maybe they get triggered separately
maybe you start with big zapf and then beating big zapf or any little zapf or any other bat boss spawns another bat boss
so essentially you only ever have up to four at once and easy mode is to keep two or three little zapfs alive because they're slow and easy to deal with even though they take lots of hits to kill
but for the first 19 seconds, everything is completely still
that's because the percussion doesn't come in until 19 seconds into the track
there may be a trick that can be performed to skip parts of this area or access normally inaccessible spaces by moving quickly enough such that the music hasn't brought in the percussion yet by the time you get there
idea: an area where one can find not just the dodo bird (which is already a thing in SotN), but also the passenger pigeon, the quagga, the moa, the steller's sea cow, the rocky mountain locust, the laughing owl, the aurochs, the baiji, the bushwren, the norfolk kaka, the sea mink, the gravenche, and the burrowing boa
the secret ninja courtyard in castle 2 might be a good place to put this, but i feel like i had an existing idea there already
I forget if I've mentioned it yet, but one of my favorite ideas with this is my idea for the Wallman boss battle.
I fleshed it a bit more earlier today.
So, in this game, you actually need to fight Wallman for real.
You first meet him in various rooms in the library. As he tries to bomb you, you damage him, and then, he runs away each time after taking sufficient damage, while chugging a super potion and proclaiming himself to be indestructible.
You finally meet him in his boss chamber. The shelves are arranged such that they form a Bomberman-like pattern. The boss music doesn't start yet. He shows up though, and tries to attack you. You damage him, and then he does something to suggest he's out of super potions.
Then the boss music starts. It's Chamber of Ruin. This tune is in partly in 7/4 and partly in 4/4. On cue with the music, he throws bombs. Whenever he throws a bomb, exactly one beat later, it will strike a location at or near where you were when he threw the bomb.
During the 7/4 part of the track, he will throw a bomb on every beat #2.5, with the bomb detonating on cue with beat #3.5, i.e. the cymbal crash. He is vulnerable during every bar from beat #1.5 to beat #3.5.
During the 4/4 portion, however, he will be vulnerable continuously, but he will throw a beat on every beat #1 and beat #3. This means that the bombs will fall on every snare-drum upbeat, beats #2 and #4.
On select bars, he will throw more bombs. For example (I think these bar numbers are correct? they seem to start at bar 0 for the intro bar):
* in bar 15 (the last bar of the intro to the 4/4 segment), he throws three bombs, which detonate at beats 2, 3, 4
* in bars 25-26, he throws 5 bombs then 4 bombs so as to match the rhythm of the melody part in these two bars
* in bar 27, the first two beats are chain of small-explosion bombs, in addition to the regular beat 4 bomb.
In bars 29-30, he stops throwing bombs altogether but gathers a large number of bombs.
In bars 31 to 34, he throw a ginormous amount of randomly scattered bombs EVERYWHERE, which all detonate simultaneously on beat 1.5, corresponding to the cymbal crash. Except bar 34. That cymbal crash actually comes on beat 4.4 of bar 33, so that's when the bombs detonate.
Then this pattern repeats starting from bar 3.
I think he needs disco lights during the 4/4 portion (specifically bars 12 to 30).
Blackmore is the only other boss to share the Chamber of Ruin boss theme.
He's the boss of the theater area, whose music is the Swinging Chandeliers theme from SCv4.
The boss arena of the area is, naturally, an auditorium area. You can enter the auditorium from the box seat areas, getting a glimpse of the arena, but you have to enter it from the left side of the stage -- i.e. stage right, when facing the audience. When you do, you enter a darkened room. Then, spotlights reveal Blackmore, and then you, and then he says "I will take your shadow!" and produces his giant demon shadow.
Both you and Blackmore are on small ledges, where you cannot come anywhere close to melee range. You both get shadows, from spotlights beyond the stage, projecting both your shadows *toward the backdrop of the stage*. If his shadow touches your shadow, you take damage. This distorts your shadow more the further you are from the spotlight. To fight him, you can do either of two things:
* Defeat his shadow creature with your shadow. Melee attacks and physical subweapons will work. Or, rather, the *shadows* of your melee attacks and physical subweapons can damage his shadow creature. Magic will not work, as the light shines through it.
* Equip a subweapon such as the knife and throw enough knives to kill him. His demon will then rampage around the stage, in shadow form, and you will need to fight it separately, though it acts more mindlessly.
Possible difficulty spike idea: at a certain point in the battle, the spotlights from the front-sides shut off and only spotlights on you and him are on *while he signals an attack*. *THEN*, the front-sides spotlights turn back on and the demon shadow attacks immediately, without the demon shadow telegraphing the attack. Thus, when this happens, you're forced to watch Blackmore's own telegraphing in his gestures.
Hmm, that could work for the 4/4 part of the music. I might not want to make it any more music-coordinated than that, though, because I want to save that feature for Wallman.
Game over idea: if you die, his shadow begins eating your shadow. Your body turns dark and eventually disappears.
@Beelzeboob can you suggest a Castlevania track that would be suitable for the following area:
imagine an eerily quiet area with very few enemies, all of which are strange, most of which are ethereal, and where basically the entire area is poisoned with a curse that cannot be lifted, and the aesthetic is that of the ruins of a high-tech facility where a disaster has occurred
that track is currently being used for the stairway to the throne room, and the throne room area itself, which contains a large but informal arena containing a bunch of minotaurs (albeit with more jumping room than that one room in Circle, and also in 3D rather than 2D), and another internal stairwell that leads down to a save point and up to the throne room
There's only one way into the Clock Tower, and it's from an underground passage. You will need to use Key of Death, whose four pieces are in the third castle, to open this door.
When you enter it, you get treated to a cutscene, showing off the grandeur of the Clock Tower, panning around it and up its height. This cutscene is the length of the intro segment to "The Tragic Prince". Of course, said intro segment plays as background music to this cutscene.
The main track does not come in, though. Cut back to you. You are in the basement. You have just entered a door. There is no music. You also pass an elevator that is currently out of service.
You take a narrow stairwell up to ground floor, which is actually hollow and basically bypassed (this is why you couldn't enter the Clock Tower earlier, even though you could pass under it). There is an elevator here; going into it activates the elevator access to the basement, and you can now enter/exit the Clock Tower on the ground floor. Going further up the stairwell, you get to the first floor, which is a boss arena.
Here, you fight Cerberus. (music: "Shudder" from Cv64)
After defeating Cerberus, you begin your ascent of the Clock Tower proper. As you ascend floor by floor, you are introduced to more hazards. At first, there Medusa heads wafting up and down, in varoius directions all around you. Then moving gears rotating horizontally, serving as platforms, are added. Then, moving gears in vertical orientations are added. Then, spikes on the ground below are added. Then, gears that connect to each other, thus with the ability to crush you, are added. Then, spikes on walls and ceilings are added.
(music: "Clock Tower" from AoS, used as an intro and outtro/loopback, crossed with "The Tragic Prince" from SotN, which forms the bulk of the track)
On the ninth floor, there is a save point, as well as another elevator room, which unlocks elevator access to the 9th floor. At around the 12th floor, you meet two bosses you've fought before, albeit individually -- Slogra and Gaibon. This time, they fight you simultaneously, and use a variety of combo attacks.
After defeating them, you get to the upper floors of the Clock Tower. Now, the ruined walls of the Clock Tower and its great height mean that there are winds. As you ascend further, the winds become stronger, and the layout of the features of the room results in the wind changing directions. There are a few rooms that feature different combinations of obstacles, reusing the obstacles introduced earlier, culminating in a room with all of them.
After passing through that most difficult platforming section, you finally reach the 19th floor, containing the antechamber before the boss fight in the Clock Tower. A final save point and elevator room are available to you.
Death is the boss on the roof of the Clock Tower. During his first phase (music: "Death Ballad" from SotN), he is a skeleton with a fancy blue cloak wielding a scythe as well as a variety of magic spells, giving him ranged attacks. He is fought atop a giant clock face, with three clock hands that also end in scythes. Small sickles continuously appear in random mid-air locations and spin toward the player. (This phase is comparable to Death's first phase in most castletroids.)
During his second phase (music: "The Dark Holy Man" from CoD), Death takes off his fancy dark blue cloak, and reveals a lighter, dark greenish, more ragged cloak. He no longer floats, but is instead now standing on the roof. He grabs the three clock hands, and uses them as his scythe weapons -- swinging and/or throwing one or more of these, in staggered or simultaneous fashion. He also jumps around, akin to the moves of a nimble martial artist. (This phase is directly inspired by Dracula X's/Dracula XX's second phase of Death.)
Defeating Death will reward you with Dracula's Rib, as well as Death's Scythe (a prodigiously powerful but dark-elemental weapon).
Comments
* the Arena of Illusions, which exists in two "phases" - one which is in incongruously good condition given its surroundings, and one which is a ruined, crumbling building - and when you navigate it you basically only have one path to get through it and are noticeably missing parts of the area, until you beat the boss, who is Paranoia, who gives you the ability to dimension-swap and thus explore the other "halves" of all the rooms you couldn't get to earlier?
* the same as the above, except that Paranoia is a boss in another part of the game, and still gets you the ability to dimension-swap, and instead the Arena of Illusions is almost completely inaccessible (except in small teaser pieces) before you get that ability? and the Arena has a different boss (I'm not sure whom yet)
(dimension-swapping through mirrors seems like a neat idea but it doesn't have to be this i guess. though something interesting could be done with the fact that mirrors can break, hmmm)
now to think of another area to use the "accessible only in small pieces until you get a major development to unlock it" design though because i also really like that
shouldn't be too hard to combine this with
you may be interested in seeing this start to get written up here:
https://castlevaniatfp.itjustbugsme.com/
It should be in surprisingly good condition too. Not ruins, but something with mechanisms actively patrolling the place or something.
For example, the first half of the Death fight gets "Enchanted Banquet", the SotN boss track that is usually associated with female boss monsters. I feel that it matches Death the best out of the three SotN boss tracks -- an overwhelming, distant, organized presence. "Festival of Servants" is for a more close-quarters combat, rather than casting spells from afar (iconic example: Slogra & Gaibon). "Death Ballad", despite its name, is much more chaotic than organized (iconic example: Legion spamming a giant pile of faceless bodies).
Meanwhile, the "Clocktower - Toothed Wheel" I think could work for a quiet, focused challenge of navigating a Mayincatec "temple of doom" complete with a bunch of stonework traps, despite its classical instrumentation (organ, harpsichord, strings). The track gives off to me a picture of a dark place, lit up with a series of torches.
(TGMagus actually disagreed with this latter idea when I raised it.)
To progress through the second (and maybe also the third) castles, you should only need need X of Y macguffins, where X < Y.
This gives the player the choice of exploring different combinations of areas.
Not quite as tuneful though.
fang (from the ultimate bat fight of all time) + eye (from Medusa) + heart (from Akmodan III & IV) + nail (from The Creature) + rib (from Death) + ring (from Olrox)
i wonder if the ring and the power plant should be optional
Boss: basically all the bat bosses. Will probably include the following: Zapf Bat (from SCvIV) + Gargoyle Bat (from Bloodlines) + Darkwing Bat (from SotN) + Giant Bat (from Cv1) + Giant Bat (Harmony of Dissonance) + Phantom Bat (from DXX) + Bat Company (from DoS) + Death Bat (from Adventure)
Music: a cross between "Simon 1994RD" from Contra Hard Corps and this track
The area also features a remix of VK2K2 as its music so I'm not sure whether this will be too much Vampire Killer, but these will be the only places the VK theme will play.
The boss is the capstone challenge of a late-game area that begins by giving you the Vampire Killer whip and dropping you into arena after arena where you have to fight a huge variety of enemies. The last opponent is...the bat bosses. All of them.
The arena will have disco lighting and a color-changing floor synched with the music.
I guess I could call the boss The Battalion.
* Giant Bat (from HoDiss) - obscures the arena with (harmless) small bats before gathering these bats a swarm to form itself. a very large bat that spits fire, and can form itself into a drill to drill at the ground. when not drilling, disperses into many smaller (harmless) bats after every 3 hits, then re-materializes in another location where the swarm gathers. brownish.
* Phantom Bat (from DXX) - moves around, and when hit, becomes a chain of smaller bats. purplish.
* Zapf Bat (from SCv4) - a slow but very hardy large bat seemingly made of gold and jewels. hitting it will cause (harmful) dust to fall off of it. hitting it many times will cause it to split into three smaller bats with similar appearance and hardiness. (or different appearance and different abilities?)
* Darkwing Bat (from SotN) - a very large bat with red wingskin and black body. flaps its enormous wings to produce wind effects. uses drill-like attacks horizontally, but with much less commitment than Giant Bat. may grab and drain the protagonist's energy.
* Gargoyle Bat (from Bloodlines) - a very large bat with a peach-ish color, which flies in circles around the arena. can rotate the arena.
* Bat Company (from DoS) - a large swarm of small (damaging) red bats functioning as one entity. Can turn into the form of a large bat, a large hand that can grab the protagonist, and a Moai head that spits (destroyable) bubbles.
* Death Bat (from Adventure) - a large bat with bird-like legs. can walk in addition to flying and swooping. an eerie yellow-green color.
so maybe they get triggered separately
maybe you start with big zapf and then beating big zapf or any little zapf or any other bat boss spawns another bat boss
so essentially you only ever have up to four at once and easy mode is to keep two or three little zapfs alive because they're slow and easy to deal with even though they take lots of hits to kill
so the area is a factory-like area
but for the first 19 seconds, everything is completely still
that's because the percussion doesn't come in until 19 seconds into the track
there may be a trick that can be performed to skip parts of this area or access normally inaccessible spaces by moving quickly enough such that the music hasn't brought in the percussion yet by the time you get there
the secret ninja courtyard in castle 2 might be a good place to put this, but i feel like i had an existing idea there already