Not even a month after the announcement of the cancelation of Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls, Konami has announced a partnership project with Chinese game developers Shengqu Games in making the brand new mobile game, Castlevania: Moonlight Rhapsody.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8Vs6mLw4ZY
The Story
Castlevania: Moonlight Rhapsody takes place a hundred years after the events of Symphony of the Night. The Belmont clan has since vanished from history, with Richter never having had kids. So the vampire slayer’s whip passes to the Morris clan. Although the new family of slayers is powerful, they are still lacking in the generations of experience with the slayer’s whip that the Belmont clan had. In order to prevent Dracula’s resurrection, mankind has established new organizations, each developing their own methods to combat the dark forces of the night, using both magic and newly developed technology. Yet their efforts are in vain, as in 1870, Dracula’s castle appears once again.
Players will take on the role of Elvis (yes, that’s his real translated name), a member of the new Demon Hunter Guild. After receiving a guild mission, the player enters Dracula’s demonic castle and begins their adventure. With the help of a new cast of characters, the main party of four can explore the castle together while rescuing captured villagers and maybe even a few familiar faces. You’ll have to utilize everyone’s skills to restore peace to mankind!
Alucard will be returning as a playable character, which makes sense seeing as he’s immortal. Surprisingly, Castlevania: Moonlight Rhapsody will still include Richter Belmont and Maria, despite both of them surely dead, or at least near-death by 1870. Over 70 years passed since their last adventure.
Although it’s canon that Richter passed his whip on to the Morris clan, there are some inconsistencies with the numbers for the timeline. Symphony of the Night takes place in 1797, not even 80 years before 1870. Seeing as the only game featuring the Morris clan, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, didn’t have an established year (recorded as 18XX), it’s unclear if the events of Castlevania: Moonlight Rhapsody are taking place around the same time, or will serve as a reimagining of the latter game’s events.
Shengqu Games’ Goals
Shengqu Games announced that the game is being developed with three key factors in mind: presentation, global appeal, and a revamped experience. With Castlevania: Moonlight Rhapsody being their first collaboration with Konami, Shengqu Games says they are hopeful that through teamwork and combined development efforts they’ll be able to bring an exciting new perspective to a classic series.
Castlevania: Moonlight Rhapsody will feature classic gameplay: a horizontal platformer with an exploration-based story and RPG elements. Combat features real-time action, set within a world with a 19th-century European aesthetic. Unique charm is being added that many players might not be used to, and that is very clear from the sample screenshots. The game is using much brighter neon colors and a polished, smooth cell-shaded art style; the likes of which have never been featured in any Castlevania game to date. The goal behind this is to give players the feeling that they are truly entering a brand new Castlevania world.
Thoughts at a Glance
Castlevania: Moonlight Rhapsody is promising, but not without issue. Starting with the art style, there are a lot of inconsistencies. Character art and in-game graphics are bright, colorful, and hold a lot of charm and joy factor, yet promotional art looks like a digital painting mockup for almost any generic medieval horror game. That’s not to say that it’s bad artwork (in fact, it’s phenomenal by itself), but the drastic contrast from the brightly cell-shaded in-game graphics is misleading. There is also the bitter fact that fans aren’t seeing their favorite characters drawn by Castlevania veteran artist Ayami Kojima, who was the illustrator for Symphony of the Night, Aria of Sorrows, and Grimoire of Souls.
However, with that said, the new character design and 3D modeling has a pleasant appeal to it, easy to approach for a new generation of potential fans, and still retains the traditional Castlevania design and feel. The animation looks smooth and fluid, to boot.
The release date is currently unknown, but presumably will follow suit with Grimoire of Souls, receiving a beta launch, but this time exclusively in China instead of Canada. After what happened with the last Castlevania mobile game, it may be safer to trust a third party developer instead of Konami to see a project to fruition. With any luck, maybe Castlevania: Moonlight Rhapsody won’t be a flop after only a year of beta testing.
