Main character is Alucard but you use the Mirror to alternate between past and present. In the messed up future you play as Alucard, and in the slightly less messed up past you play as Simon. There are some obstacles you can't get past in one timeline so you have to go back and forth.
Narrative is that these two are "connected by a thread of fate" or whatever but it's pretty obvious Simon is Alucard. First they show Simon looking into the Mirror with Alucard on the other side of it, but then they flash "Dracula" and then use the same Mirror to show "Alucard" before introducing his character portrait.
Apparently it bridges LOS and the new console game. ... More along the lines of the 2.5D Rondo of Blood remake than Symphony of the Night, if you can stomach that. I'm not usually a fan of that art style, but surprisingly it works. ... Definite Classicvania but with some small LOS-like touches. Not as bad as it sounds, though. ... It's virtually identical to LOS's art style but has a sort of painterly filter over everything to give it a parchment-y look, if that makes sense? So more cartoony, but definitely not anime. ... Honestly felt more to me like ReBirth than any other recent Castlevania game. ... Well, it's kind of non-linear in that there are multiple paths through levels and secrets, which apparently you'll be able to go back and get whenever you want. Taking different combinations of paths through levels apparently results in several different outcomes. ... It looks like LOS on a 2D plane with a weird combination Street Fighter 4-meets-Valkyria Chronicles filter over it, so I think you'll probably be disappointed. Definitely not sprite-based, unfortunately. ... Closest thing to GOW was a QTE on a mini-boss, but only after taking it down in a traditional Castlevania way (whipping the hell out of it and throwing axes).
The other gameplay touch it has similar to LOS is some occasional Uncharted-like climbing on vertical structures, but the 3D effect looks really neat when you climb around a curve on a cliff for example to reveal a new vista. But whenever you get to the top it re-orients itself and goes back to 2D. In the demo they only ever used that to establish new areas and connect levels, and when it happens there's even a map overlay in the style of the early games, showing where you're move on to. ... It wasn't that bad. Only happened once when the boss had low health, and it was the same circle-timing thing from LOS. You ripped off the monster's horns then mask so you could carry on whipping it until it's dead. Felt more like a stage in a Zelda boss fight than GOW. ... Simon and Alucard both use whips, but Simon's is traditional and Alucard's is fiery and shoots fireballs when "charged." ... Yep, all the classics and they behave the exact same way as well. (in response to question about classic subweapons (axe, knife, cross boomerang, hourglass etc)) ... No, unfortunately each sub-weapon has its own inventory and health is only regained at shrines. I miss hearts and those so-called "pork chops."
That teaser website countdown ends in 3 days so maybe we'll find out if any of this is true then
Sounds great! I was definitely hoping for more of a Classicvania than a Metroidvania and it sounds like this is it. And LoS-bashers can get bent, it was a good game with some cool stuff going on. I'd be fine if Castlevania stopped doing the Metroidvania thing because honestly a bunch of them were just bad and shoddily done. I had my fill of IGA unsuccessfully aping the success of someone else's design for the billionth time.
-- SuperNiceDog didn't have to reconcile his name... But Dauntless Hunter is now MrGreenonion
I didn't played LoS but it seemed like it kept itself away from the main storyline.
LoS seemed to be a reimagining of the original Castlevania series, similar to Ultimate Marvel or the modern Battlestar Galactica. It's a separate canon, but it introduced new ideas and brought back old characters in new ways. For example, the werewolf boss is named Cornell, just like the werewolf player character in Legacy of Darkness. The mad priest you obtain the holy water from is named Dorin, just like the shopkeeper in Portrait of Ruin. You travel through Veros Woods and Wygol Village. The vampire boss is Carmilla, and the original masters of the castle were the Bernhard family. Gabriel is rumored to be the son of a noble from the Cronqvist family, and his Combat Cross was made by Rinaldo Gandolfi and earns the nickname Vampire Killer. There's all kinds of stuff in there where they reference the old games like that.
-- SuperNiceDog didn't have to reconcile his name... But Dauntless Hunter is now MrGreenonion