Upcoming Castlevania games *Characters confirmed*

[Anemic Boy]

I've been pretty excited about the two upcoming Castlevania titles, especailly the DS one. And I've done a little snooping around. Here are some things I've found out.

The PS2 version trailer shows the main character fighting a whip character. By referencing the timeline I've put together that it must be Trevor Belmont. He will more than likely be the extra playable character in the game and from the video seems to play just like Leon did in the previous PS2 game. I certainly hope we don't have some lame Dracula lacky gone good beating up Trevor Belmont. Trevor better mop the floor with this guy, I mean, he beat Dracula for crying out loud.

With regards to the DS version, I found the company doing the offical strategy guide is DoubleJump Books. The same people that did guides for Makai Kingdom and Phantom Brave, I believe. On their boards, one of the people was asking if Julius Belmont would return as a playable character in Dawn of Sorrow. One of the responses from the staff was that he would in fact be returning, and that he has company. This makes me think we could finally get more than one extra playable character (like in the Saturn version of SotN). Perhaps it will be Yoko, or Genya "Arikardo", or even someone completely new. Regardless, that has gotten me quite interested. That same person also stated that there are three monsters in the game that do not drop souls, just to flex some knowledge of the game it seems. They haven't given any hints as to who the extra playable characters would be, but there aren't a lot of choices that are plausable, and given Castlevania 3 and Symphony of the Night it wouldn't be to hard to make Yoko and Genya "Arikardo" playable characters. All that would be left to the series is if they would finally give their extra characters a little bit of sidequest story unique to their game.

The DS game will also feature multiplayer soul trading and level design. You will be able to make a small level for players to do time runs on. I'm not sure how limiting this mode is, however. But don't expect it to be a full fledged make your own Dracula castle. Though that would be one hell of a way to extend the life and replay value of the game. It's likely something similar to the Boss Rush mode, only allowing players to choose the monsters they want to use in which rooms. There will more than likely be a limitation on which monsters you can use, or how many of you can place to a room. Perhaps a point system, with different monsters costing different points to add into the room.

Here is a fun screen I dug up to keep you interested, heh.
http://www.rpgamer.com/games/castlev...astleds031.jpg