Heh, thank you but my "style" is plain old honesty and respect for other people's opinions and differences in taste
That's what I like about you. I'm very much the same way.
Chosen crew defeat Tchernobog but because Caleb is the next incarnation, he can never truly be destroyed unless Caleb stops existing. The Chosen are shocked and Ophelia is in denial about Caleb fading from her during the last bits of the game. Although he loves Ophelia dearly, he knows the world would be better if Tchernobog's power was released into the universe, with no chance of anyone using that power for their own benefit anymore. With the dreaming god's last breath, Tchernobog begins to reform due to his ties to Caleb and the gunslinger proudly arms his pitchfork and, while shooting Ophelia an uncertain gaze, makes a mad rush to pierce the core of his former master's body. Discharging every bit of his interdimension strength into Tchernobog begins to tear the flesh off both him and Caleb. With a roar of anger and pain, a swirling sphere of time/space energy entraps them both and it explodes into the atmosphere, Tchernobog finally being removed from existence and Caleb falls to the floor below with trenchcoat smoking from the blue flames of the demon. Ophelia rushes towards him and helps him up and he has seemingly destroyed his rival while maintaining his own existence. They smile to eachother while sharing some begruding signs of affection but red streams of energy start to rise from Caleb. Looking at himself in horror, he realized it was just too good to be true; he is slowly vanishing from reality as the cycle of incarnations had been done with. Gabby and Ish look on in dismay and Ophelia is consumed with a pent-up expression of sadness. She grabs onto him desperately but it is no use, his body is literally vanishing into blood-red lights of energy. Bringing a tender hand to Ophelia's, Caleb removes the hat he had for so long and gives it to her; to remember him by. Exchanging a few last words with his comrades Ishmael and Gabriella, he walks from the Chosen and accepts his tragic fate. As long as Ophelia is here, it isn't so bad.
It's funny that mention it, because I was thinking of what would have happened in
Blood II if Caleb's control of Tchernobog got lost. What if during the course of the game, Tchernobog was waiting for the right moment for Caleb to achieve total power yet be just weak enough for him to take control. I thought that after Caleb defeated Gideon, Caleb would be weak from the fight, and Tchernobog would finally take over and then finish Gideon off himself. Why? Because I think that the Ancient One, the Reality Beta menace at the end of
Blood II, was an old rival of Tchernobog's, and Gideon was working for the Ancient One, who promised him that if he killed Caleb, Gideon would control Tchernobog. Upon the revelation, Gideon is slaughtered, and Caleb's bones start to expand and rip his flesh apart, his trench coat and hat expand and become ragged as well, and you get a titanic Tchernobog that's dressed like Caleb (even has his long hair and other freaky features), armed with two really big sawed-off shotguns, and whose voice is an mix of Tchernobog's and Caleb's voices. He even alternates on lines given by Tchernobog and lines given by Caleb. In a vein similar to
MDK 2, I'd allow the player to choose which Chosen among the remaining three to play, and then fight the Caleb/Tchernobog with the other two Chosen in the middle of a city street. There could be multiple ways to defeat this new Tchernobog, some which would permanently kill both Caleb and Tchernobog, and others which would preserve both yet bring Caleb back to normal. If Caleb resumes his control over Tchernobog, all four Chosen then have to go to the Reality Beta to face off the Ancient One and close the rifts... And I would have Caleb and Ophelia complain that they've had enough boss battles, but Ishmael urges them to do this or they will not have a world to control.
I think you're on the right track dosgamer000 to take
Blood to the direction of a horror tragedy or bloody morality play. I think that perhaps some Greek theater might work within the confines of
Blood's universe.
Speaking of love in the Blood world, if a Blood 3 was made, how would you want the relationship to end? For instance, they beat the next coming of Tchernobog, take over the Cabal/world for themselves, and then they finally have this cheesy wedding where Ophelia throws a bouquet towards a group of Chosen-loyal soldiers and then Caleb gets drunk off his ass while singing "We Are The Champions" on the karoke (terribly, mind you.) A silly ending could work I suppose, but perhaps a sadder ending would be better?
I think that's hilarious
. You know, at the time when I was idolizing the
Blood series, even though I had only played the shareware version of
Blood and played the demo for
Blood II, and know only what happens in the games from walkthroughs, I conceived of an expansion of Ophelia being forced into a wedding by a
Blood-incarnation of The Phantom of the Opera, who has acquired to loyalty of a splinter group of Cabal soldiers and otherworldly critters. I was trying to opt for a unique boss battle like Plasma Pak did with it's final boss level, "Beauty and the Beast." I remember writing the backstory out for how it would happen, and drawing up new enemies and weapons but they were probably all thrown away when I was in middle or elementary school. I remember wanting to do this expansion very much in the vein of what
Blood II: Revelations was supposed to be. I could try to see if it could work as a mod.
Oh, at the part when you were mentioning the Ophelia sorority level in
The Nightmare Levels, I think the expansion should be remade to make the sorority more fitting to the
Bloood timeline. Set in a women's college in a setting akin to
Anne of Green Gables or Kate Chopin's
The Awakening. Could you imagine Ophelia dressed up like one of those fancy women of the time, listening to all the contrived and over polite conversations of her fellow genteel lady students, and then slitting their throats? Then, you would have old style cloaked Cultists and Fanatics armed with revolvers, sawed-off shotguns, and repeating rifles entering the sorority with some zombified college students at their backs. And there would be Hell Hands and Spiders lurking under the beds. That would add a whole level of authenticity to that level.