Castlevania Turns 20!!

And what better way to celebrate 20 years of thwarting the forces of evil, Then With this interview found in the pages of the latest electronic gaming monthly!! in this interview EGM has a chat with Koji Igarashi, Lead programmer and producer of the castlevania that single handedly turned the entire franchise around forever, That's right. were talking about Castlevania symphony of the night!!

Let's look in on that retrospective and help celebrate 20 years of whip slinging,monster slaying,Dracula Stomping Goodness!!
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EGM: Symphony of the night was the first game you directed. How did you end up in charge, despite having no real experience with the series?

Koji Igarashi: Ever since I joined Konami, I wanted to work on the Castlevania series. My desire only grew stronger as two castlevania game were being developed right next to our team, Which was focused on Tokimeki Memorial [ a dating simulator]. After our game was finished, I was fortunate enough to join a new castlevania project, but the game was cancelled soon thereafter. My boss needed to assign me to a new project, so I tried my hardest to move on to another castlevania game. I joined the Symphony of the night team as a programmer in the early stages of development and was able to take over as director when the original person in charge was promoted to another project. i was indeed very lucky.

EGM: Is it true that SOTN is connected to the doomed Sega 32X game Castlevania: The Bloodletting?

KI: Well there was another castlevania title being developed on the 32X, but I don't believe the title was the Bloodletting. The game was cancelled before the name was confirmed. This is actually the game I worked on after Tokimeki Memorial. The team for this game was disbanded, but several members, including myself, went on to work on SOTN.

EGM: Around 1997, developers began chucking 2D graphics in the coffin. Was there any internal resistance to such a "dated" game?

KI: There was no internal resistancefrom the team members. We never considered making the game in 3D. Everyone on the team loved 2D games.

EGM: The game's massive, especially with the optional second castle. Was thats something you had intended from the start?

KI: We has always planned on including this aspect of the game. This was a way for us to add more content to the game without creating new backgrounds or artwork which was good because we ended up behind schedule anyway. Our goal was always to get as much as possible out of the art assets that were made for the game.
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EGM: SOTN's free roaming gameplay was unusual for Castlevania. What inspired you to take the series in that direction?

KI:There are two major reasons [we took] this approach. First, many members of our team loved action role playing games, so we wanted to have an action oriented game with new elements that added more depth. We also realized that a strightforward action game probably wouldn't take long to finish, and I wanted to give this new game more longevity then previous Castlevania titles. However, most action RPGs did not include as many enemy variations as we wanted, so we actually went beyond our template in that area.
Since SOTN was considered a side entry in the castlevania series, we were able to do whatever we liked.

EGM: Many fans were suprised that the belmonts took a backseat for SOTN. So, why Alucard?

KI: Our development team was fed up with whips-just kidding. in actuality , we wanted to redesign the series with more exploration elements, so I wanted to give the main character special abilities that would not be possible with a human. I looked through all the past castlevania characters and Alucard met our requirements perfectly.

EGM: Ayami Kojima's [SOTN character designer] art and Michiru Yamane's [SOTN composer] music are still considered some of the best. What role did they play in setting the tone of the game?

KI: I had worked on the PC Engine game Detana TwinBee [cutesy arcade shooter] previously, and I loved the game's music, but I never knew who created it. When we were working on SOTN, I found out that it was Michiru- the same composer who had been assigned to work on my game. I was very lucky from that standpoint. We selected Ayami as illustrator with the hope of giving a new breath to the series. Until that point, the castlevania series was all about macho characters, but we wanted to give it a more corrupted feel or vulnerable image while retaining a lot of the same visual cues. She became a key member of the team and really helped to establish the game's atmosphere.

EGM: The game's packed with a ton secrets; are there any fans have yet to discover?

KI: At this point, I don't think there are any more secrets to be found. If you do find something, let's just say its a bug. [laughs]

EGM: Well, some fans claim to have stumbled across hidden audio files for an ending in which Maria apparently becomes possessed.

KI: This is something that was considered in our initial planning sessions. We even recorded the japanese voiceover for the sequence, but we were not able to complete it in time.
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EGM: SOTN's Japan-only Saturn version offered extra content, including new areas and the ability to play as Maria. But many fans feel it's technical issues make it inferior to the PS1 version. Were you involved in its creation? how do you feel about it?

KI: I was not involved with the Saturn version of the game--it was actually handled by a different studio, but I did request that they include the Maria mode. There are differences in the video output of both systems, so I am suprised that they were able to pull it off. There were other technical issues that held it back. for example, the PlayStation version relied heavily on transparent effects, but the Saturn was very poor with this detail, so compromises had to be made. I will concede that they did a fairly good given the drawbacks of the Saturn hardware and the deadline they were given. If they had [had] more time and experience, they could have done a better job.

EGM: What about the U.S. version? American fans feel the english localization hurt the game, with its lame box art and questionable voice acting...

KI: I don't speak or write english, so I was not heavily involved with localization and instead relied on Konami's localization team. Our plan had originally been to use only Japanese voices, but we were told that English voices were [also] required. So we quickly recorded the English sessions in Japan. This was my first experience in localization--I honestly didn't know what I was doing. I have since been told many times that the translation and English voice acting for SOTN [were] very poor, so now I try to be more involved with the localization and am in regular contact with our very reliable marketing staff in the U.S.

EGM: Nine years later, what is SOTN's legacy--its place in gaming and the castlevania series specifically?

KI: SOTN's legacy isn't just the game system, but is rather a basic philosophy of how to keep players entertained for an extended period of time. We really learned a lot working on the game, and its bloodline has been passed along to our more recent Castlevania games. It's hard for me to position SOTN, but I will say it was a transitional title rather than an end point for the series. I always like to learn from my past work [so as] to keep improving, and SOTN allowed us to pave the way for the future of Castlevania with a great game that our fans still look back on fondly to this day.

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