LOS ANGELES -- What could the creators of* Castlevania* be thinking?
After a few years of nothing but portable versions of Konami's classic vampire-hunter action game series, Castlevania made its return to consoles at last week's E3. But instead of a traditional single-player adventure in which your whip-wielding hero plows through levels full of zombies and skeletons on the way to a showdown with Dracula, Castlevania Judgment for Wii is... a two-player fighting game?!
Whiskey tango foxtrot, over.
Series producer Koji Igarashi, pictured, had an explanation all ready to go when I asked. "Fans have been asking me for a while to do a Wii game using the Wiimote as a whip. But *Castlevania *is the type of game that fans play for hours at a time, and to swing the Wii remote for hours at a time is a very torturous endeavor. Tiring. So I thought about it a little bit more and thought that if it was a timed sort of game, that you played for a limited time, that would be a nice fit."
It all sounds totally logical when you hear the soft-spoken Igarashi describe it like that. But there's something that just doesn't sit right about it. 1up's Jeremy Parish said after experiencing much the same thing:
"The saddest thing is watching Koji Igarashi on the E3 show floor, hovering around the Castlevania Judgment kiosk for half an hour, knowing that everyone hates it, knowing that he knows they hate it, then realizing that it's not the game he really wanted to make anyway because his publisher won't give him two dimes to rub together to develop the really awesome games he does want to create."
True to form, the eccentric Igarashi did indeed stalk the Konami booth at E3 looking like a character out of his games, donning a fedora and brandishing a whip. This is a man deeply in touch with his fans. Even so, fans didn't want a Castlevania fighting game, but now we've got one. Is it, at least, any good?
From my 15 minutes of playing it at E3, it's ... OK. Both players have full run of a 3-D arena, and the gameplay seems inspired by the classic games. You can select a projectile weapon, attack with your character's traditional melee weapon of choice, or use super moves that build up over time.
But this isn't Street Fighter. The characters don't have a massive array of secret moves and button combos. They control like characters in a traditional single-player adventure game, like what a true Wii Castlevania would be like if they actually made one. The difference isn't in the controls, it's in who you fight and for how long.
Igarashi likens it to the classic Capcom brawler Power Stone. "It's not a fighting game," he says. "It's '3-D versus action.' Unlike a fighting game, which requires very precise timing and button pressing and movements, this one's more of a pick-up-and-play game, where you're collecting items as you're playing."
Pick-up-and-play. I've heard that one before, especially in connection with Wii. And sure enough, Igarashi says that he sees Judgment as a way of expanding the appeal of the *Castlevania *franchise.
"Up until now, Castlevania has focused mostly on the 2-D side-scrolling types of games which have made it successful. But to expand the franchise, I have to try creating other types of things," he says.
But Igarashi gave a slightly more revealing answer later in the interview, when I asked him about his feelings on the current state of Japan's game market, and the fact that Wii is outselling PlayStation 3 by huge amounts each week.
"Wii is selling, but the 'gamer's games' aren't selling. That's what I'm concerned about," he says. "I think there are two roads you can take: Create a game for the core fans with as low a development cost as possible, the other is to just find a different market for these consoles outside the core gamer."
Emphasis mine. If Jeremy Parish is right, and this is a description of how Castlevania Judgment truly came to be -- that is, Konami didn't give him enough of a budget to do anything else -- it isn't especially heartening for series fans.
"I have to adapt to the times, but I can't alienate the core fans," he concluded.
A few more quotes from Igarashi follow.
On the graphics: You'll notice a different style of art that's being used for this game, because the artist we asked to do the art for this game is a famous Japanese manga artist named Takashi Obata. You probably think, wow, the characters aren't what I envision them looking like, especially Simon. But that's Takashi Obata's personal flavor added to what he envisions as the gothic version of these characters.
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On the music: There is new music, but the way I did it was based on who your opponent is and what game they're from. So when you fight against Simon, it's "Vampire Killer" remixed. Also for example, when you fight Maria, the song from Rondo of Blood called "Slash" will be in the background.
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On the series' future: Another reason why we did this game was... well, maybe I should have done this for the 20th anniversary of the series, but it's the 22nd anniversary, which I guess is good enough. It's a celebration, bringing different characters from the 22 years of the franchise together. In that sense, when you mention doing a 3-D, single player game in the future, that's definitely a possibility, we could definitely work on that, but right now I'm really focused on this game.
On Capcom's Mega Man 9: I'm watching that very closely to see how it does. Myself, I'm a big retro gaming fan, so if it is successful that definitely opens up doors for what I can do.
On whether *Castlevania *just doesn't work in 3-D: Not at all. It's not the franchise itself that won't go to 3-D. I'm actually very frustrated about that and I want to keep trying because I think the franchise can do well in 3-D.
Photo: Chris Kohler/Wired.com; Game image courtesy Konami
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