In an interview with 1UP at the Tokyo Game Show last weekend, Koji Igarashi, the lead mind behind recent and current Castlevania titles, illuminated some of Konami's plans for its vampi-rific franchise in the next generation.

Igarashi, producer of Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow on the DS, also directed what many fans see as the series' zenith, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, which is currently being ported to the Xbox 360's Live Arcade by Konami of America. In regards to this, Igarashi stated that he is "very happy with the download services from the next-gen platforms," and that he "would also like to provide other previous Castlevania games on these services.".When asked about what direction the series will take next, Igarashi said that Konami wants to "carry on with the portable platforms, and of course, [Konami] is also targeting the next-gen platforms, including Xbox 360 and Wii. But currently, the market is slightly complicated, so we have to watch it to eventually make the final decision of where we're going to place our focus -- but we already have so many ideas for the next-gen consoles."Igarashi also noted that while he personally "would love to make a new 2D game on the next-gen consoles," he emphasized that the company has to assure that such a project would be financially feasible before moving forward, and that expanding its userbase is a priority for Konami. "We will try to make it happen, though," he stated.As for the possibility of moving the franchise onto Nintendo's Wii, Igarashi clarified that fans likely wouldn't see a gimmicky title if it appeared on the platform: "Everyone can think about Castlevania on the Wii, and I of course have thought about it as well. But here's the thing. Users can swing the controller around for 5 minutes or so and have some fun, but I would rather people be deeply immersed in a Castlevania game and play for at least an hour at a time. So I wouldn't want to have people using the controller to swing the whip -- I would only want to use the swinging for special occasions in the game."

The series' next update, Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, is currently set for a December 5 release date in the US. ]]> Tue, 26 Sep 2006 13:33:00 -0500 The Gaming Horizon Archive http://www.gamebump.com/go/castlevania_to_haunt_xbla http://www.gamebump.com/go/castlevania_to_haunt_xbla http://www.gamebump.com/go/castlevania_to_haunt_xbla# Fri, 04 Aug 2006 07:01:00 -0500 The Gaming Horizon Archive http://www.gamebump.com/go/castlevania_double_pack_announced http://www.gamebump.com/go/castlevania_double_pack_announced http://www.gamebump.com/go/castlevania_double_pack_announced#

“Castlevania’s rich history and deep storylines have always made it a favorite franchise among casual gamers and core gaming fans alike,” said Dennis Lee, Group Manager at Konami Digital Entertainment – America. “Combining two of the most beloved chapters in this long running franchise together onto one cartridge provides gamers a great value as well as giving newcomers to the series a convenient way to experience some of the best of what Castlevania has to offer.”

Castlevania Double Pack is scheduled for release in North America in Q1 of 2006.

The Castlevania series first made the leap to 3D with Lament of Innocence. While diehard fans thought it was a good attempt, many others panned it because it lacked the open-ended castle exploration and featured lackluster combat and environments. Fast forward a year and half later and Konami releases its second 3D game in the series, Castlevania: Curse of Darkness. It offers some beefier combat options, the new innocent devil system, and some new places to explore. Unfortunately, some of the same problems that plagued Lament make their way into Curse as well.

In CoD, you aren’t in control of a Belmont, but of Hector. Hector is a former devil forgemaster who worked for the dark lord himself – Dracula - but betrayed him and abandoned his powers. However, years later, the love of his life is falsely mistaken for a witch and burned at the stake in a plot set up by an “old friend”. Thus, he seeks revenge against his old buddy Isaac, another devil forgemaster still loyal to ol’ Drac. To do so, he must travel to Dracula’s Castle and once again accept his powers as a devil forgemaster.

Being a devil forgemaster allows Hector to forge weapons as well as create creatures known as innocent devils. Creating new weapons and evolving your little pets is just as fun as killing monsters and exploring the countryside. Let’s dive into those two new and deep systems.

Lots of critics hated how boring and repetitive combat with Leon was in the previous game. And though the fighting here does essentially boil down to some button mashing, Hector now has a variety of weapons with which to slay monsters. And that brings us to the rather fun and deep weapons forging system. At any time, you can forge a new weapon if you have the available materials by using the forge option in the menu. There are a four different weapon types, armors, helmets, and accessories to forge, so there are plenty of items just waiting to be made. You can’t preview exactly what the item you’re about to make is, but newer items can only be created from existing items, thus newer swords can only be made from older swords and so on.

Though gathering materials to synthesize sounds bothersome, enemies are pretty generous when it comes to material drops. If they aren’t, however, you can always force the situation by attempting to steal – a new feature to the series. To steal, you’ll first need to acquire the ability, which you do fairly early. Once you have that in your possession, simply lock on to your target and hit circle when the target flashes purple. It’s a simple and easy process; just don’t try it in crowds because the ones you’re ignoring will pick away at your health rather quickly.

Innocent devils, or IDs, will become your best friends throughout the course of the game. Most gamers and fans of Castlevania will recognize these more as familiars. The IDs will help you out in battle by distracting enemies, chain attacking with you, or even healing and guarding Hector. You'll be able to issue commands to them, so they won't be off doing their own thing unless that's what you want them to do. The largest difference between IDs and the old familiars, however, is that you can evolve your ID and control that evolution. It’s a little like Pokemon – just substitute the cuddly pocket monsters with some gruesome hellish creatures.

Enemies will drop different colored Evo Crystals. The colors of the dropped crystals are determined by which weapon is used, which ties in very nicely with the weapon forging process. Swords will give red crystal drops; spears will give yellow, etc. You can track an ID’s particular progression with a map. The map tells you how many of what color crystals are needed for the ID’s next evolution. And don’t feel restricted to using one weapon to gain the evolution as some steps allow the use of more than just one colored crystal to achieve the next stage.

The Innocent Devils will also drop devil shards on occasion. If you take these devil shards to a shop and extract them, you’ll receive the base version of the ID that dropped the shard. Thus, if you’re unsatisfied with the current ID’s progression, you can start all over again.

Another item of note is that the presentation is fabulous. The cutscenes look great and what adds to their power is the outstanding work of the voice actors. The script was well-written with some medieval wordings and sentence structure thrown in to help convey that this takes place in the midst of that era. Those things together with the wonderful and natural delivery of the lines and another beautiful musical score form a recipe of aural bliss.

Gamers who have been fans of the series since day one will also love the fact that Curse of Darkness is essentially a direct sequel to fan-favorite Castlevania III. And while a Belmont isn’t in the starring role, expect to shriek with delight when Trevor Belmont first enters the screen. 

While Konami managed to add those two deep and refreshing systems, they also failed to address Lament of Innocence’s shortcomings.

The first of those shortcomings is the graphics. They aren’t terrible by any means; it’s just that they aren’t spectacular either. Hector’s character model is well detailed and smoothly animated, but there seem to be only a handful of enemies before you get to the palette-swapped versions of them. The biggest culprit, however, are the backgrounds and environment. Many fans of the first game complained that each room looked the same and that it was easy to get lost. Unfortunately, that’s the case here as well. What doesn’t help is that the map, which you’ll be using quite a lot, is buried in the status screen. An active on-screen mini-map would have alleviated part of this problem, but sadly there isn’t one. Having to bring up the menu to check out the map really brings down the pacing. The good news, however, is that CoD isn’t confined to a castle. You’ll find yourself fighting all across the countryside of Valachia, which is a nice change of pace.

Another one of LoI’s fallings was its repetitive combat. The same can be said here despite the new variety of weapons. One could bust through the entire game using the sword because it’s the most balanced of all the weapon types. The only reason why you’d use a different weapon is to control an ID’s evolution; even then, using the sword exclusively will still yield some impressive evolutions. In its defense, however, I do have this to say. Many have criticize the 3D Castlevania games as being repetitive in the sense that your attacks are the same and that you’re killing the same enemies over and over again. That said, aren’t the 2D Castlevania games the same thing? If that’s the case, then why is it that the 3D ones are so heavily ripped while the 2D versions are being praised as being some of the finest ever made? That’s like saying it sucks just because it’s 3D. Now, I’m not saying that this is on par with the great GBA games - Curse still has very linear progression compared to the more free-exploration castles first introduced in Symphony of the Night as well as a lesser variety of enemies - but if you’re comparing them based on just the fighting mechanics, then you could argue for days about this. But, I’m not trying to keep you here for days.

The last thing to pick on is Hector’s horribly slow running speed. He seriously looks like he’s jogging in place or at least running the wrong way on one of those moving walkways. Exploration has always been a big part of the series, and considering how expansive some of these levels can be, his gait can be very bothersome. Couple his slow running with all the pausing to view the map and the pacing of the game is brought down to almost a crawl.

Despite the fact that Konami failed to improve upon the thing that made Lament of Innocence a mediocre title, Curse of Darkness is still a decent game. The deep customizable options found in the weapon forging and innocent devil evolutions should keep Castlevania nuts and completionists busy for hours on end. Fans of the series will be both pleased and slightly disappointed at the same time with the second Castlevania game to hit the third dimension, but to the casual gamer, it will be nothing more than an average action title.

Repetitive combat. Weapon forging and ID systems are deep but can be made useless.

Suffers the same problem as the previous CV – bland environments in which it’s easy to get lost

Fantastic voice cast and soundtrack – just as I would expect from a Castlevania game.

Starts off on the right foot but then the problems add up and sap some of that initial joy.

Beating it once unlocks a harder difficulty and Trevor mode.

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