Bloodstained RotN : Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game.

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BulletMagnet
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by BulletMagnet »

@Squire - I tried the Vita one and was a bit frustrated by it, because when the game is firing on all cylinders it's rather fun, but various technical and design issues (particularly the camera) keep it from doing so very often, which I hate to see in a game that shows some promise. Haven't tried any of the 3DS games.
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by BryanM »

neorichieb1971 wrote:If the company is as big as you lot say how can their gaming division justify its existence?
Obviously they decided it doesn't deserve to live.

People sure love gambling don't they : (
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by Skykid »

neorichieb1971 wrote:Its obvious Konami are going down Caves road.
If you mean poorly managed, then yeah, but they're coming from complete opposite ends of the spectrum. Cave worked its way up to being a crappy mobile company. Konami worked its way down.
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by neorichieb1971 »

The thing about the mobile app business is that I don't see fanfare for it. Are there passionate people out there for that type of product?

Or is it just a case of gargantuan masses just downloading something with a pretty icon and the company hopes its popularity spreads by word of mouth?

I am anti portable bar GPS/Satnavs and phones with simple web browsing functionality. For gaming I want the big TV in the living room experience. Even the NDS just leaves me confused what the fuss is about.

Whatever the case may be.. there is obviously a lot of money surrounding the business and it does seem to be taking down the console industry piece by piece. I've bought 3 PS4 games since launch. Its been woeful experience to say the least.
This industry has become 2 dimensional as it transcended into a 3D world.
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by BryanM »

Uhhh... yeah? Puzzle and Dragon alone has about the same revenue stream as Nintendo? Has a well-bumped thread on every forum on the internet?

The difference between the winners and losers in the market is very extreme since anyone with a computer can publish a game on them. It's why it seems there's nothing but garbage on them (and it really doesn't help with psychos like Square releasing a dog turd like All the Bravest. The very first game I ever made on TI-82 is better than All the Bravest. Which I wrote over a few hours on a bus ride to a tennis match.); you really can make some very wonderful turn based games on them if one wanted to. Very well designed to kill 5 minutes or 5 hours out of someone's day.

But that has nothing to do with Konami of course. Mobile games? Pish, if only. I'd be impressed if they ever release a single game after Metal Gear.
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by BulletMagnet »

Happened to stumble upon both an interview with Iga and some criticism of his (and others') fundraising methods; forgive me if either has already been posted here.
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by Squire Grooktook »

Yeah Blackbird posted that earlier. Still interesting. Not going to hold it against the game itself, but it's definitely something to worry about for Kickstarters in general. I do have to question though how much the average donator cares about it though. I imagine most people wouldn't even look at the budget goal and would just go "WOW THAT LOOKS COOL" and plunk down the donation regardless of how much the total cost is. That might just be me though.
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by Skykid »

Interesting angle. I never considered fake budget targets devaluing real independent Kickstarter, but I can see how that's a genuine possibility.
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by BryanM »

It is pretty unreasonable to ask a kickblaster to fund the entirety of a game.

* It's a gamble. You might end up with a Godus, and that isn't even the worst case scenario.

* If you pay for a game, then you should own the game, right? I don't see "get a cut of revenue" or "we'll release this game for free if funded" on any of the tiers of pretty much anything.

So yeah, can't blame people for sticking with those who have a track record and only throwing in some spare chump change in support of something they like.

Of course such a system will get us more of what we know we like and nothing of the stuff we don't know we like.
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by Ed Oscuro »

Well, the problem is that the sense of urgency is gone once that number is reached, and also people are dumb enough to believe that's the full figure.

It never was really realistic to believe that Kickstarter would allow indies to avoid any pressure from heavily entrenched competition - this is just another example of that. Unless Kickstarter had some kind of language that said that full transparency had to be given about a percentage of the budget represented by the requested amount - yet even then that would be a hard sell due to many devs' professed ignorance of development lifecycle costs (PM comes to mind - edit: great minds think alike, BryanM mentions his game!). At the very least it would add a new source of frustration and uncertainty if the fundraisers would have to crunch all the numbers beforehand, and most of all, never waver from that prediction.
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by blackoak »

dunno if you guys saw this, but yesterday I translated an interview with Koji Igarashi about Bloodstained:
http://shmuplations.com/bloodstained
shmuplations.com - translated game developer interviews and more
support shmuplations on patreon!
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by Ed Oscuro »

You gotta admit the dude's a pimp with that hat.

Who does he mean by "we," though? Is he keeping Tokimemi Memorial staff with him for this project? Sounds like a slip into the royal turn of phrase if not.

I also hope the comments on the difficulty level don't describe the only way you can play the game... :lol:
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by copy-paster »

Nice translations, dude..!

Glad to see that IGA doesn't like "a nut forgets it's shell." :lol:
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by BrianC »

Konami reminds me a bit of Universal (the company that made Mr. Do) and Azure (which, as far as I know owns Universal now). The former used to made video games and went to gambling and the latter bought out SNK, only to discontinue the NGPC and sell the NeoGeo rights in favor of gambling (a little iffy on the details).
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by FRO »

Skykid wrote:
Battlesmurf wrote:I think the thing that blows my mind is how the big publishers ignore games like this- these kickstarters keep proving themselves to be profitable (and sometimes successful (complete product, everybody happy). This particular one has some legs. Shame Konami is so mismanaged these days. It'd be interesting to see what other companies could do if they had their hands on some of these IPs.
The problem isn't that Konami would doubt something like this would make money, it's just not enough money relative to the size of the business. All these companies have become too big - they need those massive blockbusters to cover their overheads. So for every MGS they need 15 of these - something we would probably all prefer, unless they totally change the company structure.

That's why a company like Falcom survive all these years. Small company, dedicated fanbase, moderate growth, smaller overheads - more time to develop games and each game is profitable versus office space, number of staff etc.

Ultimately mobile is just the quick and easy way to create cash-ins. Likely Konami's sites, staff and contractors will all be cut massively if they're no longer chasing the Hollywood format of multi-million dollar productions, but the chances of them banking on another Metroidvania to cover their outgoings are slim indeed.
Unfortunately: This. Even a big company like Nintendo, with all the cash they've raked in over the years, is now going down the mobile road, albeit more in a "dip the toes in the water" sort of way. Many gaming pundits are exclaiming that the current generation of consoles will be the last full generation, and that perhaps the Nintendo NX, whatever it turns out to be, may end up being the last traditional, large-scale retail console release. I don't know that we're at that point yet, or that the idea of digital set-top-box-as-a-gaming-device is truly ready for prime time yet (see: Ouya), but it's definitely inching in that direction. The rise of digital distribution over physical media drives much of this, but some of it is the simultaneous media hysteria & zeitgeist, thinking that they're all going to predict what's to come, when I'd be shocked if Sony and Microsoft weren't already planning for their next hardware iteration, and toying with specs, design concepts, etc.

Back on topic, I would have backed this project, but I'm not keen on just getting it on Steam. A game of this magnitude needs a physical release, but I don't own a PS4 or XBone, nor do I plan on investing in either until much later. If only a Wii U version was in the works like Mighty No. 9........
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by Ed Oscuro »

Fresh off my post here, we ought to focus on the other partner in a game sale: The public. The important decisions aren't all being made on the business end. We simply want too many things, and we want to be stingy about what we'll pay for it. You want bling? OK. You want a good game design? OK. You want replayable content in unique styles? OK. You want a massive multimedia blitz with forums and tortured panel discussions about the issue of the moment? OK. You want the game for $4 in Midweek Madness on Steam in half a year? OK. - and on it goes. In the NES days margins were high enough and expectations were low enough that it was OK if a game played like rolling a sticky turd off your front step, and there was probably enough money to support a massive coke habit or two back at headquarters. It could still be a great hit! Plenty of these games turned out to be OK, too, somehow or other.

So long as people keep focusing on everything that is superfluous to the core game experience, there's going to be more distractions and less money going towards the core game experiences. And likewise, for people who want games to be Art or Philosophy, all the other factors like gameplay and bling will make their investments go less far, as well.

Thirty years later, and we're back to promoting good things by word of mouth. Brilliant progress!
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by Specineff »

Just wanted to say thanks for the translation, BlackOak. Great read.
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

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FRO wrote:If only a Wii U version was in the works like Mighty No. 9........
They just announced one. It's being handled by a different team and will almost certainly be gimped as hell, since the Wii U doesn't support Unreal 4.

They'll probably also try to keep the file size down so it fits on the 8 GB model. The perceived need for this is why the Wii U version of the Oddworld remake was put on indefinite hold.
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by BrianC »

I'm more skeptical because the port was handed to the team that did Batman Arkham Origins Blackgate for 3DS and Vita, which I heard is flawed. However, it is ex-Retro staff, so they probably have good knowledge of the hardware.
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by FRO »

Pretas wrote:
FRO wrote:If only a Wii U version was in the works like Mighty No. 9........
They just announced one. It's being handled by a different team and will almost certainly be gimped as hell, since the Wii U doesn't support Unreal 4.

They'll probably also try to keep the file size down so it fits on the 8 GB model. The perceived need for this is why the Wii U version of the Oddworld remake was put on indefinite hold.
I just found that out a couple days ago, so I will be backing this for the physical copy of the Wii U version. Gimped version, blah blah blah, everybody says that. I only own the one current gen console, so I what I don't know won't hurt me. I'm choosing to support Nintendo this go-around, because at least they aren't releasing games to market with more bugs than an entomologist's office. Even if the Wii U version is bereft of a couple features I never use, or is slightly scaled back graphically, my suspicion is that it will still be FUN. That's the point of these things, right? :wink:
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by KennyMan666 »

Yeah, went and pledged for a physical version now that I can get it for Wii U. Though I guess chances are nonzero I'll have a PS4 or X1 by the time this actually is shipped out.

Gimped version my ass, Wii U means a map constantly up on the controller screen, and I tend to check the map all the damn time in Metroidvanias. :V
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by FRO »

KennyMan666 wrote:Yeah, went and pledged for a physical version now that I can get it for Wii U. Though I guess chances are nonzero I'll have a PS4 or X1 by the time this actually is shipped out.

Gimped version my ass, Wii U means a map constantly up on the controller screen, and I tend to check the map all the damn time in Metroidvanias. :V
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

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FRO wrote: I'm choosing to support Nintendo this go-around, because at least they aren't releasing games to market with more bugs than an entomologist's office.
Yeah but "Amiibos" though. :|
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by Austin »

I am down for a Wii U port, depending on how gimped it is. That always-on map or stats feature on a separate screen is one of my favorite aspects of the DS games.
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by BulletMagnet »

Short video of Iga testing some stuff for the game and chatting with (I assume) one of the other staffers.
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by Strider77 »

Wii-U renamed as Wii-Gimped. For the gimped generation.
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by BulletMagnet »

Apparently a DRM-free version for PC will also be available via GOG, I just noticed - happy to see it, just hope they don't get pirated to heck and back.
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by system11 »

The people doing the port of Unreal Engine 4 to Wii-U and Vita are going to release the code for free after the project to anyone licensed to make games for those platforms. That's incredibly generous.
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by Necronopticous »

BulletMagnet wrote:Short video of Iga testing some stuff for the game and chatting with (I assume) one of the other staffers.
Is it just me or does he really give off a strangely inexperienced/passive vibe? I thought the same thing when I watched his appearance on that 8 hour twitch stream and listened to him answering questions but I thought maybe that was just because he was so out of his element and alienated there. Here, I'm not so sure. Maybe I'm overthinking it, but I have worked with lots of project managers in my professional life and I just can't help but feel that if I were the developer in that video I'd be thinking "does this guy even know what he wants, or why he wants it?"
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Re: Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game

Post by Necronopticous »

Dear God, $5,000,000 exceeded.
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