rockman zx
Member
Is the internet, someone write, everyone believes.
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Castlevania gate: Insider dev from MercurySteam vents internal problems. [Up: More]
- Thread starter Ahasverus
- Start date
Is the internet, someone write, everyone believes.
Why are you so apologist. When there is smoke...
liquidekkah
Member
It's also not good to jump to conclusions. All it takes is one disgruntled employee to make a whole situation sound awful.
Not to say that the leak has no validity, but then again, we don't know what we don't know
Well now there is another one in the dungeon saying the game was finished last november and was delayed because rea$$ons.
IchigoSharingan
Member
That's all well and good that you like the game, but from what this bloke is 'confessing', the final product is a far cry from what the teams envisioned.
Some could say the same about FF13 in a way.
Yeah the man is not a fool, he did LoS1, however he could use a little more of openness, and given that we know the original ending, things really got turned different significantly.
liquidekkah
Member
I thought this already came up on the Dungeon.
Didn't we conclude that it was most likely getting delayed so as to get released in a relatively dry period of time as opposed to competing with all of the holiday releases?
Yes of course, but from the letter it seems that the studio had to pay Konami or something like that for it. And it was a waste that the game wasn't worked on for 6 months. All in all I have the impression MercurySteam just wanted to get rid of Castlevania quickly and start on their IP, I mean, Mirror of Fate had to be a full sequel, it has the most important/best story of the three, the fact that they wanted the trilogy in a single generation (so late in it, as LoS was relased just 3 years agho) speaks volumes of their intentions.
Chill Penguin
Member
It's really just Konami's fault for handling the IP poorly, not finding the correct team to work on it, or just not giving them a big enough budget. If someone like From Software made the game and was given a proper timeframe and budget, i can't even imagine how mindblowingly awesome it would be. For all intents and purposes the Dark Souls series has taken over any type of enjoyment i used to get from the Castlevania series.
liquidekkah
Member
Which is a shame. MoF could have been a spectacular, referenced through the ages title if they had given it the same care as LoS1.
I hope MercurySteam wasn't just using Castlevania as a springboard. If they were, they deserve to go the way of Pyro.
Really, though, it's very telling what the main difference is between LoS & MoF, and LoS2 now that I've had a chance to reflect on it. LoS2 was an excellent game, IMO, but it's missing the love and personal touch that the first two games had. In LoS & MoF, I felt like the developers cared about the game's characters as much as I did. In LoS2, it feels more like they were just shooting for making the game "cool" and "spectacular", which did carry the game up until the ending, but the way they resolved it just makes me think that everyone stopped caring.
paradise_circus
Member
Wasn't Dave Cox the head of mercury steam? He always looked like a sympathic guy in interviews.
He is not, he's just a Producer from Konami.
No, he's the head of Konami's UK operations and a producer.
liquidekkah
Member
Dave Cox was the producer, and I think he's one of the biggest dudes in Konami Europe. I dunno, his role seems a bit unclear.
I've actually always been sympathetic to Cox, and I think I now might know why.
infinityBCRT
Member
I'd love Kojima to do the next Castlevania. They've got an engine to do it too. They just need to nail the tight feeling of combat in LoS (which is still there in LoS2!) and take similar art direction from LoS1 and the past parts of LoS2.
Only played the first 4 hours or so and that's my feeling.
The castle sections are gorgeous and fun - they rely on decent puzzles and the core combat which is quite strong. The backtracking is done well, and while the castle could be a more cohesive, interconnected place, it's definitely a step in the right direction.
But the stealth. Oh God the stealth. At first I thought people were exaggerating, then I made it to the second stealth section and my word, the level design was confusing as hell and the mechanics just decide to break arbitrarily every now and then. It was a mess.
I actively enjoy the castle sections and find the weird changing environment/enemy dynamic an interesting change of pace (and very DMC, but in a good way). That being said, the modern sections so far have been atrocious, minus a decent boss fight.
Very inconsistent indeed.
Is there a special ending or something that was cut and leaked to the internet? Or are you talking about what happened in Lords of Shadow before Mirror of Fate?
Can't find anything on it and I'm curious.
It got leaked by the same Konami insider and confirmed by bergaron (Castlevania's CBOAT). Have you finished LoS2? If so I will post it, if not, I think I won't
Search for it in the OT, in the last pages.ShinobiFist
Banned
Are you serious??? This is the total opposite on what made the first one great. Art direction and all. Not a big fan of Iga, but if he gotten the budget these guys gotten for Castlevania. He would have done a stellar job. I guarantee that.
True, he wouldn't have had to constantly re-use assets for sequels definately. Always wanted an IGAvania with goregous HD artwork like in Vanillaware games. Thats the future that Castlevania deserves imho.
It got leaked by the same Konami insider and confirmed by bergaron (Castlevania's CBOAT). Have you finished LoS2? If so I will post it, if not, I think I won't
Thanks at least I know where to find it now. I'm about 60% of the way done with the game according to the percentage page. I doubt i will get 100% but I do enjoy collecting power ups etc.
liquidekkah
Member
I can't remember the interview, but IGA has said he was always given better than average budgets.
ShinobiFist
Banned
Not saying they didn't give him money, but Iga never got a shot at the HD twins. Imagine Iga with that art staff and resources. Especially with his girl by his side, Ayami Kojima...
Saying he gets below average budgets would reflect poorly on the company he works for, so he's probably not the most reliable source in that matter.
Fans wanted 1999. Fans also wanted a female protagonist. He only got the chance to do one of those. People try to downplay IGA's involvement in SotN (He was co-director, coder and scenario writer) and the budget for the DS titles was probably miniscule.
I dunno, maybe I'm optimistic, but Order of Ecclesia showed a lot of potential, some really fun bossfights, that one secret level had some fun platforming action going on, locations outside Castlevania itself.
No, he got 12 FUCKING YEARS. He had the fucking chance I tell you.
Not seeing why all the blame falls on him. Typically I would rather developers work on what they want to work on anyways.
Because he had the series for 12 years and went nowhere. That's pure incompetence. And don't get me started on his swansongs, Judgment and Harmony of Despair. a good director he isn't. We need Hagihara back (SOTN, RoB).
People also tend to forget how great Castlevania Rebirth was. It showed that he and his team still has what it takes. It's up there with SCIV, Bloodlines and Rondo for me.
HoDespair was cheap cash in. Judgment was..well. He can't direct 3D games at all. I'll give you that ;P. At the very least he went further than MercurySteam, they looked backwards to God of War and Darksiders pretty much.
While those are my two favorite games in the series, than man is long gone. Seemed to entirely drop out of the industry and is probably in some research sector or farming for all I know.
Rebirth and OoE are both amazing titles. It's true Judgement was fucking garbage, but that doesn't really change how great these two titles are.
Same thing goes for HD, it's a fun little loot game that according to Konami even did rather well.
Also: have a link to the biggest lair of Castlevania nerds available (Big compliment):
http://castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/index.php?topic=6610.25;
Some worthwhile information there about Hagihara and IGA's involvement in Symphony of the Night. (TL;DR; IGA's influence on SotN was huge. The non-linear design was his idea and he approved of the music Yamane composed.)
http://castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/index.php?topic=6610.25;
Some worthwhile information there about Hagihara and IGA's involvement in Symphony of the Night. (TL;DR; IGA's influence on SotN was huge. The non-linear design was his idea and he approved of the music Yamane composed.)
Iga had a pretty big influence on SOTN. I get that people hate him or whatever because he didn't make the Castlevania's they wanted, but trying to discredit the good work the man did just makes people come across as shallow.
I'm part of the dungeon since 8 years ago and know very well the story. IGA came later in production of the 32X game, pushed for its cancellation, gave the metroid idea and brought Ayami Kojima and Yamane to the mix, however he didn't design levels or anything, he wrote the sotry and programmed the night/light transition of the beginning. That is about it. Hagihara quality is present in symphony AND only Symphony. As you can see, IGA never topped it, just kept adding gimmicks over the formula. If IGA had been the responsible for SOTN, that wouldn't had been a problem.
The art and music are really big parts of SOTN though, just saying he brought the two people responsible in for them as something trivial isn't right. Same goes for the Metroid idea, it's one of the reasons it's the most highly rated games in the franchise. These aren't trivial things.
Also I disagree that he never topped it, OoE out classes SOTN in just about everyway IMO,
discoalucard
i am a butthurt babby that can only drool in wonder at shiney objects
Koji Igarashi is not a director (at least since Symphony), he's a producer. Neither is Hagihara, for that matter. I think he's more of a suit nowadays anyway?
Both are suits, actually. IGA was promoted too. Hagihara's last work was SOTN.
I agree. But gameplay wise and polish wise I don't give him much credit. Judging by his later games of course.
It wasn't trivial. I mean, the man wasn't really bad, I love some of this games and he's responsible for many things I love, and I might miss his games now, but that's because we're 5 years from the last, at the time, everytime we saw IGA on stage we couldn't help but yawn and hope it was the last time.
Haha, you even posted in that topic.
Yeah I didn't mean to imply you had no knowledge of the series. I'm sorry if I came off as a dick. I just think that people misattribute IGA's contributions to SotN. He's pretty much responsible for the identity of the game.
Hooo boy. Gimme time to translate that. It's JUICY
.
discoalucard
i am a butthurt babby that can only drool in wonder at shiney objects
I meant "suit" as meaning an executive. Igarashi was still producing titles up until either Otomedius or Leedmees.
The gist is, as a producer Igarashi was the public face of the games, and handles various roles like PR, scenario writer, budgeting, and generally overseeing the project. But the nitty gritty of the games are generally handled by the director and his team.
Same thing with David Cox, he does interviews, conceptualizes the game and outlines the blueprint, but the heavy lifting of the actual programming and design are done by MercurySteam. You could easily hold him responsible for everything that went wrong with the Lords of Shadow games - I feel like that's what Konami's corporate structure is set up to do - but I think doing so would be shortsighted.
swazzyswess
Member
I think some people's insistence (not just here) that this game is excellent and better than LoS1 is pretty funny given all this info. The game skates by on its combat and general AAA qualities (graphics, in some parts, music and general production) and fails when it comes to having coherent design.
brandonh83
Banned
It's flawed but I really enjoyed it. Can we not put opinions in other people's mouths? Regardless of the development or what the team went through-- which sucks-- it is a pretty damn fun game.
Give me a few hours and I will have it translated tonight.
This isn't the first time Devs have down talked one of their games. Bungie famously did it to Halo 2 and that is often considered their best work.
I don't see why the dev couldn't have been pure hell and people still like it. Hell even if the game is objectively worse then LoS1, I still don't think it should be shocking that some will prefer 2.
swazzyswess
Member
I'm not putting opinions in anyone's mouth. go to Metacritic and look at the alarming number of "this game is perfect fuck the reviewers" user reviews. LoS2 has a higher user rating than LoS1 right now. I have a feeling in six months after the launch hype dies down that the consensus will be that the game was a huge letdown.
talked down, and down talked are two completely different things.
MS employee's are obviously talking down their own game. Tons of developers act humble and down talking their games to show that their is always room for improvement. I didn't follow the industry back them so I have no clue what Bungie said. But MS is obviously trying to get the public's on the hell behind their doors. The environment seems worse than what plagued Team Bondi.
Basically, it's an official interview with some dev from the studio and... he basically confirms like, everything.
Give me a few hours and I will have the news translated.
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