Vyse The Legend
Member
On 8-4 Play, they said he attended their party last year. He clearly was demoted after Judgment and the flop of Ecclesia, which is a shame. The IGAvanias were my favorite Castlevania and handheld games.
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What happened to IGA (Koji Igarashi)?
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MoF can't even be called shit, it's worse than that. Sorry, but I had much more fun with the dull rehashes than MoF.
jimmypython
Member
mailroom?
TheJollyCorner
Member
I'm convinced KCET has some kind of dark, medieval pit at HQ where they toss once great designers into.
IGA's bones are down there with Team Silent's Tsuboyama & Imamura, Rumble Roses' Uchida, and Shadow of Memories & Suikoden's Kawano.
Takamura-San
Member
Apologies, but this is what wikipedia indicates that he has produced in his career:
Wikipedia" said:
These are his last 2 projects...
Seems like a waste of talent if you ask me.
It would be nice but I wouldn't put much hope in that happening any time soon sadly, if not for Nintendos general incompetence, but Konami takes ages to do these things. It took years for Konami to bring SotM to the EU on PSN and they still manage to mess up letting us play it on a Vita at first.
Spehornoob
Member
He's stuck in a time loop reliving Konami's 2010 E3 conference over and over again.
Shmuely Bully
Member
Not lately they weren't. The most successful Castlevania on handhelds is still Circle of the Moon and Igarashi responded to that by not letting the team that made that do any more games.
snow in jamaica
Member
he's training in secret to fight cox for his hip hop gamer championship belt at wrestlevania.
it's too bad he only talks to coworkers on facebook.
it's too bad he only talks to coworkers on facebook.
Do we have real any sales numbers for the DS Igavanias? Also, I can't understand how he could be behind those great games, and also behind the terrible Castlevania: Judgment. Iga, you do one thing so well. Just keep working on perfecting your craft.
People seem to forget that he's not responsible for SOTN, ToruGod Haigihara was, IGA was scenario writwr for ir and then promoted to executive producer, not director. He was responsible for the stagnation AND ridiculization of Castlevania ("why are her boobs bigger than mine?"). Ecclesia is indeed a masterpiece, but it was too little too late. CV does indeed need a quality 2D game again but we need another Hagihara, not another IGA.
Not Spaceghost
Spaceghost
This is absolute fact.
OoE is an incredible game, content wise and mechanically. Every aspect of it completely shines even if the story was boring but whatever it's fucking castlevania.
Rondo is just incredible though. I really hope Iga returns after mercury stream is done with LoS. Maybe make some HD rereleases of his DS versions for the 3DS or wii u?
Anything really. Iga knows how to make a good side scroller I don't know why they tossed him aside.
Well I'll keep an open mind until I finally play it. When it comes to Castlevania I find it especially hard to take some fans seriously in their ranting against the newer games (nothing against you of course!)
Shmuely Bully
Member
I'm not aware of decent numbers for PoR or OoE, but DoS did ~150K in a few months in the U.S. and my understanding is that each entry did fewer sales.
Unless one of the DS games did much, much better than reported though none of them came close to outselling CoTM which managed to break 500K shortly after it hit the US and Europe.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
Judgement coming after Order made it even more obvious how terrible Judgement was. I played it at TGS before it was released and was like "this needs a LOT of work," but the release version was basically unchanged.
Konami gave control of the franchise over to Cox, it's a shame, I really didn't care for Lords of Shadow. Absolutely loved the IGAvanias though. I wish we could have gotten another trio of excellent Castlevanias on the 3DS rather than that Mirror of Fate garbage Mercury Steam put out.
It's true that he never managed to make a successful console game for Castlevania, but his handheld ones were fantastic. It's unfair to say that he just recycled assets every because Konami never gave him a decent budget or enough time to start from scratch. Maybe Konami will allow Iga to work on new handheld games, and allow another team to work on the console versions.
It's true that he never managed to make a successful console game for Castlevania, but his handheld ones were fantastic. It's unfair to say that he just recycled assets every because Konami never gave him a decent budget or enough time to start from scratch. Maybe Konami will allow Iga to work on new handheld games, and allow another team to work on the console versions.
Dark Octave
Banned
I've always loved his stuff going back to the GBA days and his DS games were also great as well. Harmony of Despair was the last thing he worked on, but he's been MIA since.
I feel bad. He's probably a nice guy.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
Because they decided to give the IP to Cox and Jericho developers who created a GoW clone hoping it would become a triple AAA tier IP, which they failed and after the second entry it will probably fall slowly into irrelevance.
In the middle they created an awful handheld entry which was considerably more expensive and bombed so hard that probably killed that niche but faithful market forever.
Meanwhile games like Strider and Shadow Complex (and other similar indie sucessful games) shows that there's an interest in that formula, and Konami is so clueless that they can't see it.
I just looked at the Famitsu year-end sales charts. Castlevania: DS charted in 2005, with about 27k sales. I didn't see any Castlevania entries for 2006, 2007, or 2008. Ouch.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
It had decent sales in the west. Decent for a very niche saga.
And probably MoF did worse, charted at 14k the first week to dissapear the next one.
viciouskillersquirrel
Member
It's depressing. At this point, I would pay good money for them just to release a 3D classics version of OoE. The sprites 3D-ised like a diorama. Seriously, I would buy it again just for that.
;_;
;_;
SlasherJPC
Banned
Wrong thread.
CamHostage
Member
That, but also the Castlevania X remake on PSP was pretty damned good IMO, I would have been plenty happy to see virtually the whole Castlevania series remade (GBA games even, as long as they packed in the originals again it'd be quite a line to collect digitally) on a version of that engine for various platforms over a couple of years. The Rebirth game could have seen a sequel too.
And back to the topic, so be it with Iga not being Mr. Castlevania anymore if he has moved on and the company feels it needs to explore the MercurySteam approach, but I do miss him and wish he would do something amazing again, and I really hope that once Konami gets what it needs out of this current direction it looks back at what it had and considers another in that vein as well.
That hidden stage in Order of Ecclesia has really fun platforming
.They must have done decently to warrent 3 games in the series.
Hades Hotgun
Banned
Isn't Lords of Shadow the best selling game in the franchise?
Relaxed Muscle
Member
Yes. And the most expensive one in terms of production and marketing by a wide margin.
Never argued CV was a big series before. But I don't think LoS made CV a triple A franchise, LoS 2 even less (and considering the reviews I predict is gonna tank pretty hard on the NPD).
AcademicSaucer
Member
I really want a handheld igavania
Whut, reallly??? I mean, I like Castlevania, all the older entries and LoS too, but I didn't think it was the best selling Castlevania game. Good for MercurySteam then.
Castleroid sounds like a nasty STD tbh...
Red Mage
Member
You mean female characters should have storylines revolving around their bust size?!/s
Sammy Samusu
Member
Working on Ecclesia 2.
i wish
Piracy on DS happened. The first couple of DS Castlevanias were probably okay, profitability-wise, but Order of Ecclesia probably arrived too late when piracy was rampant and destroying any chance DS games had.
I've never been clear on why so many people think so highly of Iga and ignore that the best of the style of games he cloned was not led by him.
AdmiralMikey
Member
Man, I miss the Igavanias. I bought every one on launch day following Circle of the Moon (I got my GBA a few months after launch, it was the first game I bought). While they varied in how good they were, all of them were worth playing (Dawn of Sorrow being my personal fave). It's a type of action game they just don't make any more, with quality sprite work, fun battle systems, tough reaction mechanics and wonderful music.
The closest thing I've played to an Igavania lately is Valdis Story: Abyssal City, but it's just not the same.
The closest thing I've played to an Igavania lately is Valdis Story: Abyssal City, but it's just not the same.
TheFLYINGManga_Ka
Member
He did make that Castlevania Puzzle game for ios. I really like that game. Best thing he made recently...with the franchise since this was still a few years back.
Some people don't think Symphony of the Night was the best. Sure it had incredible atmosphere and music and great 2D art, but it was also incredibly easy, and half the items in the game have no real use. Symphony is my favorite of the series, but I would debate against it being the best, especially from a gameplay/encounter design standpoint.
And if all of the Metroidvanias are clones of Symphony, what does that make all of the Classicvanias?
They wanted to do something new and reinvent the series. The 2D games were good, and sold decently enough, but they wanted. Which led to LOS.
This was the right move for them as LOS1 was the best selling Casllevania game.
metalslimer
Member
OoE was so amazing besides those bland levels. The combat was unmatched for that type of style. The difficulty was perfect.
entremet
Member
That's a good point. 3rd party support and localizations also started drying up then. AAI2 seemed to be a victim of this as well.
I'm just now playing through Dawn of Sorrow and it has me itching for a 3DS Castlevania.
Castlevania and Mega Man, Konami and Capcom, I want some these series to at least do something on 3DS. The system has all 6 NES Mega Man's and can play the entire Zero and ZX series. And it will soon have Castlevania 1-3 + the DS games playable. It's only right that an original game from each series should happen.
Castlevania and Mega Man, Konami and Capcom, I want some these series to at least do something on 3DS. The system has all 6 NES Mega Man's and can play the entire Zero and ZX series. And it will soon have Castlevania 1-3 + the DS games playable. It's only right that an original game from each series should happen.
Father_Brain
Banned
Well, CotM benefited quite a bit from being a GBA launch title. I also recall hearing that most of its sales came from a later budget-priced reprint, but not sure if that's accurate.
snow in jamaica
Member
that's every metrovania except ecclesia