The first very first Castlevania game of that type was Symphony of the Night. Takeda: We first decided to make this a map exploration-style Castlevania game (as opposed to the older stage action games). Symphony of the Night featured the inverted castle, but Harmony has a “two-sided” castle? 1 Where did that idea come from? Konami TYO (KCET, Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo) has a lot of veterans. The Harmony staff is composed of people from Symphony of the Night, as well as developers from Contra: Hard Corps-bona fide 2D game developers, in other words. Not a single person from Circle of the Moon worked on this game. Iga: They’re entirely different, actually. Is the Harmony of Dissonance staff the same people who worked on Circle of the Moon? I’d be happy to see the Castlevania developments continue in this direction-of first building a complete, solid action game, and then adding RPG elements on top. It was meant to open the gate a little bit, to a wider audience. Iga: The inclusion of RPG elements was meant to allow even unskilled players to make it to the end by leveling up. The enemies, likewise, can use the same positioning and mobility tactics on you, and will sometimes circle around and flank you, for instance… the movement was something I tried to pay special attention to. The ability to quickly adjust your positioning with the LR dash buttons was part of that idea.īroadly speaking, I sought to find a system that would build on the strengths of the previous games while also presenting something to players that wouldn’t feel outdated or embarassing today in 2002. A system with good spacing in the fights-that’s what I wanted to revive with this game. I think in the first Castlevania game, your whip has a limited range, and this creates an interesting gameplay where the player has to figure out the correct, strategic spacing for each fight. Of course you can’t deny the RPG elements, but I wanted first and foremost to have a game with solid, strategic action. Castlevania also has RPG elements too, but this time, I was very keen to make the action gameplay satisfying, to do it right. Takeda: I’ve been a Castlevania fan from back in the day, so my image of Castlevania as an action game, like the first Famicom entries, is very strong. Producer Koji Igarashi (L) and director Takashi Takeda (R). All in all, it was largely left in Takeda’s hands. In the beginning that was the basic workflow, and then later I had a variety of specific requests that I added on. Then Takeda would work that up into something more systematic and defined, and present that back to me, and we’d figure it out from there. Iga: Basically, I would propose ideas related to the world of the game and the gameplay systems I thought worked within that world. I felt we were both very respectful to each other, in terms of checking whether we were encroaching on the other’s work. In terms of dividing up the tasks, seeing who did what, yeah, we talked a lot about that. Takeda: Well, we’re mostly on the same page, and know what the other person is thinking without them needing to say it. Did you consult closely with Iga during the development? (laughs) Having been given this chance, I poured my heart and soul into Harmony of Dissonance. (laughs) I remember thinking then, that if I ever had the chance to direct a Castlevania game myself, I wanted to make something that would leave me with no regrets. I came to appreciate just how challenging that is. When I was a new employee (about 7-8 years back), I was involved with Vampire Killer (Castlevania: Bloodlines) as a programmer.īut I soon learned there’s a huge difference between being an amateur on the outside able to criticize and say whatever you want, and being involved in the actual production… at a company you have to navigate everyone’s different demands, while leading your team and trying to realize your own vision at the same time. In fact, you could say the reason I joined Konami is because I was so obsessed with Castlevania. For my part, I’ve always been a Castlevania fanatic. Takeda: IGA worked as the producer on Symphony of the Night, as you know. Iga: Individually, we’ve worked on different Castlevania games, but this is our first time working together like this. Takashi Takeda – Director / Planner / Monster Programming -Have the two of you ever worked together on anything in the Castlevania series before?
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