Topic: Masahiro Ueno interview, Retro Gamer 119 (August)

[Abnormal Freak]

Nothing to report yet on what the interview actually contains, but keep yer peepers open for the interview with the lead programmer on Super Castlevania IV.

Gonna check out Barnes & Noble in a few weeks to see if they get it in stock. It's a UK mag, and those usually take 3–4 weeks from release to arrive here.

[Lelygax]

Good find

[PFG9000]

I got mine in the mail two days ago.  I haven't had a chance to finish the CV4 article, but there's some new info in there already.  For example, that CV1-CV3 were all done by the same team, and also that early Konami games don't have the true names in the credits because Konami would not allow them credit for their work.  I'll scan the article when I can, but I probably won't have time til Sunday night at the earliest.

[Nagumo]

More information about the early history of Castlevania? Consider me intrigued.

[Shiroi Koumori]

I got mine in the mail two days ago.  I haven't had a chance to finish the CV4 article, but there's some new info in there already.  For example, that CV1-CV3 were all done by the same team, and also that early Konami games don't have the true names in the credits because Konami would not allow them credit for their work.  I'll scan the article when I can, but I probably won't have time til Sunday night at the earliest.

I'll await your scans.
That article is very interesting.

[A-Yty]

I'm interested in this.

[jestercolony]

I'm very interested in this as well.

[shelverton.]

I too, approve of this article being scanned.

Also, Konami was a bit of an asshole not giving proper credit to its programmers/designers. I don't understand the reasoning behind it. Did this apply to other games than Castlevania too? My memory escapes me.

Though I guess times were different back then, but other companies at least had real credits.

[beingthehero]

I dunno, Yuzo Koshiro was never credited at Falcom, which is why he left there in the late 80s.

[Abnormal Freak]

I think Keiji Inafune said that many of the original developers of Mega Man 1–3 (I think it was largely the same team) used fake names because video games had a certain stigma attached to it in Japan at the time, so if that's the case, then the staffers at Capcom chose to do aliases. The creator and original director has never wanted to be named, I believe, and that could also be why IGA never mentions by name some of the key folks behind the original Castlevanias.

[Pfil]

And that could be the case of Michiru Yamane behind themes like Riddle in Castlevania 3, many years before she made a remix.
Manami Matsumae used the nickname Sato in some Megaman titles, for example, and that might be just what Keiji was referring to.

[beingthehero]

She was never part of KKC and I have absolutely no idea where you got that from. She has said in a zillion interviews that the first Castlevania game she ever worked on was Bloodlines. Here:

http://www.castlevaniacrypt.com/yamane/2012/11/07

1up: I'd like to talk more about Castlevania, since that seems to be what you're best known for. How did you first become involved with the Castlevania series?

Michiru Yamane: I moved to the Tokyo office, and the first title I worked on was Vampire's Killer [Castlevania Bloodlines], for the Mega Drive.

EDIT: I didn't mean this in a harsh way or anything, but I'm just legitimately confused where you heard Yamane did music for CVIII.

EDIT TO THE EDIT'S EDIT: Whoops, forgot she did some of the music for Gradius III and other MSX stuff, and I think there she was credited as part of the KKC. But she has confirmed that Bloodlines was the first Castlevania she ever worked on.

[Koutei]

Although I found PDF of this by the Google search, I think that I will wait for PFG9000's scan. That one will become the contribution of Castlevania Dungeon.

*Michiru Yamane
http://www.squareenixmusic.com/features/interviews/michiruyamane.shtml
CVIII isn't anywhere in this report.

[Pfil]

She was never part of KKC and I have absolutely no idea where you got that from. She has said in a zillion interviews that the first Castlevania game she ever worked on was Bloodlines. Here:

http://www.castlevaniacrypt.com/yamane/2012/11/07
EDIT: I didn't mean this in a harsh way or anything, but I'm just legitimately confused where you heard Yamane did music for CVIII.

EDIT TO THE EDIT'S EDIT: Whoops, forgot she did some of the music for Gradius III and other MSX stuff, and I think there she was credited as part of the KKC. But she has confirmed that Bloodlines was the first Castlevania she ever worked on.

No because Bloodlines was her first solo work in CV, but a couple CV games were credited by the KKC, and until I find out if she was in KKC at the tim of CV3, I will still have the doubt.
The way I see it, it's more probable that she was in KKC when CV3 was made, because she entered Konami and entered right away in KKC, and when she left KKC and went solo, she did it to make Bloodlines.
It's just that I can't find info about one info or the other.
Until something official appears, we don't know.

[beingthehero]

Dude she literally says in the interview I quoted that the very first Castlevania she ever worked on period was Bloodlines. Not the first one she did solo, but the first one ever.