Topic: The first sign rises with the full moon.

[Neobelmont]

As much as I disliked the LoS trilogy (except the very first game which had potential) I don't think Cox is to blame for IGA "losing his castle". MercurySteam pitched their project and Konami was impressed. We really have no idea what the other pitches looked like and we definitely don't know in what shape IGAs "Alucardvania" was. The teaser trailer from a few years back looked - dare I say it - very lackluster. The graphics were Dreamcast era.

In addition to that, IGA had recently made Judgment - a universally panned fighter. And Harmony of Despair - a hodgepodge of recycled assets. Lords of Shadow really came off as a fresh thing and I'm not surprised IGA lost his job.

So, who's to blame for all this? Well Konami, obviously. They completely dropped the ball, failing to recognize IGAs strength, even though Order of Ecclesia was right there in front of them.

Cox came across as a pretty arrogant guy, and he said a lot of things that made him look like kind of an ass. But he won the pitch, fair and square. And IGA was probably a bit fatigued at the time. He clearly was meant to break free and do his own thing.

And while this is a huuuuge middle finger to Konami, they're probably looking less at the 4.5 million dollar Kickstarter, and more on the 50 000 backers. That equals to 50 000 sold copies, even though each backer paid more money than they would with a normal retail release. The conclusion Konami would make is this:
"2D Igavania has approximately 50 000 fans. That's not enough."

So will 4.5 million dollars change Konamis mind? Will they invest in 2D Castlevania in the future because of Bloodstaineds success? I would not hold my breath.

The reason I hold Cox and Alvarez & MS in such a negative light heck even to a point konami is because they fooled me not once but twice destroying my trust with them in a major way, I tried to deny my self for like what a year that Los2 and even when Mof came out on the 3ds that it was good, especially after how I was hooked with the first LoS.  But this is a thread for bloodstained not LoS so I'm going to quit. Also how about advertising for once konami I swear I found out about suikoden by accident and it was the fourth in the series that got me into it (ahh good times gotta get back to that), Heck most of their  games  during the ps2/xbox/GC era I had to find out by either searching or finding them at gamestop by accident.

[uzo]

Agreed about doing Iga's work for no reason here if we go on with this (I would argue that the position of room exits could actually be parameterized, for example). But I still think that they could come up with something not-so-ambitious without making compromises to the main game. At least I'm not expecting this mode to be very varied in terms of the things (enemies, other elements) that are automatically arranged.

You're the one with experience developing games, though. So I really respect your opinion. I'll just see how this turns out in the end.

You don't have to blindly take my word for it though. It's good to doubt, discuss, and postulate. For all I know IGA and the team go super saiyan and knock it out of the park and then I'm an asshole, lol. It's just going to be a ridiculously hard task for them given what they have to work with in my opinion.

[DarkPrinceAlucard]

That is 50k fans that went out of their way to shell cash without so much as a screen shot. That's a really good number. Consider how many copies would sell if they had a gameplay trailer and a full marketing campaign. It would be much higher.

The thing is Konami doesn't see that as anything to put money into, even given all of that above. It won't move millions so they wont take the time to promote it properly. X-Blades series comes to mind. Big publishers aren't good with multiple small projects. They want ALL the money from everything, so they roll all their eggs into one basket (MGS series).

I agree with uzo, this is very good thing that even Konami has to recognize, you can't simply look at it from the "only 50,000 or so backers" perspective, that is simplifying it to say the least, you have to look at what the fans have been shown thus far and how dedicated they where to still shell out well over 4 million dollars for this project.

I get the feeling that Konami will look at this from all angles rather than simply this only having 50,000 backers, whether that means a potential new CV game remains to be seen, but its not out of the realm of possibility at all.

[shelverton.]

Well, don't ge me wrong guys, I personally think 50K backers without so much as a screenshot is a friggin triumph. I'm just not sure Konami gets it. I realize I have no faith in them whatsoever anymore. They managed to fuck up and/or neglect everything from Castlevania, Suikoden and Gradius, to Silent Hill, Contra, Goemon... i mean, how do they even do it? Are they for real?

But let's celebrate Bloodstained now! I have high hopes for this, but will try to keep my expectations on a reasonable level. I'm happy if it turns out to be a good 8 out of 10 game. Anything above that is just incredible. I am not, however, expecting something that will blow SotN out of the water. That is pretty much impossible IMO.

[VladCT]

I get the feeling that Konami will look at this from all angles rather than simply this only having 50,000 backers, whether that means a potential new CV game remains to be seen, but its not out of the realm of possibility at all.

Considering how far up their ass their heads are as of recent, I'm not exactly optimistic they'll look at this that way.

[Claimh Solais]

a lot of stuff in this post and previous posts

I understand what you're saying, even given the fact that I have very little game creation experience (and literally no programming experience). And from the various random rogue-like games out there, it's easy to see that yes, level design takes a hit for its procedurally-generated dungeons. They're all simplistic in nature, and most exit points are, at most, two tiles long.

My biggest hope is that they're going to be making additional level designs specifically for the roguelike mode, rather than using stuff from the main game. Varied and fantastic sets for the campaign, and more simplistic areas for the other mode. Like, think most areas in OoE as the campaign (varied, interesting), and think the training hall in OoE as the extra mode (simplistic, repetitive background design).

...One can hope anyway. But what you're saying sounds the most likely.

[Oniros]

Well, don't ge me wrong guys, I personally think 50K backers without so much as a screenshot is a friggin triumph. I'm just not sure Konami gets it. I realize I have no faith in them whatsoever anymore. They managed to fuck up and/or neglect everything from Castlevania, Suikoden and Gradius, to Silent Hill, Contra, Goemon... i mean, how do they even do it? Are they for real?

But let's celebrate Bloodstained now! I have high hopes for this, but will try to keep my expectations on a reasonable level. I'm happy if it turns out to be a good 8 out of 10 game. Anything above that is just incredible. I am not, however, expecting something that will blow SotN out of the water. That is pretty much impossible IMO.

I think given the hardware and the experience Iga has gained over the years this might be the game that surpasses all his games. Man, this is now the most funded video game KS of all time. This is the stuff dreams are made of, for real.

[Nagumo]

As much as I disliked the LoS trilogy (except the very first game which had potential) I don't think Cox is to blame for IGA "losing his castle". MercurySteam pitched their project and Konami was impressed. We really have no idea what the other pitches looked like and we definitely don't know in what shape IGAs "Alucardvania" was. The teaser trailer from a few years back looked - dare I say it - very lackluster. The graphics were Dreamcast era.

In addition to that, IGA had recently made Judgment - a universally panned fighter. And Harmony of Despair - a hodgepodge of recycled assets. Lords of Shadow really came off as a fresh thing and I'm not surprised IGA lost his job.

I don't think you're someone with an agenda against IGA or anything Shel-kun, but what you're writing here is a bit revisionist in my opinion. Not that I blame anyone for thinking that way since before we didn't know what happned, but recently there was an interesting interview with IGA that shed some light on his period as Castlevania producer.

Anyway, what IGA basically said was that after SotN was finished he and the team wanted to take a break from making that kind of game because they were a bit burned out creatively. So during that time the series got handed over to KCEN and KCEK while IGA produced another game called Elder Gate. Around 2001 IGA really wanted to be involved with the series again so he begged his boss to be once again assigned to the series. They said it was alright but under the condition that IGA had to produce a CV game every year from that point on. In the interview IGA even said he basically had to compress a 3 year development cycle into 1, but he didn't care because he loved working on the series so much.

Initially his games peformed well (they were actually making a profit), but later, he said, the prices of (handheld)games were going down (I didn't check this, but maybe someone else know more about this) and the fanbase wasn't increasing enough to compensate for the losses (IGA said fanbases can increase a little bit but never actually double). This is why they tried cutting corners like recycling sprites, something IGA always gets crap for. But this ended up only decreasing the costs around 10%.   

So eventually he started working on that PS3/Xbox360 game, but the game didn't really came together properly. IGA said it was because of this and the series making less of a profit that they decided to do the whole pitch thing. IGA's game ended up being compared to MercurySteam's game and we all know what happend afterwards. IGA was then already asked to step down as producer, only being allowed to do minor projects (and I assume finishing up OoE). So I don't think games like Judgment and Hodespair even factor into the decesion to remove IGA from the series.  He really just got screwed over by both Konami and game retailers. Anyway, that's the story through my own personal filter. You can check out the interview on YouTube. It's by Kinda Funny games, around one hour into the video.   

[Gunlord]

Hmm...I'm not a computer guy either, but I do understand where uzo-sama is coming from. From what I've heard, Mighty No. 9 suffered from this sort of thing. Despite making a LOT of money off kickstarter, they had to cut some features due to "budget constraints," IIRC. So I concede it's possible these additions might give the main game some problems in Bloodstained's case.

Still, I think IGA might be able to pull off the coup Uzo mentioned, or at least come close to it. I get the feeling he's been thinking about a Castlevania roguelike for a while, as some of the other additions, like asynchronous multiplayer, lead me to believe he's been looking at those sorts of online features for some time. I think it's very possible he has a plan, and it's less likely he's biting off more than he can chew.

[CastleToastM]

I really like Rouge Legacy, gave me a good 60 - 70 hours of entertainment, even though it basically uses the same group of rooms over and over for each area.

I would love to see what IGA could do with the same concept. It doesn't matter how hard he screws it up, I like to think that I'm pretty easy to please with this sort of thing, and will probably get a good 40+ hours out of it anyways.

If anything, they could release a beta of the randomly generated castle within the backers only early demo, that way, they'd be able to get feedback about it from the fans.

[Chernabogue]

The actual number of people saying "Rouge" instead of "Rogue" is too damn high.

[shelverton.]

I don't think you're someone with an agenda against IGA or anything Shel-kun, but what you're writing here is a bit revisionist in my opinion. Not that I blame anyone for thinking that way since before we didn't know what happned, but recently there was an interesting interview with IGA that shed some light on his period as Castlevania producer.

Anyway, what IGA basically said was that after SotN was finished he and the team wanted to take a break from making that kind of game because they were a bit burned out creatively. So during that time the series got handed over to KCEN and KCEK while IGA produced another game called Elder Gate. Around 2001 IGA really wanted to be involved with the series again so he begged his boss to be once again assigned to the series. They said it was alright but under the condition that IGA had to produce a CV game every year from that point on. In the interview IGA even said he basically had to compress a 3 year development cycle into 1, but he didn't care because he loved working on the series so much.

Initially his games peformed well (they were actually making a profit), but later, he said, the prices of (handheld)games were going down (I didn't check this, but maybe someone else know more about this) and the fanbase wasn't increasing enough to compensate for the losses (IGA said fanbases can increase a little bit but never actually double). This is why they tried cutting corners like recycling sprites, something IGA always gets crap for. But this ended up only decreasing the costs around 10%.   

So eventually he started working on that PS3/Xbox360 game, but the game didn't really came together properly. IGA said it was because of this and the series making less of a profit that they decided to do the whole pitch thing. IGA's game ended up being compared to MercurySteam's game and we all know what happend afterwards. IGA was then already asked to step down as producer, only being allowed to do minor projects (and I assume finishing up OoE). So I don't think games like Judgment and Hodespair even factor into the decesion to remove IGA from the series.  He really just got screwed over by both Konami and game retailers. Anyway, that's the story through my own personal filter. You can check out the interview on YouTube. It's by Kinda Funny games, around one hour into the video.   

I'm actually a huge fan of IGA and despite everything I wrote he's probably my favorite producer ever, but I noticed that his games suddenly became pretty bad (IMO), and it broke my heart. But thanks for shedding some light on what may have happened, I haven't seen that interview. Will check it out! 

[beingthehero]

By bad I'm guessing you mean bad like the powerglove

(hurr) 
I thought Judgment was kinda underrated imho. Anyways, we're now at $4,679,161, not counting the paypal donations, which I think right now stands around $200,000. So we have a really good chance of reaching $5 mil by the end of the night.

[Charlotte-nyo:3]

In addition to that, IGA had recently made Judgment - a universally panned fighter. And Harmony of Despair - a hodgepodge of recycled assets. Lords of Shadow really came off as a fresh thing and I'm not surprised IGA lost his job.

They'd need to be fair to IGA regarding CVHD and the "recycled assets" because I'm betting all their pro dotters had already left by then and that was why it was just recycled assets. They likely had some people do some rearranging and clean up work to get the existing assets to fit together in new ways but that is different from creating new tile sets from scratch. Most likely Konami execs understood the limitations of CVHD better than most of us did, and they were likely the ones responsible for those limits more than IGA.

Also as others mentioned, CVHD was made after LoS already was greenlit. The 360 version of CVHD and LoS came out pretty close together in 2010.

In retrospect I look at Judgment, CVHD, the SotN puzzler for iOS, and that odd mobile game Order of Shadows as Konami execs telling IGA to find something new and risky that could light a fire up under the franchise and increase its sales, which would explain going off on all these weird directions rather than just making another Metroidvania.

And while this is a huuuuge middle finger to Konami, they're probably looking less at the 4.5 million dollar Kickstarter, and more on the 50 000 backers. That equals to 50 000 sold copies, even though each backer paid more money than they would with a normal retail release. The conclusion Konami would make is this:
"2D Igavania has approximately 50 000 fans. That's not enough."

I doubt even Konami would make that jump though if they're prudent, because the number of people willing to pledge on a Kickstarter, essentially preordering a game that hasn't been made yet 2 years ahead of time, is only a smaller subset of the people who would actually buy the game when it comes out. There's more risk involved with KS backing. Plus they have the sales numbers from the DS games and they're definitely more than 50k each, although that is old data.

[Aiddon]

I don't think you're someone with an agenda against IGA or anything Shel-kun, but what you're writing here is a bit revisionist in my opinion. Not that I blame anyone for thinking that way since before we didn't know what happned, but recently there was an interesting interview with IGA that shed some light on his period as Castlevania producer.

Anyway, what IGA basically said was that after SotN was finished he and the team wanted to take a break from making that kind of game because they were a bit burned out creatively. So during that time the series got handed over to KCEN and KCEK while IGA produced another game called Elder Gate. Around 2001 IGA really wanted to be involved with the series again so he begged his boss to be once again assigned to the series. They said it was alright but under the condition that IGA had to produce a CV game every year from that point on. In the interview IGA even said he basically had to compress a 3 year development cycle into 1, but he didn't care because he loved working on the series so much.

Initially his games peformed well (they were actually making a profit), but later, he said, the prices of (handheld)games were going down (I didn't check this, but maybe someone else know more about this) and the fanbase wasn't increasing enough to compensate for the losses (IGA said fanbases can increase a little bit but never actually double). This is why they tried cutting corners like recycling sprites, something IGA always gets crap for. But this ended up only decreasing the costs around 10%.   

So eventually he started working on that PS3/Xbox360 game, but the game didn't really came together properly. IGA said it was because of this and the series making less of a profit that they decided to do the whole pitch thing. IGA's game ended up being compared to MercurySteam's game and we all know what happend afterwards. IGA was then already asked to step down as producer, only being allowed to do minor projects (and I assume finishing up OoE). So I don't think games like Judgment and Hodespair even factor into the decesion to remove IGA from the series.  He really just got screwed over by both Konami and game retailers. Anyway, that's the story through my own personal filter. You can check out the interview on YouTube. It's by Kinda Funny games, around one hour into the video.   

It's not opinion, it IS revisionist; fact of the matter is that Iga was basically manipulated by his bosses into churning out Castlevanias year after year regardless of how burnt out the team was. He tried to mitigate it for consumers by also doing titles like LoI and CoD, but there's only so much that can do which of course led to his superiors short-sightedly taking resources away from him which led to lesser performance. Judgment was a game Iga didn't really want to do anyway and Harmony of Despair was again something that was out of his control due to his bosses screwing him over on team and budget. Heck, Konami's marginalization of him seems to have come at around the time their President's brain calcified and their gaming output plummeted.

And then LoS, which was really only made because Kojima was in an awkward self-xenophobic phase as well as being desperate to prove he wasn't just the Metal Gear guy. LoS had exactly two things over the Igavanias: pretentiousness and flash. It had pomp regardless of its lack of substance. That's the only real reason MercurySteam (a dev with zero pedigree and a mediocre track record) got to have Castlevania slapped on their middling God of War clone. And predictably the undeserved praise they got went to their heads and they churned out two titles that were hated by the fanbase and critics.

At the end of the day, Iga has the last laugh. Konami is a terribly managed company that is plagued by money trouble and is struggling to maintain status quo let alone grow or expand which goes against their president's idea for the company. MercurySteam has been exposed as a hack developer that had one success before fumbling big time and costing themselves their little-earned pedigree. The Igavanias are lauded to this day as classic of the genre and will be remembered for years to come while Lords of Shadow will be remembered as lazy, exploitative games that had no identity and had no business using the Castlevania name when it had nothing in common with the series. Meanwhile Iga just had $5 million fired at him from a cannon and shows that there will always be a significant market for games like this if that wasn't obvious enough due to the legion of titles that lift directly from the Igavania template.