That's what I'm going to try to ask as well--what was originally the reasoning behind why that would happen and such. The more people ask it the more likely it gets picked as a question he'll answer so the more people who ask the better.
If you guys are going to try and ask about Dark Maria, could you also try asking about some of the other cancelled characters like Elizabeth Bartley and Gilles de Rais? He mentioned them briefly in some SotN guidebook interview and I really want to know more about what he had planned. I will try and ask myself as well, and of course I'll help you guys push the other questions, too.
Sheeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiit. If true, that negates over a decade of shitposting on the Dungeon and Gamefaqs about how CotM was the last great Castlevania game before that bastard IGA ruined it and life in general.
Well Hero-kun, IGA did say he didn't like to be credited for CotM because he didn't work on it, so I assume his role was strictly PR. But even then, if you listened to what he said in the video, my respect for him has grown ever more since in return of becoming involved in the series after begging, he was basically forced to pump out a CV game each year. And even with his hands tied behind his back he still gave us 5 absolutely amazing handheld games while he probably could have giving us 2 or 3 SotN-tier ones if he actually had enough time. So it's really tragic people gave him crap all these years for "running Castlevania into the ground" even though it was because of a crunched development time and external forces like game retailers lowering the prices of their games.