Topic: Castlevania IV wasn't developed by "Konami"?!

[Gunlord]

I wonder what Castlevania would look like if these guys stayed with Konami

[Abnormal Freak]

That information seems to imply that ONLY Treasure folks worked on Castlevania IV. Some of them may have, but the director, producer, and lead programmer of the game, Masahiro Ueno/Mitch Ueno/Jun Furano (man, how many names does this guy need?)—who was also team leader (whatever that means) for Contra III and Axelay—was still at Konami until not long ago. So I'm inclined to believe that the people who worked on this game and other Konami games from around the time and then broke off to form Treasure, I'm guessing they did a lot of "grunt work" and weren't necessarily pivotal to the design and direction. All the top-notch leader guys stayed at Konami for several years afterward; it must have been the overworked underlings who were fed up and left to form Treasure.

So yeah. I call bullshit yet again; Castlevania IV, Contra III, Axelay (an assistant programmer for this game left to help found Treasure), etc. are all Konami games, not "proto-Treasure games."

[RichterB]

That information seems to imply that ONLY Treasure folks worked on Castlevania IV. Some of them may have, but the director, producer, and lead programmer of the game, Masahiro Ueno/Mitch Ueno/Jun Furano (man, how many names does this guy need?)—who was also team leader (whatever that means) for Contra III and Axelay—was still at Konami until not long ago. So I'm inclined to believe that the people who worked on this game and other Konami games from around the time and then broke off to form Treasure, I'm guessing they did a lot of "grunt work" and weren't necessarily pivotal to the design and direction. All the top-notch leader guys stayed at Konami for several years afterward; it must have been the overworked underlings who were fed up and left to form Treasure.

So yeah. I call bullshit yet again; Castlevania IV, Contra III, Axelay (an assistant programmer for this game left to help found Treasure), etc. are all Konami games, not "proto-Treasure games."

Fair enough. (You're definitely spot-on about Nobuya Nakazato, who has been instrumental in many Contra games since Alien Wars). But it does leave me with the question of why Castlevania never again explored the elements of SCIV. Bloodlines' whip-swinging was a far cry from IV's, and as much as I like Dracula XX and Bloodlines (and not as much Rondo), none of those games had quite the same amount of over-the-top effects and gameplay options seen in IV. And it's carried on to this day with 2D Castlevanias. Where did all that programming theory go? (I started to think that this proto-Treasure theory floating around might explain it).

For what it's worth, a Wikipedia article lists Super Castlevania IV under a note that says: "The following games were developed by Konami prior to the founding of Treasure. At least one Treasure employee has been confirmed to have worked on each of these games. Contrary to popular belief, however, Treasure employees were not responsible for the majority of the work in any of these games, except possibly Bucky O'Hare."

[Abnormal Freak]

I think the reason why you never really see many of the same things explored in later games is because almost all of the earlier Castlevania games were made by different people. Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night are the only two I can think of that have the same director (although video game credits in the '80s are sketchy to non-existent), though I think H. Akamatsu directed both Simon's Quest and Dracula's Curse, and possibly even the first game.

And that's one of the biggest things I like about the earlier games: variety. You had different teams making different games all the time. Different designers, programmers, character artists, musicians, etc. Each new game offered something different. Castlevania IV, Rondo, X68000, Bloodlines, and Symphony of the Night are so wildly different in so many ways. It was exciting and fresh. Lately, the games have been stuck being made by the same team (far as I know) with the same producer, character designer, and a lot of the times the same musician. The wonderful variety the Castlevania games always had is now gone, although of course we have Lords of Shadow on the way, but I'm unsure whether to say it's a step in the right direction.

Although apparently Mitsuru Yaida (credited as Yaipon) programmed the multi-directional whip in Castlevania IV, and he's one of the guys who left to form Treasure. Regardless of how involved some of the founding members of Treasure were, however, it's an irrefutable fact that Castlevania IV was made by a studio at Konami and not outsourced. According to the issue of play that came out around the time of Lament of Innocence, Masahiro Ueno (lead programmer and designer) stated that the game was developed in the Tokyo studio, whereas the original game was developed by the studio in Kobe, which at the time was Konami headquarters.

Super Castlevania IV was not developed in-house by Konami

NO.
Akumajo Dracula Super Famicom 1991.
Treasure Establishment 1992.

The correct answer is here.
The SCV4 programmer "YAIPON" left Konami, and joined Treasure.

The president of Treasure is Masato Maegawa.
programmer of Castlevania Adventure.

And actually, this is probably the most important and informative post in this thread, ha ha.

Sorry if I'm seeming like a dick, by the way. I just don't like the spread of misinformation. It's good this topic was brought up, though.

[crisis]

You guys should put in some more detective work & find out who had the original idea for Castlevania itself!

[Abnormal Freak]

That would be almost impossible unless someone at Konami or the man himself actually said so, ha ha. If I'm thinking correctly, there was kind of a shame surrounding Japanese video game development from that era (the NES days), so not many have come out to say, "I've made this," and credits were of course very obscure. We still don't know who actually created and designed Mega Man, but it's the same guy who directed the first two games. People will say Keiji Inafune created Mega Man, but he did his drawings based on the pixel art that the director had done (according to Inafune in the MM art book).

Doesn't Vampire Killer (the MSX2 game) have complete credits, though? I believe Kinuyo Yamashita was credited for music, wasn't she? One could probably start their investigation there.

Edit: And here are Vampire Killer's credits according to MobyGames:

Game Design:
Akihiko Nagata

Programmer:
A. Harima, Isao Akada, Katsuya Nagae

Sound Programmer:
Hideaki Shikama

Graphic Designer:
Shuko Iwamoto, Naoki Matsui, K. Mizutani, Azusa Fujimoto

Sound Effects By:
Kazuhiko Uehara

Music by:
Kouki Yamashita, S. Terashima

Art Designer:
F. Hayakawa

Assistant Programmer:
Koji Toyohara, Toshinari Oka, H. Eda, T. Ohtsuka, T. Danjyo

Special Thanks:
K. Hiraoka, FC. Team

Produced by:
Akihiko Nagata

Presented by:
Konami

Could it be Akihiko Nagata, game designer and producer? Can't really say. But I think most of these credits apply to the Famicom game (only one I know for sure that doesn't is S. Terashima, since he/she I believe only wrote the ending song for VK) since I believe they were handled by the same people. The MSX game was in development first, but it was chosen for the Famicom game to be released ahead of it. So VK is, in essence, the beginning of Castlevania...so perhaps Akihiko Nagata is our man. He designed the game, at least.

Edit (2nd): Oh, just noticed "FC. Team" is listed under Special Thanks, likely standing for Famicom Team. So I guess the same credits don't apply. And actually, doy, that makes sense, since how could one team make two games at once? But I do wonder if Akihiko Nagata supervised both.

[Nagumo]

The MSX game was in development first, but it was chosen for the Famicom game to be released ahead of it. So VK is, in essence, the beginning of Castlevania... 

Is there a source for this? This might be very interesting to mention on the Chapel's Castlevania wiki. I do recall IGA saying that Castlevania was the first though. 

But this is very interesting. This seems to prove that Vampire Killer is not a port of Castlevania.       

[Abnormal Freak]

I can't recall where I heard it, actually, but I remember it to be a pretty credible source (otherwise I wouldn't be stating it as fact). Gonna have to search my memory banks, ha ha. It may have been info I came across while researching Kinuyo Yamashita several months or a year ago. But I'm pretty sure that's the case, that Vampire Killer was in development first, but then Konami chose to take the game's concept and then turn it into an action game—thus the Famicom Disk System/NES game.

Of course, it could be all wrong and I'm spewing nonsense. If there's a credible source stating that Castlevania came first, then that's probably the case. Supposedly the Japanese Castlevania website states that?

[Nagumo]

Hmm, I believe it was an IGA interview. But it's also possible that he meant that the game was only the first to be released and not developed.

 

[The Silverlord]

There was an old thread regarding series creator.  I remember asking Kinuyo Yamashita in an e-mail as an aside if she knew the original creator, but she didn't know.

My money would have been on Akihiko Nagata.  However, Nagata is well up the company (Vice President, Corporate Officer) and IGA said the chap had left, so . . . maybe someone higher up at the time.

[Koutei]

Japanese Castlevania website states that?

http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/dracula/product/1986.html
http://koutei65535uhauha.hp.infoseek.co.jp/kyassuru/first/index.html

FDS: Everything started here...

MSX2: unique port

[Nagumo]

If two games are developed as two seperate games does it still called a port? I mean, they also DXX is a port of Rondo and may I be struck by lighting it that is true.   

[Koutei]

The classification of Japanese Language "Isyoku" and "Remake" is vague.
Sorry, I do not have knowledge to explain it in English.

[Nagumo]

Ah, interesting. *goes investigating* 

[crisis]