Topic: Could the 1995 Kobe earthquake have affected the development of Dracula X?

[Nagumo]

I've been wondering for years about the raison d'etre for Castlevania: Dracula X for the SNES. Why didn't Konami just port Rondo of Blood? Why is the game such a step back from earlier titles? I've seen two explanations been put forth over the years: 1) Konami had some kind of licensing trouble with NEC, the company that created the PC-Engine, and 2) it wasn't possible for Konami to faithfully port the game because of hardware limitations. Both never struck me as very satisfying answers.

However, I've never seen anyone connect the development of Dracula X with the 1995 Kobe earthquake (also known as the great Hanshin earthquake), which occured on January 17th (Dracula X was released on June 21st). This earthquake had a major impact on Konami because their headquarters in Kobe was greatly damaged as a result. According to this old Gamasutra article, the earthquake also affected game development. For example, the article mentions that a lot of development materials for Metal Gear Solid were lost and that development had to be relocated to Tokyo. Nobody from Konami has ever come forth and admitted this, but it would make a lot sense if the earthquake messed up the development of Dracula X as well.

Supposedly the game was initially developed in Kobe but was later moved to Osaka (this is was is being claimed on Japanese forums and websites, but I haven't been able to find the exact source). According to Mobygames, the Osaka office was established in April 1995 "during restructuring at Konami following the 1995 Hanshin Earthquake".  So it's possible there was a three month gap during the development of the game.

Here's what I think happend: A new Castlevania game for the SNES, completely unrelated to Rondo, was being developed sometime during late 1994 or early 1995, with some design work already being done. Then the earthquake happens, messes up development, and development is halted for 3 months. However, the release date for the game was already locked, so the development team was forced to rush something out of the door. As a result, it was decided to just recycle content from Rondo of Blood as a replacement for all the enemies, stages, etc. that haven't been finished yet. Thus was born Dracula X.     

If you replay the game with this information in the back of your head, all of it will start to make sense. The game just feels like something that has been hastily slapped together. For example, Mr P from the Castlevania realm points out the following in his review:

You won't even have to play more than two stages to realize how rushed the game truly is. It's almost as if when contemplating how to link the two games superficially, they made the strange decision to emulate Rondo's overall design in quick-fire clumps, like those you'll see in the generic castle halls of stage two and in the sword lord-filled halls of stage five. They wind up instead tying together several areas from Rondo that otherwise should have broken up into single stages, and this works to make the entire game's look and flow come off as incoherent and not well-planned. For example: You leave the base of a cavern, and now you're in ... a clock tower? Or you'll exit a catacomb from the left and enter a new one from ... the left? There should be a rhythm and a connection between stage areas, but, instead, there's no real fluidity, which the designers try to hide with truncated areas padded out and highlighted by a simple theme of zigzagging around and around.   

     

There are more hints that possibly indicate there's an unfinished Castlevania game hidden behind what we actually got but I'll leave it at this for now.

[AlexCalvo]

I think the first idea makes more sense, that it was supposed to be a more faithful port of Rondo.  Even system limitations don't explain everything wrong with Dracula X, so I could see it being very possible that they just took what they already had ready for the SNES port and slapped it together sloppily into something playable. I don't think there is enough here to hint at another unrelated game that got reworked into Rondo 0.6.

[Nagumo]

I think the first idea makes more sense, that it was supposed to be a more faithful port of Rondo.  Even system limitations don't explain everything wrong with Dracula X, so I could see it being very possible that they just took what they already had ready for the SNES port and slapped it together sloppily into something playable.

I don't think the "licensing trouble with NEC" theory really holds up. First of all, Konami had no trouble with porting another of their titles for the PC-Engine Super CD-ROM, Tokimeki Memorial, to the Playstation in the same year. You would think an exclusivity deal between Konami and NEC would involve all of the titles they produced for the PC-Engine. Secondly, I doubt Konami would have even started working on a Rondo port if there really was such a deal. Even if you would argue NEC brought up this issue unexpectedly, that's not very likely to be the case since I doubt NEC would have even been aware such a port was being made unless Konami brought it to their attention themselves (but why would they?).     

[Super Waffle]

Hey let's put a Dracula battle on a bunch of narrowly spaced columns so it feels like you're playing a ROM hack lol.

[X]

To me the license nonsense is exactly that; nonsense. Rondo is Castlevania and therefor Konami property, and thus there would be no problems at all porting the title over to the SNES. I can see issues with the hardware but that only has to do with certain feature such as CD quality music. The voice acting for the cut scenes could still be done as the intro for Super Metroid demonstrates this easily. And since the SNES uses SONY tech for their sound clarity wouldn't be a problem. The earthquake explanation does come off as the most logical of explanations here. If much the SNES port's material was lost due to structural damages and they were short on time, then yes it is in all likelihood that they had no real choice but to make a serious compromise. The levels do in fact look like they've been hastily assembled with no natural progression, and there are no door segments to indicate stage transitions as is the case in other CV titles (Granted SCV4 doesn't use doors which was a first for the series but the stages still progress naturally). Although Konami wouldn't have had to rush the Dracula X port had they simply withheld the game rather then meeting the pre-established time quota. They could have said something about how the quake halted production and that, in order to deliver the best possible product to the market (worth every penny) the release date is therefor pushed back until such and such time. That's what I would do. Be honest with the fans and consumers. A no-brainer really.

[Holy Diver]

Hey let's put a Dracula battle on a bunch of narrowly spaced columns so it feels like you're playing a ROM hack lol.

And make sure his second form is just him in a speedo, just in case anyone was taking anything from that stage seriously.

[AlexCalvo]

I don't think the "licensing trouble with NEC" theory really holds up. First of all, Konami had no trouble with porting another of their titles for the PC-Engine Super CD-ROM, Tokimeki Memorial, to the Playstation in the same year. You would think an exclusivity deal between Konami and NEC would involve all of the titles they produced for the PC-Engine. Secondly, I doubt Konami would have even started working on a Rondo port if there really was such a deal. Even if you would argue NEC brought up this issue unexpectedly, that's not very likely to be the case since I doubt NEC would have even been aware such a port was being made unless Konami brought it to their attention themselves (but why would they?).   

I wasn't talking about the licensing.  I was talking about the idea that it was a port, but due to the earthquake it was rushed into a crappy remake.

[Succubus]

I don't see any reason why NEC would have any ownership of Rondo. It was a fully third-party game. Konami obviously had to get Rondo licensed to be an official PC Engine release, but that license applies to having the game on that platform, not limiting Konami from porting it to other platforms. If NEC had paid Konami for some kind of exclusivity, then that should apply to the game as a whole. You wouldn't see Konami reusing a ton of assets from Rondo but then not being allowed to use others.

If Konami had wanted to do an exact port, there would definitely be some degree of an issue of hardware limitations. On top of CD format versus cart, it's not like the SNES matches or outdoes the PC Engine in every way.

Dracula X very well could've been conceived as something of a "remix" of Rondo from the get-go, as it reduces development costs while also offering something new to attract those who had already played Rondo to make another purchase. It certainly wasn't the first or last Castlevania to reuse assets and/or the plot of prior releases, so I wouldn't take it as indication that Dracula X was conceived as a fully original game and only later had recycled content shoehorned in to patch together a release. Especially because, if development was truly disrupted, they could've easily delayed the release, which has never been an uncommon practice in the games industry. The only reason I could see them really wanting to stick to their initial deadline would be the next gen getting going, but there were plenty of SNES/Super Famicom games released for a while after Dracula X, even big-name games, so I don't think Konami was especially pushing it with a '95 release. They could've bumped it to later in '95 or even early '96 and probably not seen a significant change in sales (even more so because the follow-up to the Super Famicom wasn't released until the summer of '96 in Japan).

But it is curious why Dracula X is easily the poorest of the 16-bit Castlevania games.

[Nagumo]

I wasn't talking about the licensing.  I was talking about the idea that it was a port, but due to the earthquake it was rushed into a crappy remake.

I considered that explanation before (minus the earthquake stuff) but it doesn't sit right with me. If so, then why are all the backgrounds completely original and doesn't the level design resemble Rondo's even a little bit? No way making that much changes would have taken less effort than simply porting the game. There has to be more to it than that.

If Konami had wanted to do an exact port, there would definitely be some degree of an issue of hardware limitations. On top of CD format versus cart, it's not like the SNES matches or outdoes the PC Engine in every way.

I agree that there would have to be some compromises for a Rondo port on the SNES but I highly doubt hardware limitations justifies making that many changes to Dracula X. Remember that the Super CD-ROM is an add-on for a system released in 1987, while the SNES was released in 1990. I'm not an hardware expert but I could see only the music and the cutscenes needing major alteration for a transfer from PC-Engine to SNES. We already know that changing the music wasn't a problem. As for the cutscenes, they could have easily recreated those with still images and text. Even if the entire game couldn't have fit on a SNES cart, they could have simply cut some content.

Dracula X very well could've been conceived as something of a "remix" of Rondo from the get-go, as it reduces development costs while also offering something new to attract those who had already played Rondo to make another purchase.

I'm not very convinced that making a "remix" of Rondo instead of just porting the game would have been cheaper. Dracula X has a couple of new bosses and the stages are completely different. Both would have required additional design work that needed to be done before programming could begin. It seems to me that would only take more time and money. Additionally, the game is so bare-bones, I couldn't see how it would have any appeal to people who already played Rondo, let alone people who played Castlevania III and IV. That's another reason why I'm convinced Dracula X is a result of incidental factors, rather than deliberate design decisions.

It certainly wasn't the first or last Castlevania to reuse assets and/or the plot of prior releases, so I wouldn't take it as indication that Dracula X was conceived as a fully original game and only later had recycled content shoehorned in to patch together a release. Especially because, if development was truly disrupted, they could've easily delayed the release, which has never been an uncommon practice in the games industry. The only reason I could see them really wanting to stick to their initial deadline would be the next gen getting going, but there were plenty of SNES/Super Famicom games released for a while after Dracula X, even big-name games, so I don't think Konami was especially pushing it with a '95 release. They could've bumped it to later in '95 or even early '96 and probably not seen a significant change in sales (even more so because the follow-up to the Super Famicom wasn't released until the summer of '96 in Japan).

As far as I'm aware, none of the prior Castlevania outright reused the exact same assets from previous games. Which raises the question: "Why now?"   
     

Especially because, if development was truly disrupted, they could've easily delayed the release, which has never been an uncommon practice in the games industry.

This is a fair point. However, I should mention this isn't the first time a Castlevania game had to be rushed out the door in order to meet a deadline. This is also what happend with Haunted Castle. There's an interview with one of the developers in which he talks about how the game was originally a completely different horror game which was plagued with development troubles. Then one of the higher-ups came along and told them to retool the game into a Castlevania game within one month. The developer outright said they could have made a better game if they had been given more time. So if something like that happend to Haunted Castle, I wouldn't rule out that it could have happend to Dracula X as well.   

EDIT: It's also possible Dracula X was meant to be a parallel version of Rondo (similar to the two Sparkster games on Genesis and SNES), that got screwed over by the earthquake. That would also explain the weird plot alteration of making Anette and Maria sisters. However, that would mean the game's development must have had some overlap with Rondo's. Too bad we don't have any information about when development began...

[Succubus]

Konami definitely could've done a port, but how "faithful" it could be comes into question. People very well could've been disappointed in a SNES port compared to the original. Despite the PC Engine being older hardware, it has a faster processor that nearly matches the Genesis (which is also older hardware than the SNES). The SNES is pretty notorious for its slow processor. Just look at all the fast-moving shmups on PC Engine versus the shmups on SNES that are either plagued with slowdown or move at a fairly sluggish pace to begin with. The PC Engine is also capable of more colors simultaneously (even if the SNES has a much bigger palette of colors to pick from). And I'm just talking the bare PC Engine model here. The CD peripheral, system cards, and Duo redesign all build upon the base specs.

I meant that a "remix" would've been cheaper than a fully original game. A port likely would've been cheaper yet, yeah, but then the people who owned both a PC Engine and Super Famicom (not a terribly uncommon situation in Japan, since the PC Engine was solidly in second place, far ahead of the Mega Drive) and had played Rondo on PC Engine probably wouldn't buy it again for Super Famicom, even more so if a SFC port garnered a reputation of being inferior to the PC Engine original. Given that development of Dracula X would've began prior to the earthquake, Konami wasn't necessarily concerned with making the project as low-budget or quick as possible, at that point in time. A "remix" could've been a happy middle ground for them, and they could've stuck with the same plan they had all along past the earthquake, especially because I don't think they would've scrapped all original content that had already been designed prior to the earthquake.

Vampire Killer reuses assets from CV1, Belmont's Revenge reuses assets from Castlevania Adventure, CV1, Vampire Killer, Haunted Castle, CV4, and the X68k game all have essentially the same plot, etc. Just off the top of my head. I could be forgetting stuff.

[LuxKiller65]

I hate to admit that Dracula XX does feel like a hastily-glued-together semi-port of Dracula X with sometimes nonsense level connections.

Lost assets and a deadline to meet make sense given the final product. Can't this be confirmed by looking up the oldest Japanese magazine screenshots of the game that you can possibly find? That will tell you when the game as we know it existed in decent/playable form, and whether your theory makes sense or not. I guess you need to look for dates older than end February 1995 to find this out.

[Nagumo]

I hate to admit that Dracula XX does feel like a hastily-glued-together semi-port of Dracula X with sometimes nonsense level connections.

Lost assets and a deadline to meet make sense given the final product. Can't this be confirmed by looking up the oldest Japanese magazine screenshots of the game that you can possibly find? That will tell you when the game as we know it existed in decent/playable form, and whether your theory makes sense or not. I guess you need to look for dates older than end February 1995 to find this out.

I found this in the November 1994 issue of EGM (p. 56):

"Dracula X is coming next year to the Sony PlayStation and for the Super SNES as well as Sega's 32X from Konami."

https://archive.org/details/Electronic_Gaming_Monthly_064_November_1994_U/page/n55/mode/2up

So it seems there was already a Dracula X connenction before the earthquake happend. It's possible the game could have been intented as a sequel (which would explain the title Akumajou Dracula XX). There's also an advertisement for a "Akumajou Dracula X II" set for a summer 1995 release date. However, it doesn't mention a platform so it could have been ad for an early version of Symphony of the Night.

EDIT: Actually, you can see a Super Famicom logo in the lower left. So I think that proves Akumajou Dracula XX really was supposed to be a sequel originally.



(Squint and you can see that the yellow text in the lower right says "悪魔城ドラキュラX　II")

[BMC_War Machine]

I found this in the November 1994 issue of EGM (p. 56):

"Dracula X is coming next year to the Sony PlayStation and for the Super SNES as well as Sega's 32X from Konami."

https://archive.org/details/Electronic_Gaming_Monthly_064_November_1994_U/page/n55/mode/2up

Mainly posting for the EGM link above lol.  Man, what a throw back!  I'd hate to know how much money my parents blew on Electronic Gaming Monthly/GamePro and Nintendo Power when i was a kid hahaha.  Good stuff. 

[Shiroi Koumori]

Mainly posting for the EGM link above lol.  Man, what a throw back!  I'd hate to know how much money my parents blew on Electronic Gaming Monthly/GamePro and Nintendo Power when i was a kid hahaha.  Good stuff. 

oh my it reminds me of how much money I blew to buy back issues at second hand prices. Lol

[LuxKiller65]

Do you know the date of that Japanese ad?

Here's another theory with the earthquake that takes into account that Japanese ad and the EGM announcement: Dracula XX was meant as a sequel to the PCE game, and was planned for release on the SFC, 32X and PS. Konami started development, data was lost, so they decided to rush Dracula XX for the SFC by reusing as many Dracula X assets as possible, in order to keep a Summer 1995 release. In parallel they decided to develop "the true" sequel on the PS, while dropping the 32X platform completely (good idea).

The SFC was an aging console by the end of 1994, and the PS was released in Japan in December 1994, so it sort of makes sense to me that they wanted a quick game out on the SFC (which they had promised), and planned a real sequel for the upcoming generation that had CD support. That game came out a little over two years later (January 1995 --> March 1997), and the SFC game took like 6 months to be re-developed (January 1995 --> June/July 1995).

The timings make sense. Regarding the SotN development dates, I'd have to go through some of Igarashi's interviews again, but I seem to remember the game did take a while, over a year, maybe almost two years? That would be something like early or mid 1995 to early 1997 all right.