PAX West 2017

This is probably why they also said "beyond" which fits actually. Very cool frame and creative work. I like it!

www.geekscape.net/pax-west-2017-koji-igarashi-talks-bloodstained



Day 1 of PAX West 2017 is over and done with and we’ve got a lot to share with you!

We got the opportunity to sit with with Castlevania developer Koji Igarashi to talk about his upcoming Kickstarter sensation Bloodstained: Ritual of The Night.

First off welcome! Thank you for sitting down with us to talk about Bloodstained. How are you enjoying your trip to Seattle?

It’s very cold here! Tokyo is a lot warmer this time of year so I’m not used to it.

What was the biggest push for you to go to crowdfunding for Bloodstained?

In Japan, the video game industry is starting to move towards mobile games. Social gaming, instead of actually working on console games. The Japanese video game industry is slowly shifting. I wanted to create a new game in this genre, that I knew fans wanted to play. I knew developers wouldn’t want to make this kind of game because of how the market is shifting. The initial goal was to make a game for consoles, for gamers that is in the style of games that I have been making.

That’s very enlightening to hear the market is making such a shift right now. There was a lot of rumors and speculation that your decision to go to crowdfunding was due to working with certain developers.

Looking at the market in Japan where video games aren’t selling as much as the mobile social games, when you compare how much is being sold on the mobile side. It’s easy to understand why so many video game companies are making the change, the amount of resources that goes into a console game VS mobile games its obvious that the market is going in that direction. That’s just not something I want to work on.

The graphics for Bloodstained have improved drastically over the last few months. What is your process working with the game engine to bring your vision for the world you’re creating, to your fans. How do you think the die hard Castlevania fans are going to react?

In regards to the visual aesthetics of Bloodstained, we decided to go with Unreal Engine 4. When we started the project we didn’t know that much about the engine itself. It was very new to us, and there was a lot of trial and error. We really wanted to try out the new features that Unreal 4 could do. Which was the procedural generation. We wouldn’t have to constantly reuse assets or materials. That makes it easier, for say something like a cracked wall. You can make so many different variations of one thing. We didn’t want to reuse the same texture or reusing the same kind of effect on it. There was a lot of trial and error, but we’ve been improving a lot. We’re finding we can do much more with the engine, how to manipulate things like the lighting and make the game more appealing.

Another thing is that, how we want players to feel when they play it. The visual aesthetic might be lower than what you expect from a AAA title, but that wasn’t our main focus. Gameplay, and how it makes gamer’s feel is what we wanted to focus on.

Are you taking any specific steps in preserving the legacy you’ve built with Castlevania? Is there anything you really want to pay homage to?

We’re really focusing on the controls for the game. It needs to feel like other games I’ve worked on. How it feels, how responsive they are, is what we’re preserving. Being able to control the character on screen, exactly how you want to is very important. It doesn’t matter how good the level design is, or how the game looks. If the controls aren’t how we want them to be, then the game won’t be as acclaimed.

What was the inspiration for the main character, Miriam?

There were so many thoughts going on when I was creating Miriam. Previously, I created half vampire half human. A vampire that KNOWS what it’s like to be human. We found that it’s easier for players to relate to a human character, so we wanted to go back to that. She’s cursed, so she has this weight on her that is obvious to players.

Miriam’s ability to absorb runes is very similar to what players were able to do in Castlevania: Order of Eclesia. Are there any other mechanics or abilities that you’re drawing inspiration from?

There’s a lot of features we’re drawing inspiration from. This time the theme of the game is alchemy, so we want players to be able to transmute items, weapons or abilities. Anything that was incorporated in past titles, that players really enjoyed and liked we wanted to bring back. This is also a Kickstarter project, so our backers are able to give us feedback and their opinions. We are able to listen to what they feel is enjoyable to play. We want to make sure the players are very comfortable playing the game.

What can you tell us about the soundtrack? How are things coming along?

Our game director is VERY picky about the music, so we’ve been giving a lot of feedback to the studio we are working with, Noisy Croak. They’re creating a lot of the soundtrack. We’re working with Michiru Yamane again, who we’ve worked with a lot in past titles. She isn’t creating all the soundtracks, but her music and her creation is the main theme. She is working with Noisy Croak, and they are pulling inspiration from her style and are creating songs that sound like something she would make.

It was a great honor getting to sit down with Igarashi and talk about Bloodstained. I am extremely excited to see what him and his team have crafted. You can check out Bloodstained: Ritual of The Night when it releases 2018.

Hmmm Noisy Croak... That name really doesn't sound all that appealing lol. Anyway, I'd be interested to hear some examples of compositions they're doing for Bloodstained. Maybe they're really good, who knows? I hope that with many people working on the soundtrack, there can still be some kind of unified style and vision throughout all the compositions. We'll see... I agree that an official update on this would be appropriate. I'm also wondering why this decision was made...

I'm with Castle Dan. My faith in this game's OST is considerably lessened. I was under the impression that Michiru Yamane was going to have a hand in every track. It would've been nice if this had been clarified sooner.

I still think Bloodstained has a good shot at being a very enjoyable game, but I no longer think it's going to rival the better IGAvanias like Aria of Sorrow and Symphony of the Night. Maybe it will for some people regardless, and to that I say "Great!", but it's going to take something big to convince me at this point. I suppose I should've managed my expectations better from the beginning.

Thank you.

I have listened to some of the tracks of one franchise they contributed to: Toukiden 2. I must say, that I like what I'm hearing. It doesn't sound generic and has strong and memorable melodies. They seem to be using real instruments too which is a plus in my book. I think it'll be more than fine

It's not that I thought she'd do EVERY track but the way this answer was written it makes it feel like her role is considerably less than she used to contribute in the Castlevania series. If that is so, it would be a bummer because her being in control of the music was a selling point for some people including me.
I definitely don't think this means the OST would be bad if someone else did it or that Yamane is essential to have a good OST. No one should go into this game thinking that. Once we get a better idea about the Noisy Croak stuff it'll probably help us understand better.

I didn't think she'd do every track either, I thought she'd have a hand in most every track. The difference is that I expected her to at least have some say in what each track sounds like rather than composing and recording each track herself.

So in this interview it looks like Mana took out her snake bite piercings.

I'm glad that Mana is obviously so much more comfortable doing interviews. I think she has had enough time with translating for IGA at this point that it's much easier for her. So nice to see them doing interviews again.

Arrrrgh. Thanks for the response, Angel, and I'll also to clear up some misconceptions. Before I begin, I'll just say 100% that I'm not angry at anyone here, and I totally understand ZeroSbr and CastleDan 's concerns. Same goes with everyone else at this forum. I know all you guys are cool, and that you not only support this project but you're also in the know, so you'll understand what I'm saying in this post. But there are gonna be a ton of people at other places who don't know as much as we do that are gonna be making a ton of hay over something that's actually no big deal (as I'll demonstrate in the main body of this post). It's gonna be quite a pain in the butt to correct all those misconceptions...Angel certainly has his work cut out for him, and me and XombieMike do too, given that we keep eyes on the project at other places like the CV Dungeon and Destructoid and places like that. Now, this is my interpretation, so I'm not putting an ironclad seal of approval on it until Angel-Corlux and Mike have signed off on it, but given everything I've seen in other games, I'm 95% my analysis is more or less accurate. So if Angel/Mike/Mana approves, I give you guys permission to copy and paste this anywhere you may go if you see folks nitpicking about Noisy Croak. Might make our job easier, haha XD

On to the main body of my points. First, everybody, take a look at the Symphony of the Night credits:

castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Symphony_of_the_Night_Credits

Specifically, under the "-sound staff-" heading:



Look at all the names there! Note that we have "O. Kasai" as a programmer and "Imohore Imai" as a mixer, along with several electric guitarists. You see the point I'm getting at? Even though Symphony of the Night is what Ms. Yamane is most known for, hands down, it's not like she did the whole thing herself. In fact, you could argue she had a whole studio with her. She composed the music, but that doesn't mean she programmed it in, or that she played the guitar we heard in tracks like Tragic Prince herself. She put the notes onto the bars and decided the instrumention, but other people played the instruments, provided the recording equipment, and translated the recordings into data onto the game.

That, bluntly stated, is what Noisy Croak is gonna be doing. When IGA said "soundtrack creation" he literally meant the process of creating sound--somebody needs to actually make noise, and Ms. Yamane can't be a guitarist, violinist, organist, etc. all at the same time! And looking at the Noisy Croak website itself, I'm growing more and more certain that's the nature of the job--they're not replacing or upstaging Ms. Yamane, they're playing the songs she composes and programming them into the game under her direction. Check this out:

www.noisycroak.co.jp/service/

And put it into Google Translate. It gave me stuff like



Even with a machine translation, it's easy to tell what this means: Noisy Croak ensures that songs loop properly, they aren't too loud or quiet, they don't mess up other sound effects, etc. etc. etc. It's essentially the same job O. Kasai did on SoTN as a music programmer, though of course they and IGA would be able to give all of you much more specific information than I am, haha.

Now, IGA also mentioned that Yamane wouldn't be creating "all the soundtracks," but that's almost certainly a reference to A: the extra tracks we're getting from other composers like Virt and Yamada, and B: Probably a handful of other songs composed by staff members of Noisy Croak under Yamane's direct supervision. Possibly minor character themes, or very small music tracks that are more like sound effects than anything else but nonetheless need to be catchy--think the "Item gained" jingle from the Metroid games or small level-up themes from many RPGs. If they have an aspiring composer or two on their team, Ms. Yamane might let those folks make a more important stage or boss theme, but again, under her supervision (what IGA mentioned about making sure their songs "sound like what she would make) and as a mentoring kinda thing for younger composers. For the vast majority of the music, aside from the aforementioned bonus composers ofc, she'll have as much to do with it as she did in SoTN, which is what everyone wanted and expected from the kickstarter.

TL;DR: Listen to Angel, this is nothing to panic over, and if you see anyone panicking about the soundtrack link 'em to this post.