Talent behind Bloodstained
Jan 19, 2021 20:16:48 GMT -6
gunlord500, Mr. German, and 2 more like this
Post by purifyweirdshard on Jan 19, 2021 20:16:48 GMT -6
Mini article from myself - re: the people that are really making this stuff vs the incorrect word of mouth
For many years now, there’s been a widely accepted notion that Koji Igarashi (IGA) “makes” these Bloodstained games - and all of his previous games, in kind of a nebulous, ill-defined fashion where some other people maybe? maybe not? are filling in the gaps. The truth is, of course, that he is a producer - a very involved producer, mind you, but that’s generally the capacity he operates in rather than the granular ins and outs of actually making or directing a game. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night’s director is actually a guy named Shutaro Iida, also known as Curry The Kid. You can see his portrait in-game behind RotN’s cave waterfall, and in the secret staircase room in Classic Mode - accompanied by Miriam’s favorite food, curry. Not a coincidence. He is not comfortable with the spotlight like IGA has grown to accept it, but even so deserves a lot more recognition than he gets. This isn’t his first time directing one of IGA’s games, and before being on director duty was commonly the lead programmer.
Maybe that’s the biggest example, but it’s far from the only one. This whole thing permeates itself into word of mouth over and over - “a game made by IGA, with music by Michiru Yamane and art by Ayami Kojima”. So, we covered the first example, but that second one is only itself about half true, and the last one in this case is not accurate at all. Who are the people doing these things, then? You should know, because it can/will become important later when these games need to have sequels made and it’s no longer applicable or true at all to attach these names to what is done, and to give proper credit for what’s going on. You could feel like the rug is being pulled out from under you/your understanding of things when those big names are barely involved or have moved on/retired.
Next then, is the music. Even popular music Youtubers covering Bloodstained songs mistakenly label tracks as “composed by” Yamane when she in fact did not write all of this game’s songs, in truth a little less than half of them. Ms. Yamane did supervise the music team to some capacity, and I’m sure IGA himself did as well, but if you own the music files yourself and can look at their details, you’ll see the actual composer credits. This can also be found on a site like VGMDB.
vgmdb.net/album/88456
These other guys - Keisuke Ito, Ryusuke Fujioka, Atsushiro Ishizuna - are members of a team called Noisycroak. The work from that team as a group perhaps most notably includes Smash Brothers Ultimate, including the main theme of that game. You may find that some of your favorite tracks were by these guys. Ippo Yamada is the only exception, being tied to Inti Creates. And on that note, the Curse of the Moon games, in CotM1’s case, does have songs originally composed by Yamane, but only a few - and the arrangements of all of them would be the Inti Creates music team and not her. CotM2 has no Yamane material at all.
Perhaps most complicated is the Bloodstained art team, so bear with me on this one. The history of this is that, originally, the Kickstarter art/concept art for the game was all Inti Creates work, drawn by Yuji Natsume. His assets formed the base of the game, but as you may know, that company was replaced in development and Inti was moved to the Curse of the Moon side of things. Ayami Kojima, the famous Castlevania artist, was only contracted to draw one thing: special packaging for an art sleeve that went out to Kickstarter backers above a certain dollar amount. This is because she was too busy to contribute more, and my personal speculation is that may be because she was working on art for the now-canceled Grimoire of Souls.
Post-Inti Creates, the Ritual of the Night side of things didn’t per se have an official artist, but there has just recently been a nice development on this front as shown in the credits of Classic Mode - Mana Ikeda is now the art director for the main game. This would also be the person who drew the box art for RotN. In-game, while she was still yet the communications manager, she had input into designing some assets like the outside of the Galleon Minerva. I can’t yet tell you if she will be designing concepts and characters for future Bloodstained games, but that’s definitely a future I’d be good with. The Curse of the Moon titles are still having their art made by Yuji Natsume.
So, that about covers it. I hope this was helpful - and let’s help celebrate the strong work that all of these other, less-often mentioned folks did to make Bloodstained the game that it is. Yeah, those big names are powerful for marketing, but it’s time by now that these new real folks step up and be seen.
For many years now, there’s been a widely accepted notion that Koji Igarashi (IGA) “makes” these Bloodstained games - and all of his previous games, in kind of a nebulous, ill-defined fashion where some other people maybe? maybe not? are filling in the gaps. The truth is, of course, that he is a producer - a very involved producer, mind you, but that’s generally the capacity he operates in rather than the granular ins and outs of actually making or directing a game. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night’s director is actually a guy named Shutaro Iida, also known as Curry The Kid. You can see his portrait in-game behind RotN’s cave waterfall, and in the secret staircase room in Classic Mode - accompanied by Miriam’s favorite food, curry. Not a coincidence. He is not comfortable with the spotlight like IGA has grown to accept it, but even so deserves a lot more recognition than he gets. This isn’t his first time directing one of IGA’s games, and before being on director duty was commonly the lead programmer.
Maybe that’s the biggest example, but it’s far from the only one. This whole thing permeates itself into word of mouth over and over - “a game made by IGA, with music by Michiru Yamane and art by Ayami Kojima”. So, we covered the first example, but that second one is only itself about half true, and the last one in this case is not accurate at all. Who are the people doing these things, then? You should know, because it can/will become important later when these games need to have sequels made and it’s no longer applicable or true at all to attach these names to what is done, and to give proper credit for what’s going on. You could feel like the rug is being pulled out from under you/your understanding of things when those big names are barely involved or have moved on/retired.
Next then, is the music. Even popular music Youtubers covering Bloodstained songs mistakenly label tracks as “composed by” Yamane when she in fact did not write all of this game’s songs, in truth a little less than half of them. Ms. Yamane did supervise the music team to some capacity, and I’m sure IGA himself did as well, but if you own the music files yourself and can look at their details, you’ll see the actual composer credits. This can also be found on a site like VGMDB.
vgmdb.net/album/88456
These other guys - Keisuke Ito, Ryusuke Fujioka, Atsushiro Ishizuna - are members of a team called Noisycroak. The work from that team as a group perhaps most notably includes Smash Brothers Ultimate, including the main theme of that game. You may find that some of your favorite tracks were by these guys. Ippo Yamada is the only exception, being tied to Inti Creates. And on that note, the Curse of the Moon games, in CotM1’s case, does have songs originally composed by Yamane, but only a few - and the arrangements of all of them would be the Inti Creates music team and not her. CotM2 has no Yamane material at all.
Perhaps most complicated is the Bloodstained art team, so bear with me on this one. The history of this is that, originally, the Kickstarter art/concept art for the game was all Inti Creates work, drawn by Yuji Natsume. His assets formed the base of the game, but as you may know, that company was replaced in development and Inti was moved to the Curse of the Moon side of things. Ayami Kojima, the famous Castlevania artist, was only contracted to draw one thing: special packaging for an art sleeve that went out to Kickstarter backers above a certain dollar amount. This is because she was too busy to contribute more, and my personal speculation is that may be because she was working on art for the now-canceled Grimoire of Souls.
Post-Inti Creates, the Ritual of the Night side of things didn’t per se have an official artist, but there has just recently been a nice development on this front as shown in the credits of Classic Mode - Mana Ikeda is now the art director for the main game. This would also be the person who drew the box art for RotN. In-game, while she was still yet the communications manager, she had input into designing some assets like the outside of the Galleon Minerva. I can’t yet tell you if she will be designing concepts and characters for future Bloodstained games, but that’s definitely a future I’d be good with. The Curse of the Moon titles are still having their art made by Yuji Natsume.
So, that about covers it. I hope this was helpful - and let’s help celebrate the strong work that all of these other, less-often mentioned folks did to make Bloodstained the game that it is. Yeah, those big names are powerful for marketing, but it’s time by now that these new real folks step up and be seen.
yey