Castlevania gamers rejoiced when a new installment in the popular series was announced at this year’s E3. Fans then became less enthused when they learned that instead of a traditional action-adventure title like those the series is known for, the new Castlevania is going be a fighter for the Nintendo Wii.

In a recent interview with current Castlevania series producer Koji Igarashi, Wired questioned the man on this bizarre transition, and his answers were a little worrying.
His first response to the change in format is that playing a traditional Castlevania game for hours on end could get a little tiring on the Wii, where you would use the Wii remote as a whip. This was his reason for wanting to create a game with a certain time limit.

However, certain parties don’t believe that that’s the full story. Jeremy Parish from 1up had this to say after experiencing the game at E3:

“The saddest thing is watching Koji Igarashi on the E3 show floor, hovering around the Castlevania Judgment kiosk for half an hour, knowing that everyone hates it, knowing that he knows they hate it, then realizing that it’s not the game he really wanted to make anyway because his publisher won’t give him two dimes to rub together to develop the really awesome games he does want to create.”

Later in the interview with Wired, Igarashi opened up more about the development.

“Wii is selling, but the ‘gamer’s games’ aren’t selling. That’s what I’m concerned about. I think there are two roads you can take: Create a game for the core fans with as low a development cost as possible, the other is to just find a different market for these consoles outside the core gamer. I have to adapt to the times, but I can’t alienate the core fans.”

We all know that Nintendo is going after casual gamers in a huge way. The benefit is that more people are being drawn to video games. The downside is the worry that Nintendo – and video game developers in general – are paying less and less attention to hardcore gamers, which is a sentiment that has been echoed by many fans.

Igarashi’s comments definitely support the latter theory and it’s disheartening to think that even big name developers like Konami – who just recently gave us the phenomenal Metal Gear Solid 4 – may be putting less effort into traditional games. If they’re willing to water down a fan favorite franchise like Castlevania, what hope do we have?

Source: Game|Life

Tags: castlevania, E3 08, Konami, nintendo-wii

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