#Questions for IGA and Shutaro

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tall depot
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Have any questions for IGA and Shutaro for future AmA's and Q/A's? Post them here.

jovial cave
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For both of them, outside of Dracula, which other horror stories were your biggest inspirations?

tall depot
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I have questions for IGA and Shutaro:

  1. What was the 2nd half of Bloodstained Ritual of the Night originally going to look like?
  2. What themes were the cut areas going to be?
  3. Was the cut vampire boss going to be based off any of the Dracula fights from Castlevania?
  4. Were there any other bosses that didn't make it in besides Focalor and the other vampire boss?
  5. What was the biggest challenge designing areas for Ritual of the Night?
  6. Will there be bosses that are just as gross as Legion and the Forgotten One in future Bloodstained games?
  7. Will the origin of the Shardbinders curse be revealed at some point in the series?
  8. Why was the Aegis Plate at the Tower of Twin Dragons? Was it planned to be in another area?
  9. What was the original intended final area for Ritual of the Night?
celest pike
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will i finally make my grand debut in the new game?miridab

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i am curious though if the astaroth enemy made it past concept, or was shelved for future use, cause it was a really cool design and im curious whether it was considered as a boss or a normal enemy

celest pike
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what new tech are yall looking forward to revealing, alongside the new iterations on the gameplay?

stable compass
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  1. With the more traditional game development cycle expected(not Kickstarter) for the sequel, how do you expect development challenge to change?
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  1. How do you see the relationship with WayForward developing for the Bloodstained series?
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  1. Do you expect to have all the tools, knowledge and experience to develop what you want for the sequel right from the start?
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  1. Do you expect the soundtrack for the sequel to use live instruments like Ritual of the Night did? Real life obstacles such as COVID restrictions, costs for live musicians and their instruments plus scheduling, etc make this less beneficial. Would suggest more conventional music process.
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  1. Will the sequel and possibly future mainline games be developed using Unreal Engine 5?
jovial cave
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For both of them, do you have any funny behind the scenes stories to share?

stable compass
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In a Famitsu interview and even previous interviews, there were mentions of asset generation/Generative AI. How much of a help do you think this will have on overall game development?

violet tusk
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Is a full on crossover with Castlevania possible? Would Konami be willing to allow it?
In BS you could change Miriam's hair style, color and skin color. Could a future BS feature a fully customizable avatar-type character, or at the very least keep the ability to change the main character's appearance?

sudden harbor
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oh, I just saw this thread! It's not too late?

sudden harbor
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i try odcam

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First at all, thank you very much for the hard working!

  1. When you produced Symphony of the Night and even Order of Ecclesia, platform exploration game was still very rare. Today it has become a genre with a nickname popular in west called "Metroidvania" and is very popular. Did it influence the development of Bloodstained?
  2. When you plan different areas of the game, do you already know how they will be interconnected, or does it come in a second time?
  3. By planning the Castle's Areas, how do you determine the "degree" of freedom that the player will have. How many opportunities does a certain power "unlock" for example. Should there be few at the beginning, many at the end? Do you prefer a very open game or on the contrary a little "linearized" in its maze?
  4. I approach the Gameplay. At first, was there a will to have a mechanics to "avoid" collecting too many shards because it poison Miriam? It was one of ideas for the game's Endings?
  5. How to balance the difficulty between players who will just use the weapons and find the game too hard and those who will abuse the Shard's system and find the game too easy? What makes you decide? The number of testers? The target audience? Intuition? I remember you consider at the time Symphony of the Night as a desire to make Castlevania more accessible through the addition RPG element (for example)!
  6. In the past, there has been an attempt to apply the formula "Castlevania Exploration" in 3D with two games on PS2. Why not continue this path after becoming independent? Is this recipe too complicated to adapt to the third dimension? Or less popular?
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  1. I maintain the theme of the 3D: in Bloodstained Ritual of the Night, there is an excellent Clock Tower level (my favorites areas in Castlevania) in 2.5D, and also some boss arenas. Was this kind of game with the new dimension planned from the beginning? Or did it appear during development?
  2. Compared to when you started, the development tools are more and more developed and it is easy for anyone to start a game... But on the other hand, the expectations of the players are also greater than ever! Do you think it’s harder to create a game today compared to before?
  3. You said in an interview that the video game is a "service work" unlike a "manufacturing work". The desire of the players is more important than the desire of the creator and it fills more and more with the kickstater or "early access". For Bloodstained however, were there any choices that were chosen "for the players" that you would have preferred to do otherwise?
unkempt narwhal
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I forgot this was here so I'll ask this

Will ROTN2 have a deeper Rpgs system or similar structure as Rotn?

pastel dragon
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I think one of my biggest disappointments with bloodstained were the locations. It felt like there were a lot of samey locations.

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So I'm kinda curious if originally they had more diverse plans.

pastel dragon
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SOTN is playful, and fun but it's also dark and creepy at times too with it's designs.

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and considering much of the Igavania fan base is actually older, it feels fitting to age it up a bit.

tall depot
pastel dragon
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Damn. Maybe they were behind schedule. That might explain some of the issues I had.

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They could have probably ditched some of the labs or underground areas and just did a totally different place.

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But probably making more unique assets was what was time consuming.

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I still think the area I drew up back in the forum days was a cool location idea and look.

stable compass
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Yeah that's probably why it felt out of nowhere.

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Well sorta. It and the Glacial Tomb just seem eh.

violet tusk
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I like Glacial Tomb conceptually, at least; the final area of the game and deepest part of the castle being Cocytus, the frozen lowest layer of hell from The Divine Comedy, is a nice touch

pastel dragon
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Yeah but I think in terms of how they visualized it wasnt special enough for a final area.

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Like conceptually you are right...it could totally work.

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But they need to go WILD with it then.

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Particularly when the game already has a variety of underground locations.

stable compass
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Agreed. When it comes to very end they gotta go all out on it. Sure, hell freezing over is a neat little pun but sorta feels that area could have gone anywhere.

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Hell if anything, it actually could have worked in the lava caves. Could have been an inverse side sort of thing.

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Maybe like the whole area could have this puzzle/navigation thing to solve. Two bosses you fight give you shards that help with that navigation but are also just very good shards on their own to give them use outside of that area.

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Okay sorry I'll stop this place is for questions.

unreal cosmos
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At what point did IntiCreates, DICO, and WayForward enter and exit the development, and how much development did ArtPlay do? Where there any other programming companies involved we haven't heard about? What are the plans for teams developing the next game?

unreal cosmos
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In RotN what is the whip weapon that Dominique uses? Is that the same in Dominiques Curse?

celest pike
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whats up with the piano room in DoS, was it just an easter egg, a test room for interactions or was it for like a puzzle at some point?

unkempt narwhal
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What is the theme of Bloodstained going forward?

unreal cosmos
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Whats up with the silly glasses for O.D.? Is that a reference I'm not getting?

stable compass
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I heard that a while ago so maybe I'm misremembering.

unreal cosmos
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Johannes warned Miriam about absorbing too many shards, and Miriam correctly assumed Johannes would figure out a way to help her with that problem. Early concept art for Miriam had shown a version of her too corrupted. Was the scope of the story scaled back during production? If so, can we get an idea for what you were trying to do with these characters?

unreal cosmos
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Was the true potential for Bloodstained cut short by publisher deadlines and not having in-house development?

unreal cosmos