OMG Nintendo.com

Konami's E3 Press Conference: Darkness and Light

Jul. 19 9:32 AM by KouAidou

As with Ubisoft, Konami's press conference was not exactly the sort of thing that would have Nintendo fans chomping at the bit. Aside from brief callouts for Elebits on DS and a new Lost in Blue for the Wii, the only offerings they gave us were the two new Castlevanias: Order of Ecclesia for the DS, and Judgment for the Wii. But hey, new Castlevania is always a crowd-pleaser, right? Well, uh... let's talk behind the cut.

First off, the good: Koji Igarashi made his first appearance at an E3 in quite a while to pimp his new games, looking very dapper indeed in his cowboy hat. The first game up for show was Order of Ecclesia, which had a new trailer at the press conference and a hands-on demo up in Konami's booth. Speaking in terms of presentation, this thing is looking like anything anyone could possibly want from a game; the backgrounds are gorgeous, almost all of the sprites have been redrawn, and there's a ton of stuff moving on the screen at once. In my own terms, it's the kind of thing that proves that the pixel is not a dead art form. The voice acting is a bit lackluster, but would it be a Castlevania game if it wasn't?

The coolness from the trailer carried over to a hands-on demo, where we learned a little more about the game's plot and engine. The heroine, Shanoa, is a member of the titular Order, a vampire-hunting organization acting in place of the lost Belmonts, some time after the events of Symphony. She's lost her memory, but not her power, at the hands of a mysterious figure called Albus, so her quest will revolve around (what else?) getting it restored.

Shanoa's power involves storing magical power known as "Glyphs" in her full-body tattoos, and using them gives her access to an array of different weapons and skills. Two weapon-type Glyphs can be dual-wielded using the X and Y buttons; the ones we got during our playthrough were all sword-types, but I think we can safely expect to see ranged and magical weapons as well. In addition, a single support Glyph can be stored under the R button; for us, this was the ability to generate a magnetic field, allows Shanoa to slingshot between predesignated points using some highly intuitive touchscreen controls.

All in all, the graphics were gorgeous, the controls easy to manage, and it's clear that the designers have put their all their creativity into coming up with new ways to explore the environments. Barring some monstrous disaster prior to its release, there's no question that this will be a highly coveted title when we see it in the Fall.

As for Castlevania: Judgment? Um... less so.

Before we start, let's get the baggage out of the way: Like many of you, I am violently angry about the Judgment redesigns. Unlike many, I do not object to the very concept of the Castlevania designs being drawn in anime style. It's just that the guy behind the redesigns, Takeshi Obata, is actually one of my artistic idols. I know him as an artist who can draw a wide variety of character types and change his style to suit the tone of his subject. So, seeing him simultaneously phone it in with recycled designs from his earlier work, while simultaneously betraying the integrity of the IP he's designing for, is something I find repugnant beyond description. It's not just that the designs are bad or generic, it's that this guy should be able to do so much better.

At any rate, none of this stopped Igarashi from speaking of the new designs as if they were a feature: he praised the work that Obata had done, and promised a total of 14 playable characters for the game's eventual release. This means that in addition to Simon, Alucard, Maria, and Dracula, we can look forward to 10 more new designs before the end is up. Given that Igarashi seems to have, as Lynxara puts it, "a total boner for Castlevania III," we'll probably see a couple of its main characters putting in an appearance, at least, and Soma seems like a likely mark, too. So, you heard it here, internets: the redesigns aren't all done yet, so if you don't like the aesthetic at work there, keep complaining as loudly and often as possible. Together, we can save Trevor Belmont.

Back at the press conference, Igarashi attempted to cope with a different breed of internet outrage by explaining his reasoning for making the first Wii Castlevania a fighting game rather than the platformer everyone was expecting. Apparently, when the Wii was released, many fans expressed their hope that a Wii Castlevania title would include whip controls that utilized the Wii Remote's motion sensor. In considering this, the team realized that such a feature would most likely become torturous over hours of playtime. Hence, rather than a massive castle to explore, they decided it would be better to focus the game on one-on-one duels.

The story's basic conceit is that a mysterious being has gathered characters from all over the Castlevania timeline to do battle with each other for some nefarious purpose. It's a flimsy premise (and to his credit, Igarashi admits as much), but one that was meant primarily to gather everyone's favorite characters together. Frankly, this strikes me as laziness; with a continuity as insane and convoluted as Castlevania's, surely you can come up with something more interesting. Not to mention that it highlights the pointlessness of doing a total style overhaul for a game that's mostly intended to be fanservice.

Igarashi also clarified that he didn't consider Castlevania: Judgment a fighting game at all, but rather a "360 degree 3D Versus Action Game." Following this, he played a demo for the waiting crowd, which included... Simon beating up on a completely stationary Dracula as Igarashi explained the basic controls. It's pretty simple stuff: nunchuck analog stick for movement, Z Button to guard, C Button to Jump, shake the nunchuck to dodge, shake the remote to attack. Hold B and attack to do a stronger attack, use objects from the environment against your enemy, and... look, you know the basic drill. It's a 3D fighting game. Sorry, Iga-san, that's just what it is.

Although the only stage available in the demo was a flat "arena" stage, Igarashi promised stages with more interesting gimmicks, and even NPCs who could interfere with the fight. I'll admit that when we got some hands-on time with the game, it was actually pretty fun to play; there were a few issues, such as the automatic camera designed to keep both combatants in view at all time, which makes the environmental interaction aspects kind of tricky. But there was a definite impression of visceral, high-speed combat, and the shake-to-attack control worked surprisingly well (though I can't claim that it felt especially like actual whip-swinging).

In the end, the main problem is that it even in playing it, it just didn't look or feel especially like Castlevania. You can choose sub-weapons, and destroy candlesticks to get hearts, which I guess fulfills some sort of quota of Castlevania-ness. But it misses what is the heart of any good crossover game: that when you finally get to play out the deathmatch between the two characters you've fanned over for years, they need to actually look and feel like those characters. If they don't, all you've done is create a generic fighting game with motion controls. That's bad on its own, but when your game is coming out in the wake of Smash Bros. Brawl, it's just unforgivable.

• << prev
• next >>