Whip It! Whip It Good!

[Orinially posted on 1Up.com]

Eurogamer reported the following yesterday:

"Castlevania producer Iga has said, somewhat predictably, that the series will continue on next generation consoles" although, interestingly, he said it in the pages of a Japanese Nintendo magazine.

According to IGN, Iga-san told Nintendo Dream magazine - and we apologise for the lack of direct quotes here "that next generation Castlevania development is currently being planned, and that it will focus on the world prior to Dracula's fall. Portable titles, of which there will also be more, focus on events after that.

The comments come as part of a special feature looking at Mario's 20th anniversary, and Iga-san also says he hopes to do something to celebrate Castlevania's 20th next year.

In the meantime, there's the prospect of Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, which is due out at the end of next month on Nintendo DS following its recent release in Japan - and we'd imagine that's the reason his comments appeared in a Nintendo publication and not one concerning PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360.

Any speculation regarding target formats would of course be very premature, but we certainly wouldn't rule out Castlevania on Revolution. Indeed, one of the first things we thought about when we saw the controller was whipping things - although some would argue that says more about us than the possibilities for games like Castlevania."

Interesting stuff! I can really see how the revolution controller could be great for this, maybe a first-person Castlevania? That would (or perhaps I should say could) be great!

Update (2008-05-22): Well fittingly, just as I'm in the process of reproducing this old blog-post to my new blog this news-item pops up on the MTV Multi-Player Blog. Since the Eurogamer post referenced above there have been two DS titles released, with a third on the horizon as well as the re-release of Symphony of the Night and The Dracula X Chronicles for XBLA and PSP respectively, but still no announcement of a new Castlevania for the current generation of consoles. I believe that Igarashis' view that using the Wiimote as a whip would be tiring is no doubt true, however maybe he is finally making some progress on bringing Castlevania to the Wii as he states "I see it as a viable platform, the more and more I think about it."

Well, personally I haven't really enjoyed a Castlevania game very much since Simon's Quest on the NES. In my mind the original concept had pretty much been done with the first game, and I was happy to see that they where taking the franchise somewhere else in C2. However - I seem to be part of a very small minority as they promptly returned to the first games formula for pretty much every iteration since, spewing far too many games at gamers - most of whom however gobbled up the regurgitated slop... sorry. I'll shut up now. -_-;