More info about Lords of Shadow in Dave Cox interview

I’ve made it clear that I didn’t buy that Lords of Shadow was a Castlevania game from the start. Sure, the game obviously had a lot of Castlevania in it from early on, but I really didn’t understand the argument that Konami was afraid of the game’s reception because it was so different from earlier games. Really? While they were showing Judgment to the public, they were afraid a Castlevania game would be too different for them?! Beyond that, look what happened to it before it had the Castlevania name: everyone ignored it. On the other hand, here’s the implication from a very likable Dave Cox that nobody would care about Judgment if this were there. That’s fair, and an important retelling of the same information that really changes things. I’m buying the argument now.

Dave Cox has rebooted this explanation for Gamereactor in an interview. If all works as it’s supposed to, you’re already watching it above. If not, click through to Gamereactor and watch it there. While the text is in German, the interview contains English. Check below for a full transcription by yours truly, or just read these highlights.

• The design of this game is a result of Konami’s view that the Castlevania series was underperforming relative to the 8-bit and 16-bit days. The hope is to broaden the brand’s appeal for today’s audience.
• There are power-ups for the whip.
• They’re trying to implement the best aspects of God of War, Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden, and Bayonetta while excluding the parts that don’t work well.
• The game is designed with action, adventure, some platforming and puzzle solving in mind, like the original 8-bit and 16-bit games, not an RPG like the 32-bit games on.
• Cox claims The Legend of Zelda was a big influence in terms of story structure, and Final Fantasy VII is mentioned as an influence for the concept of story having an emotional impact.
• The game may appeal more to those who liked the original games’ style than those who liked Symphony of the Night, because it’s much closer to the originals.

Source: Gamereactor (German language) via VG247. Picked up by Joystiq.

Martin Eiser: Why did Konami choose to announce Lords of Shadow last year without the Castlevania title?

Dave Cox: Basically, when we were ready to show the game last year, it was quite a radical departure from what’sdone before with Castlevania, and there was a little bit of nervousness that perhaps it wouldn’t be accepted as a Castlevania game. Not only that, but we, as you can remember, we were showing Castlevania Judgment at the time, and it was felt we didn’t want to take the focus away from that particular game, as it is quite a big departure from what people knew about Castlevania. Senior management went with the decision to just announce it as Lords of Shadow and see what the reaction is. If it’s a good one, then this will become a sort of fresh Castlevania. We originally pitched it as a Castlevania title, the name was originally green-lit as a Castlevania title, the design of the whole thing, right from the very get-go was a Castlevania game. But then, when it came to Gamescom, it was like, “what are we gonna do with this game? You know, how are we going to show this game? It’s gonna shock a lot of people, it’s gonna surprise a lot of people, it’s gonna take away the focus from Judgment,” so we felt it was easier to just… well they felt it was easier to just call it Lords of Shadow. My feeling was, “people are going to look at this and go, damn, this is Castlevania! I mean, the guy’s wearing Simon Belmont armor, I mean he’s got a chain whip,” You know, what we wanted to do was make the game more accessible to the wider market. Castlevania, unfortunately, kind of boxed itself into a small niche of a hardcore group of fans. It wasn’t really performing, in terms of sales, in terms of popularity. You guys weren’t around when the original Castlevania came out, but it was one of the biggest games on the Nintendo Entertainment System, one of the biggest games on the Super NES, one of the biggest games on PC Engine, and you know, recently Castlevania hasn’t enjoyed that kind of high profile. We felt, you know, in Konami… well not me personally, but the senior management just felt that, in order for us to make Castlevania big again, we have to change it quite radically. We have to change it so it can be accepted by today’s gamers, perhaps people who’d never seen or played a Castlevania game before. That’s the kind of people we want to attract to this title, is those kind of guys who’ve looked at Castlevania, gone, “you know, that’s not really for me. That’s not the kind of game I like. You know, I like God of War, I like Devil May Cry, but you know, Castlevania…” So you know, we’ve kind of that’s why we’ve changed it radically. That’s why we’ve gone in this direction, is to appeal to other fans. But at the same time, we don’t want to lose the fans that are into it. You know, we don’t want to piss them off. We want them to still be into it. So we keep a lot of the systems, the series staples, we’re very influenced by the original games, the original Castlevania, the original Super Castlevania IV, you’ll see a lot of things in the trailer and when the game itself comes out that are very reminiscent of those original classic Castlevania games. So, not so much the Symphony of the Nights and the Circle of the Moons, we’ve gone right back to the roots of the series, you know, what was Castlevania when it originally came out? It was an action adventure game. Pretty much pure action, a little bit of platforming, a little bit of puzzle solving, and that’s a bit what Lords of Shadow’s going to be.

Eiser: You said you want to create the familiar feeling of Castlevania, and how do you create this with this new look?

Cox: Well, I think when you’re looking to create a game, you look at the original 2D game, and you think, how can I create that in 3D? There’s a whole set of problems, in terms of combat. Instead of a zombie coming towards you, zombies come from all angles. So, you’ve got to think about it in 3D. What’s the game going to be like in 3D? So, we thought, what’s the cool things in Castlevania? What’s the really cool things? You’ve got to have a chain whip, right? You’ve got to. It’s a core feature of Castlevania. So we’ve got the chain whip. You’ve got to be able to power up the chain whip. So, you can power up the chain whip.  But you’ve got to be able to have a combat system that’s competitive with the games that are out there right now. So we looked to those games. We said, what’s good about God of War? What’s good about Devil May Cry? What’s great about the new Bayonetta? What’s great about Ninja Gaiden? What’s bad about those games? What don’t we like about those games? Let’s not include that. That’s obviously where we were influenced. When I first saw God of War, I thought, you know, God of War is kind of what Castlevania should have been for me, as a fan. Obviously, that game was an influence. When you see Castlevania: Lords of Shadow when it’s out on the shelves, I think you’ll see that they’re very different games. Yeah sure, the combat might be similar. But the actual structure of the game, and the way the game unfolds, is far different to God of War. I think the combat’s been weak in the past Castlevania games, even the 2D games, the combat was fairly weak, it wasn’t in depth, in terms of what you could do in terms of combat. So, we’ve really beefed up the combat engine. We wanted players to have a challenge, to fight enemies that have intelligence, that aren’t stupid, that pose a challenge where players could… would have to think about what to do, would have to defend.  Would have to dodge. Would have to perform combination attacks in order to perform more damage. Would have to use… I have to be careful about telling you some things… would be able to use certain things to power up their abilities. In order to be able to perform more spectacular things.

Eiser: You told me some titles before, but were there other titles you were inspired by when developing this game?

Cox: Yeah, I mean, lots and lots of games, really, are an inspiration. I mean, as a person who’s been in the games business for 20 years, and who’s played games all his life, pretty much any game I’ve played is an influence. I’m particularly a big Street Fighter fan. And believe it or mot, I think you can use elements of Street Fighter in a combat game. I love Zelda, I love Legend of Zelda games. I like the feeling of, I love the way stories unfold in those games. One thing about Lords of Shadow that I haven’t told anyone else is we wanted to give players an emotional storyline, you know, that would really impact them. And that’s something that, again, which Castlevania games haven’t had in the past. A story that I think that’ll move people on an emotional level. You know, when… you guys have played Final Fantasy, right? When Aerith died in Final Fantasy VII, that was like, oh my God no, I could be crying. I want to get that kind of feeling in this game. So, the story that we tell is also a very cool aspect of the game. That perhaps we haven’t had this kind of deep-rooted emotional tie to the characters. That’s why we’ve got actors like Robert Carlyle, Patrick Stewart, because we wanted to tell the story in a really professional, high quality way, like a movie. I think people will be surprised when they see the final game.

Eiser: Maybe that’s a reason why in the past Castlevania fans haven’t been very satisfied with the 3D games. You said before that the games in the past weren’t very good because they didn’t fetch the feeling you want to convey. Do you think that the new game gets it right, that the classic fans will say, that’s a true 3D Castlevania?

Cox: Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Yeah. That’s my hope. I believe we have. I believe we have recreated the classic Castlevanias. And, I’m talking about Castlevania on the NES, certainly Simon’s Quest, Castlevania III, Super Castlevania IV, and particularly that. I think we’ve captured the feeling, and many gameplay elements, that will make people who played those games familiar with the series, see what we’re doing as a shout out. I think they’ll really understand and see that. I think that people who’ve grown up with Symphony of the Night onwards, they might look at this and go, “oh my God, this is a radical change, and this is completely different to what I’m used to, it doesn’t have the same character designs, it doesn’t have the same music, it doesn’t have… it’s not like… look what they’ve done to my series!” I think when they look at the original games, they’ll see a lot more similarities between this game and those games. Because we really did go back to the beginning. We’ve gotta go back, we’ve gotta bring Castlevania, the original Castlevania concept, into the 21st century. I think we’ve achieved that. You guys are gonna be the judge of it when the game comes out. But, I’m very proud of it, I think it’s awesome. And I think you guys will like it too.