June 14, 2016, at 4:25 p.m.
At E3 today, Slickster’s own Nate scored a short interview with the creator of Castlevania and the new game Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, Koji Igarashi. He answers questions about nostalgia and the new female protagonist with the the help of translator Mana.
Interview with Koji Igarashi
Slickster: In regards to the overall progress of the game, have there been any hiccups or challenges so far?
Koji Igarashi: There’s always a problem. All the time, so… Not just one thing, but every other title that I’ve worked on, there are a lot of problems.
Do you find the experience with Bloodstained similar to any of the Game Boy Advance games?
What’s similar to the Gameboy Advance is you can actually take skills from the enemies, and make a little more advanced versions as the ones from the Gameboy Advance.
I definitely got a feel as I played that I was going back to playing the Game Boy Advance games, which were my favorites.
We’re going to add a lot of new things for Bloodstained but I also want to go back to way back to when I started making games and have that nostalgic feeling. It’s very important.
I’ve been working on a lot of mobile games, like social app games. Now I’m working on an actual console game, that’s why I want to make it really good.
One of the last questions here. What made you go with a female heroine in this one as your protagonist?
It’s a very difficult question… I’ve put a lot of thought into this and Bloodstained is from a Kickstarter. It’s a Kickstarter game. When I was coming up with a Kickstarter campaign, they were saying that the Western market was mostly my target.
To get everyone’s interest, I wanted to make it a female protagonist. You know how it’s going around with feminism… Besides that, I wanted to pique everyone’s interest, as the past Castlevanvia characters were all male protagonists, so that’s why I made it a female character.
How excited should everyone be about the Bloodstained game?
Although I can’t beat a triple-A title, I want to reach the hardcore gamers who really love my games and that’s why I want to keep that nostalgic feeling for the gamers.
Thank you for your time. I know you’re busy. I appreciate it. I know I’m going to get [Bloodstained]. It’s a great work.
Any Castlevania fans out there excited for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night? Tell us all about it in the comments below!