Koji Igarashi Kickstarter Campaign For Bloodstained Funded In Six Hours

Conrad Zimmerman

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Koji Igarashi Kickstarter Campaign For Bloodstained Funded In Six Hours

[kickstarter=iga/bloodstained-ritual-of-the-night]IGA's new project is in the vein of his prior successes.

Koji Igarashi, whose co-direction of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and subsequent production work on more than a dozen Castlevania titles effectively cemented popularity of the action-platformer subgenre popularly referred to as "metroidvanias," has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund development of a new game, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/iga/bloodstained-ritual-of-the-night?ref=home_popular]. The fundraising drive has quickly caught fire, reaching its half million dollar goal in under six hours.

Using the term "Igavania" to differentiate Bloodstained as being a genre entry from Igarashi himself, the game will be a 2D exploration game set in a world where alchemy has become the predominant philosophy. A curse has summoned demons to the planet, eventually (and perhaps even predictably) resulting in the raising of a demon castle, through which the player will guide a young alchemist, Miriam, to confront the the source of the curse.

Announced stretch goals for Bloodstained include the addition of a second playable character, an additional difficulty setting, and voice acting, with David Hayter (best known as the voice of Snake in the Metal Gear Solid series) namedropped as being on board to portray the game's villain, Gebel. The campaign is also something of a gamification of Kickstarter. Further stretch goals will be unlocked when fans and backers successfully accomplish social media targets for the campaign, including reaching specific numbers of followers on Twitter, YouTube and other networks, as well as some more creative goals such as submitting cosplay photos and fan art.

As with many large-scale campaigns, there are also many reward levels available, ranging from $5 to $10,000. A digital version of the game can be secured for only $28, while higher priced rewards include a collector's edition, silver rings designed by Igarashi, and opportunities to create pets, enemies, and even secret rooms with the development team.

Source: Kickstarter [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/iga/bloodstained-ritual-of-the-night?ref=home_popular]

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RJ 17

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Nov 27, 2011
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So first we have "Definitely Not MegaMan", and now we're getting "Definitely Not Castlevania"?

*insert meme of Phillip J Fry eagerly/angrily offering his wallet here*

Edit: I just checked out the page to see what the backer rewards were. Some of'em do look pretty sweet: like getting your picture digitized as a portrait that'll show up in the background, creating a weapon or enemy, or even having your own pet be made as an enemy in the game. But god DAMN is that shit expensive!
 

Trishbot

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RJ 17 said:
So first we have "Definitely Not MegaMan", and now we're getting "Definitely Not Castlevania"?

*insert meme of Phillip J Fry eagerly/angrily offering his wallet here*
Don't forget "Definitely Not Banjo-Kazooie".

Honestly, I'm so happy to see these guys bringing back great genres. I'm gonna play them all.
 

Alar

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Dec 1, 2009
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I'll wait a few weeks before backing this. It might get me back into the genre if it's good...! Still, all the decent backer rewards are pretty high up there. Also, the guy is a genius... making a cute girl/sexy lady as the protagonist.
 

Scars Unseen

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May 7, 2009
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I've been saying for years that Konami should just make 2D Castlevania games for console instead of just handhelds. Now it looks like I don't need Konami anymore. Probably for the best given their sudden weird implosion.
 

List

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I watched the video. It was glorious! It was a bit cheesy, a bit funny, but most important he came across still serious and honest. Plus I love his games.
 

MajorTomServo

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If I manage to come in to $60 before the kickstarter ends, I think I'll get a physical copy.

Probably the PS4 version, in anticipation of maybe owning a PS4 someday. I just don't like PC games in DVD cases...
 

Fappy

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I probably won't back it, but it looks pretty neat all the same. I'll probably buy it once it's released.

Also, really digging the protagonist's design.
 

Baresark

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Damn, that is awesome. It's sick how these somewhat legendary creators have to go to Kickstarter to get funded when they are only trying to make new versions of the types of games we all love. Capcom can't bring itself to do anything besides re-release the same Megaman games again and again. The creator had to go to Kickstart to do that. Symphony of the Night is considered one of the best, if not the best Castlevania (and metroidvania games) ever made, yet they have to crowdfund a game that fans have been clamoring for. It's crazy. Sometimes I hate Kickstarter, but at times like this, I love it.
 

Scars Unseen

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MC1980 said:
Aiddon said:
Well, that's one way to stick it to your former employer. Hopefully they get a Wii U version made.
Not happening, or atleast it would be a couple mil goal. UE4 doesn't work with the Wii U out of the box, they'd have to spend extra time and money just to make the engine work like they want it on that SKU, and even then the Wii U is a far less powerful platform, so even in the best scenario it's gonna be a downgraded port. Worst case scenario would be them going for parity across platforms, so every other SKU would get shat on.

It's kinda mean, but I hope WiiU/Vita/3DS doesn't factor into this one, just so that they can concentrate on making the best game on the comparatively most powerful batch of hardware they can. Ports later on are fine though.
I'll grant you that it's highly unlikely to happen, but I don't think system power is a huge concern when talking about a 2D platforming game. The engine issue is more of a concern, but I highly doubt that any current system would have problems unless the game was a horrible unoptimized mess.
 

WendelI

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That protagonist looks allot like Shanoa even down to the tattoo in her back that seems to release power.
 

flying_whimsy

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This is probably one of the savviest kickstarters I've seen that weren't part joke (anyone remember the potato salad guy?). I don't like the genre, but I do hope this goes well; it's a level of backer and fan interaction that is rare to see.

Oh, and a female main character? It's like this guy wants to make the entire AAA industry look bad. Now I actually want to throw money at this.
 

Alfredo Jones

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I immediately feel in love with that trailer. Iga absolutely owned it, being up front about what he is doing. It's like those advertisements back in the day for Daikatana that just had the words "John Romero's about to make you his *****" in trailer form.
 

Colt47

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Trishbot said:
RJ 17 said:
So first we have "Definitely Not MegaMan", and now we're getting "Definitely Not Castlevania"?

*insert meme of Phillip J Fry eagerly/angrily offering his wallet here*
Don't forget "Definitely Not Banjo-Kazooie".

Honestly, I'm so happy to see these guys bringing back great genres. I'm gonna play them all.
Just checked my active pledges on kickstarter and I've backed both "Not Banjo-Kazooie" and "Not Castlevania". Oh yeah, and I'm waiting for the copy of Mighty No 9 to finally arrive in september.

Life is good. =)
 

Scars Unseen

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MC1980 said:
Scars Unseen said:
I'll grant you that it's highly unlikely to happen, but I don't think system power is a huge concern when talking about a 2D platforming game. The engine issue is more of a concern, but I highly doubt that any current system would have problems unless the game was a horrible unoptimized mess.
I doubt it will be intensive or exceptionally demanding, they're aiming for Guilty Gear Xrd style 2.5D that looks a lot like 2D, which while beautiful wasn't a big performance hog, but Xrd is a perfect example for what I meant. The PS3 version of the game had to be severely altered (lower-res textures, lower-poly character models, no AA, FPS drops in cutscenes, details/characters removed from stage backgrounds) for it to run at 60FPS during combat. And most of this was chalked up to the very limited amount of ram, which is a problem the Wii U is also suffering from, for example. Of course in that case it didn't influence the actual development of the PS4 version, as the PS3 one was just an afterthought.

With 6 SKUs, and 3 of them being far weaker than the other 3, they'd run the risk of it turning into a bit of a clusterfuck, if they're aiming for a concurrent release for every platform and every version of the game to be the same for the most part. I don't wan't to run the risk of having the level design (forced to be smaller, with more breaks for loading) or character detail (texture resolution, poly count) be influenced by the fact that one of the SKU's only has 1 gig of ram available to work with.

I just want them to make the best thing they can, and deal with ports to other platforms later.
I definitely agree with you on that. Make it as good as you can, then port as seems prudent. I just don't think that the hardware specs of the Wii U are likely to be a big obstacle to what basically amounts to "Symphony of the Night, but with prettier graphics." That there are other potential roadblocks is not something I can discount, and I'll be playing it on PC anyway, so it's not like it really bothers me anyway.