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Castlevania Fighting Game Elicits Anguished Moans From the Living

Posted by Nadia Oxford

Looks like the August issue of Nintendo Power is full of thrills and chills. The news about Mega Man 9 being developed in an 8-bit style brings the thrills, whereas a baffling preview of a Castlevania fighting game for the Wii is bringing the chills.

Not the good kind of chills that you got when you first played Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, mind you. These are the bad, feverish chills with the pained moaning and cold sweat.

When fans heard that a Castlevania game was in production for the Wii, there were all sorts of half-depraved fantasies involving the Wii remote and hot whipping action. The death of a potentially cool idea is only half the reason fans are disgruntled: the other half lies with the character re-designs. Castelvania's popular character designer, Ayami Kojima, is stepping aside this time to make way for none other than Takeshi Obata. Obata is famous for his work on the famous Death Note manga series, which goes a long way to explaining why Simon Belmont looks like (to quote my husband) L dressed Mello's skin-tight leather, appropriate Catholic memorabilia included.

As a hardcore Castlevania fan, I'm not irritated by Konami's latest, uh, decision. I am certainly intrigued, but not as angry as some. There's a general cry in the community of, "We didn't ask for this!" No we didn't, but we didn't ask for a game featuring Mario characters putting around in go-karts, either.

I also look forward to explaining the existence of a Castlevania fighting game to my mother. She hasn't played games since the Super Nintendo era, but she remembers well Castlevania III and I recently took ten minutes to explain to her why Alucard wears high heels now.


Comments

Roto13 said:

I've never really liked the whole Castleroid style of gameplay, so I'm actually more likely to pick this game up than any 1:1 whip-centric Wii game.

July 1, 2008 12:34 PM

Amber Ahlborn said:

And I'm in the opposite boat.  Not much of a fighter fan (with exceptions) but I really enjoy the classic, or at least Metroid inspired new classic style of game play in Castlevania.  That said, I have to roll my eyes at the moans concerning this fighting game.  Sure I'm disappointed that it's not the type of game I'd prefer, but crap people, what's with the melodrama?  It's not out yet but judgment has been passed?  

July 1, 2008 1:47 PM

Ian said:

I don't know...on one hand I groaned, but on the other I'm intrigued.  I'm definitely not going to completely write it off before I know anything about the game, as many are doing.

July 1, 2008 6:29 PM

Demaar said:

CV becoming a fighting game for Wii isn't what bothers me about this news. What bothers me is that everything that's not 2D that IGA touches turns to crap.

July 1, 2008 11:18 PM

Nadia Oxford said:

I can understand why people didn't get too excited over the 3D Castlevanias, but I was pretty driven about Curse of Darkness: I played the hell out of it.

(I loved breeding the innocent demons, I guess.)

July 2, 2008 3:12 PM

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