Koji Igarashi Still Wants To Finish Two Castlevania "Episodes" With Konami

I will certainly be playing bloodstained and I'd love to see him do more Castlevania work.

Konami: “It needs to allow the player to discover new “innovations “ such as having pachinko-like elements and the ability to buy extra save files.”

Julius' story must be told!

Hell yeah, more Castlevania. Both action games and Symphony of the Night style games. How about 2 player coop Castlevania? That could be amazing!

I doubt it'll ever happen but I am gonna hope it does. Just because that story has always intrigued me. Would love to see Julius in his prime and Dracula's last moments.

I know I'd like to see the battle of 1999, but I wonder what other episode he means? Anyway, I'm all for it. Haven't played any of this new stuff.

I've been waiting for a Castlevania game that takes place in 1999 since Aria of Sorrow. Always wanted to see the battle when they finally sealed Dracula's Castle. Lost all hope when Iga left Konami.

Konami needs to make this happen after Iga proves them wrong with Bloodstained! What is a man anyway a miserable little pile of secrets but enough talk have at you!

Please, Konami, make it happen! I really want the 1999 game done by IGA, with Julius Belmont. IGA`s Castlevanias are my favorites!

Pre-ordered Bloodstained for the PS4, definitely hyped for that. As far as Igarashi returning to Castlevania I'd love to see it happen but won't get my hopes up. Konami doesn't do cool stuff for gamers anymore.

I don’t think Iga is going to be asked back to direct anything for Konami. He has been openly critical of them for their use of the Castlevania license and spoke out during the Kojima debacle. I’m fine with supporting his spiritual successors though assuming Bloodstained is good.

I would love more Castlevanias made by Iga, but honestly... It's Konami we are talking about now.

I've always wanted this.
But I'm doubting Konami will allow it. They don't care about making good new games now.

Make it happen Konami so the future of Castlevania could change for the better.

If I understand it correctly the 1999 war involves actual army storming the castle, which is already a great premise.

Ohh hell yeasshhhh!!!!
Im so wanting to play this.

I do not want him to return to Konami.
He began to walk a new way. Please forget about Castlevania.

@mario6400 You know time could change and the current awful Konami may even become good again.

I'd actually like to see those games.

I hope he finds time to continue the series

I'd like to see him return to hand drawn 2D games for whatever he does next. The low end 3D in Bloodstained hurts my eyes. There's no craft in it, it feels so generic.

There's no way Konami will ever make a game based on Julius Belmont. Absolutely nothing they did would ever do justice to the fans' expectations regarding the story of how Dracula DIED FOR GOOD.

Going to play Dracula’s advocate here and say that the battle of 1999 may actually be best left offscreen. As it stands now, it has an almost mythic status - the epic final showdown between good and evil, where the endless war was decided once and for all.

If it was ever actually made, no matter how outstanding it was, it would inevitably become... just a game.

I hope this happens, and I hope it's done with pixel art, not 2.5D. Bloodstained looks great and I'm going to get it, but those GBA and DS CV games hold a special place in my heart and the visuals are part of the reason.

Nintendo should just offer to buy Konami's old franchises and then make this happen because the current Konami probably won't.

Just offer to let them use those properties for their pachinko/casino/mobile games for 10 more years and those guys will be like "That's all we wanted anyways! What a deal!"

@DoomPlague as much as I want to agree with you, I have a terrible fear that Nintendo would somehow think everyone wants a vibrant, colorful, cell-shaded Castlevania. I love the big N, but dark and gritty aren’t their style.

I know many are still excited for Bloodstained, but I've become quite unhappy with how the project has been managed and I have no enthusiasm left for it or Igarashi. The only thing I'm looking forward to is trying to get some of my money back out by selling my PC download code.

Damn I'm waiting for this for TOO LONG
I'm so glad to see that IGA is still thinking about it !!

The 1999 Castlevania is the half life 3 of the franchise. It's almost criminal we never actually got to see the end of the series antagonist not to mention the plot thread of the Belmont's disappearance never got explained.

On the other hand, I am not sure I trust Iga. The man is responsible for tons of good decisions in the series, but he is also responsible for some pretty crummy ones like the terrible tone shift in Dawn of sorrow and freaking kokoro Belmont.

It also rubs me the wrong way how he seems to take credit for the franchise, reminds me of Inafune.

Let's see how does Bloodstained pans out first.

Ugh, Igarashi. I both love and hate this guy. I'd rather he not touch Castlevania anymore unless he actually plans to do the 1999 battle between Julius and Dracula. He truly reinvented Castlevania and brought in a whole new audience, but he also ran it into the ground (with Konami's help of course) with a barrage of samey DS games. Bloodstained will determine if he still has his touch.

@Aerona There were plans for a continuation of Lament of Innocence, but it never came to be, so we were left with a cliff hanger.

Basically, we never got to see the ascent of Dracula as we came to know him. Lament of Innocence sets the stage, but then the time line skips straight to Trevor Belmont, were Dracula is already the bane of mankind.

The tale of Dracula is missing both it's origin and climax, go figure.

@Starcakes

Hmm, I wonder if that was the 2nd episode Iga was talking about. He only mentioned Julius's quest but what you mentioned about Lament of Innocence justifies some clarification about Castevania's origin

@Onion

Samey DS games? All of those DS games had a slightly different flavor and are regarded as high quality games.

If you want a game that buried Castlevania into the ground, look no further than Lords of Shadow 2.

Yes, Julius Belmont-- The Belmont that got it done. Konami... PLEASE...

@Turbo857

Well, by your own admission that flavor was only "slightly different". While I agree that Lords of Shadow 2 is infinitely worse than the DS trilogy, the fanbase was getting very exasperated with the DS releases. Each DS game sold less and less, with OoE selling the least of all (which is a real shame as OoE was a great game). I never said they WEREN'T good games, but the fanbase was clearly suffering from Castlevania fatigue. Igarashi himself addressed this issue in an interview where he promised to shake things up with PoR, stating that he acknowledged that the Soul System from the two Sorrow games were "taking over" too much and that he had planned to change all of that with PoR. Of course, PoR didn't change much of anything and merely replaced one system with a nearly identical one.

Order of Ecclesia made an honest attempt to shake up the formula and in my opinion it succeeded in doing so, but not that many people bought and played it for the reasons I stated above. It just didn't sell. No one wanted another samey Castlevania game and it was pretty much the last Castlevania game besides maybe Adventure Rebirth. It was definitely the last Igaroid Castlevania.

Ironically enough Lords of Shadow sold a lot more than any of the DS games, but Lords of Shadow 2 was so bad that it buried the series. Pretty sure Igarashi had nothing to do with that though, Kojima seems to be the one to blame for that one.

Anyway the bottom line is that the DS trilogy was indeed very samey, it was a common complaint from almost anyone who played them and it was usually noted in reviews, too. Even Igarashi commented on the samey-ness of it. That doesn't detract from how great the DS line of games is, but they're one-trick ponies with the same gimmicks simply rehashed. Dawn of Sorrow simply took the Aria of Sorrow formula and expanded it, Portrait of Ruin just redressed the soul system as an item system that worked basically the same way, and OoE simply turned the soul system into a glyph system with a reliance on mana. Bear in mind before that there was a trilogy of GBA games all set in the same style, just with different systems. So the fanbase had two generations worth of Castlevania games in the Metroid style. Fatigue was bound to set in, and the DS trilogy reeked of low effort. Dawn of Sorrow in particular gets the most flak for having a jarring shift in artstyle and tone, using touch screen gimmicks, and rehashing the same system from Aria. Despite that it's one of my favorite games, particularly because of Julius Mode.

EDIT: As for why I don't want Igarashi to touch the series again (barring the Julius and Dracula battle) is because I myself am a bit tired of the Igaroids and wouldn't mind seeing what a new director could do with the series. I want to see the series do something fresh and different. If Igarashi returns to the helm, he will most definitely do another Igaroid style game and I really don't want that. It's been over 10 years since Order of Ecclesia so I'm sure lots of people are eager for a return to the style (if Bloodstained is any indication), but I would personally rather see something different.

@Onion

Wow, that was a mouthful, lol. But a good read nonetheless. Agreed. Couldn't hurt to see another director take a stab at a 2D Metroidvania.

But to tell you the truth: I'd like to see Julius's adventure as a 3D sequel to PS2's Curse of Darkness. That was an underrated 3D Castlevania imo.

@Turbo857

That's kind of what I mean, I'd really like to see the franchise take another crack at some sort of decent 3D adventure rather than continue down the road of 2D Igavania's. Curse of Darkness in particular was a surprisingly fun game for me, and I appreciated all the new ideas it tried. It took Familiars from SOTN and made a whole game out of it. Not only that, but I'd like to see an attempt at some kind of large open world. Not necessarily an actual open world but something more expansive than what we usually get. Playing The witcher 3 and Dark Souls reminds me of how much Castlevania could benefit if it could successfully work 3D gameplay. It seems really unfair that the entire 3d segment of the franchise has been cornered off and forced to wear a dunce hat just because Castlevania 64 didn't do well.

A new director with fresh ideas could hopefully work all of these things. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm ready to see Castlevania evolve, not stagnate. Seeing Simon as a 3D model in Smash Bros just makes me want to see the franchise evolve even more.

For now, I guess I'm content with the Metroidvania and Classic CV games.