Koji Igarashi’s a consistent guy. The man-in-black of videogames – he doesn’t really look like Johnny Cash, but he does have a habit of wearing black leather and carrying a whip around in public – Igarashi rose to prominence in 1997 when he released Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for the Playstation. SOTN was a fairly dramatic re-imagining of the Castlevania franchise, expanding on the non-linear style of 1988’s Castlevania 2 and molding it into a circuitous, fluid environment in the vein of Metroid. In the past eleven years, Igarashi has overseen seven more Castlevania titles, four of which are in the exact same style as SOTN. On the two dimensional front, Igrashi’s resume is un-indictable; even when his 2D Castlevanias are a little dry (as is the case with 2002’s Harmony of Dissonance), they’re still well-made games. It’s his work in the third-dimension that’s been the problem. 2003’s Castlevania: Lament of Innocence may be the best 3D Castlevania to-date, but it’s still a boring game whose empty, box-like environments have more in common with mid-90s Gauntlet than contemporaries like Devil May Cry. 2005’s Castlevania: Curse of Darkness isn’t much better, tacking on shallow monster-collecting (think Pokemon but with demons) gameplay to Lament of Innocence’s already weightless action. The less said about his one non-Castlevania game in the past ten years, Nanobreaker, the better. In all fairness, the gore in Nanobreaker is pretty entertaining, but that doesn’t make it good (it does, however, make for good Up All Night).
Igarashi has yet another Metroidvania, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, due out this fall. The first trailer for it looks mighty good. But word on the street is that he’s working on new three-dimensional Castlevanias for both Wii and 360/PS3. Word to the wise, sir. Stick to two-dimensions.
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