Portrait of Ruin interview

GR: Is it difficult to make a game that plays with two characters?

KI: Yeah. The work's like double. So, yeah, it's very much challenging.

GR: Was it difficult, too, to make it easy for the player to understand?

KI: The player will face no stress because of the distinction between two characters - Jonathan is male and Charlotte is female, and both of them have a different outlook to start out with. But then again as to the game system, Jonathan uses a physical attack but Charlotte uses magical attacks. Jonathan uses the main weapon, like the whip and he uses sub-weapons, like a regular Castlevania main character whereas Charlotte casts spells and stuff like that.

There's one or two female development team members in my team. [One] hadn't played old Castlevania games but the thing is, she's able to finish it up and she had a better understanding of how to switch two characters. Even a [first time player] can beat it.

What's good about this game is that you can actually have two of them used at the same time. If you're undecided about which character to [use] just switch to one and the [other] will back up with the AI. Really, it's the balance of the AI.

GR: So is it the kind of gameplay system where an advanced player will be able to get a lot out of the gameplay system?

KI: Having two players shown in battle in the game, if your partner gets damaged you lose magic points, so if you don't want to have MP lost, you have to keep on switching. There are some [gameplay] gimmicks we have prepared that you have to work closely together to solve the traps...

Any advanced players will probably already know, but there's a special mode prepared after clearing the first round, so look forward to it. One of the skilled Castlevania team members recently cleared that part, and he was challenged a lot, but then again it took a while for him to clear that mode, so look forward to it. It's really, really hardcore.