Castlevania Resurrection

- It's a bit difficult to talk about the game development, there are rumors that are lies, others that could've happen or there isn't confirmed of what could've really happenned. - With that said, I'll do my best to present what happenned chronologically in the game's development. - Everything started with Konami changing it's studio from Illinois to San Francisco, most employees had to move and travel just to work, Konami accepted to help them with the travel and house change, Konami's reputation with their employees is known to not be the greastest, so it can't be confirmed if they actually did something. - According to Jason Elliott (one of the employees who work on the production of CV:R), the pre-production of the game was made by a different team, after Jason's team finished Bottom of the Ninth99, Konami put his team in the production of the Resurrection, which wasn't the best idea thanks to the fact that they only worked on action and sport games, never worked with platformers (specially in 3D). - Unfortunately, Jason resigned from Konami before the "completion", feeling stagnated in 3D comparing himself to the employees in the team, so new informations from him probably won't appear. - The game was first talked about in 21 May of 1999 thanks to Sega that needed to show the games in the launch of the console, annoucing some franchises would get a new game for it, one of them being Castlevania. There were some screenshots, and some critics at the time said the game seemed too similar with Castlevania 64, but agreed it was too early to judge it. - The game was first shown in E3 of 1999, with the opening, stages already completed for reviewers to test. According to a reviewer in Gamespot, 33% of the game was completed, with 2 of 5 stages ready. The focus of the game was action without puzzle like in Castle64, probably because the director of the game worked in Castle Bloodlines, where the action and level design was the focus. - The camera was a little different from 64, there was a lock on in 64 to facilitate combat, however at that point in development, lock on wasn't present. - It seems the camera could be comparable with Blue Stinger (another Dreamcast game). - The textures were great but character animations were somewhat stiff. This was everything I could get from a preview Gamespot made after E3, but there was one company who wanted to know more about Resurrection, IGN. Incredible, IGN tried to contact Konami directly to see how complete the game really was, going to the development team building at least 2 times. - When E3 1999 came, the game was announced to lauch in the Dreamcast's lauch date, unfortunately it had to be delayed, with the website ebworld.com saying Resurrection would be on stores in 16th January 2000. - Unfortunately the rumors start here, in september of 1999 IGN called Konami to know how well was the game going, Konami said it was 25% completed, however, Gamespot in E3 said it was 33% completed. - In 5th November, IGN posted what they found out about the game at the time, it seems they went to Konami e went to see the development team, they were able to play the second stage, according to them the graphics could be compared with Sega Rally 2 and Soul Calibur, Konami used a monitor with VGA to show the best graphics possible (for those who don't know, VGA cables are better then HDMI on the Dreamcast) - When it comes to gameplay, they referred that the E3 version seemed like a tech demo compared to the new version they played. To start (remember they only played the second stage and some extra parts): - Classic enemies confirmaded; - Medusa appears in the game (being a mini-boss or boss, I'm not sure); - The game would have more emphasis on bosses and the camera would be in new angles to make the encounters more interesting in those moments; - They were able to see the Dracula battle, being a "Big Deal"; - It is possible to have primary and secondary weapons which make more damage; - The attacks would have more damage according to the quantity of hearts we have, probably being a way to describe Items Crashes, being the first time Item Crashes appear in 3D; - The Boomerang actually looked like a boomerang; - There would be scripted events, like running from a snake with 3 heads for example; - 30 Creatures would be in the game, divided in 4 categories (basics, advanced, mini-boss, boss); - This was what Brandon Justice (employee on IGN who showed this at the time) told about the game, saying it was a game above expectations for 3D games in the market, being a worth it game in the franchise, only needing a lock-on camera to make it perfect. - Unfortunately this is where the story ends, the Dreamcast wasn't selling well, the PlayStation 2 was selling like water in the desert and with that, Konami cancelled the game.

[DEVELOPMENT TEAM]

Like Jason Elliott said, there was a first team before his team started the process, and it is impossible to say who worked on the first team. Jason's team it's much more easy to say who worked on the game. The way I used to verify who worked on the game or not was simply seeing the credits of Bottom of the Ninth99 and verify each person, with that: - Norio Takemoto: Project Director - Greg Orduyan: Art Director - Jenny Ryu (Chang): CGI Director - Mark Lindsey: Composer - Jason Lee Elliott: 2D/3D Artist Environment These persons I can confirm 100% they worked on the production of the game, but the others who worked on Bottom99 it's somewhat harder to say, I tried to contact them but nobody sent a message, so, go to MobyGames, in that website you can find who worked on Bottom99.