I'm with Adam on the music. The trailer music seemed fine for its purpose and Vampire Killer would have been horribly cheesy in comparison.

I think it's time to take the series' musical direction towards something a bit more mature. Michiru Yamane sufficed during the PSX and DS titles, but I don't think she has what it takes to really accompany a new vision for the franchise. It's possible to create a strong and fresh orchestral score that still integrates some rock and gothic elements. Hopefully that's what they'll do here.

That said, no musician in the current Kojima Productions team seems ideal for taking on this project, so I hope they hire some new or external talent. MGS4 was fine in my opinion, but I'm not impressed that a three person team came up with just that and still needed help from GEM Impact. MGA was lame in comparison to the Hibino scores and ZOE1/2 are further examples of how the musicians just aren't that productive.

I'm always surprised with statements like these. I thought Hibino was responsible for ZOE 1 and 2's scores.

Even if he wasn't, you didn't like them? They rank among my favorites. May I ask why you didn't like them?

Edit: Nevermind. VGMdb reveals that several people worked on the ZOE series. Shows how much I know.

Hibino was responsible for about 1/3 of ZOE1's music and 1/4 of ZOE2's.  I've always thought his tracks were the best, with Akihiro Honda's tracks following right behind.

I do agree with Chris though.  If Konami wants to give Castlevania a proper rebirth, a new composer (or group of composers) is definitely in order.  I'm so tired of the SotN-style soundtracks lately.  I mean, I love Yamane's style and it definitely fits Castlevania but enough is enough.  Who's a good replacement though?  Out of all the "main" VGM composers out there, Yoshitaka Hirota and Akira Yamoka are the only two that come to mind.  They can both nail the dark/gothic sound and can definitely pump out some rockin' battle-sounding tracks too.  They will only work if Konami keeps up with the meh 3D games.  If they go back to 2D though, it's return of the Kukeiha Club or nothing!

Exactly what constitutes "a bit more mature"? Especially as regards "a new vision of the franchise" when the "new vision" is a completely unrelated game?

also curious as to what parts of the SOTN and Curse of Darkness scores weren't mature. The Waltz of the Lazy Chair Room?

what the hell are you talking about? "SOTN-style soundtracks"? You seriously think you can file Yamane's post-SOTN work into a single category?

Well I for one certainly find her scores since then a lot less varied and interesting.  Could just be me, though.

Could you perhaps elaborate a bit further?

You forgot "Proboscis Fairy" and "Pumpkin's Holiday." I rather like "Proboscis Fairy" though... I don't know why but it puts a smile on my face.

I liked them and gave a good review for ZOE2. I'm just not sure why it needed so many artists working intensely to produce so little music.

At its heart, Castlevania has origins as a fun action franchise. However, it seems like they have tried to go down the more epic approach with recent console titles and didn't pull it off due to amateurish and cheesy producing. We all know Kojima and co can do this type of thing well though and, if Castlevania really wants to be a pioneering series again, I think it's great that he takes the reigns and ignores previous games. I'm sure there will still be more fan services with the DS instalments.

Only gave it one or two listens, but I just heard derivative and boring rock and techno on Curse of Darkness. Lament of Innocence was a little better, but wildly inconsistent with its hideous ambient tracks. SotN is a great score for its time but would sound dated even with a technology booster on more recent projects.

Amen to that.

Both would definitely be interesting. I'd especially love to see Hirota take on such a project.

you can't seriously be trying to tell me that Lament of Innocence and Curse of Darkness are trying to be more epic than Patrick Stewart-narrated God of War-alike Lords of Shadow, which once again let me repeat has shown no relation to Castlevania other than the name and no involvement by Kojima other than PR.

Also when was Castlevania ever a pioneering series?

I mean, do you honestly believe this Konami press release?

Shown previously as Lords of Shadow in summer 2008 with a short teaser, Konami has kept under wraps its intention to radically take the Castlevania myth in a bold new direction until now. Konami has used E3 to showcase what it considers one of its most ambitious and innovative titles to date and reveal how it will present Castlevania to a wider audience of players hungry for genre-defining entertainment.

I don't, because I can tell it's 100% bull-f---ing-shit.

care to cite me a few of these derivative, boring rock tracks (and the techno ones) in Curse of Darkness? Or the "hideous" ambient tracks in Lament of Innocence?

what the does that even mean? are you saying that the composition of the actual music has been surpassed by modern video game scores? And if so, could you specify which ones?

Well, we have clearly contrasting views on the franchise and its music, so I don't really think much productive will come from arguing about this. I guess everyone just has different opinions so I don't think it's worthwhile rebutting everything. But I'll respond to your points nonetheless...

I never said it was trying to be more epic than that. Just that they had epic leanings with their graphical / musical style and stories. And a God of War emulation would be just horrible...

Back in 1986 maybe? It was always a fun series, but at first it was a novel one too. I personally feel it lost it way since... Too much fan service.

Never read it until now, but seems pretty compatible with my views, yeah. I don't really see any problems since the DS will still keep on churning out the classic fan-tailored games.

Well, I'm not a fan of the entire soundtrack. Even so-called classics like "Abandoned Castle" make me cringe a little and leave me feeling a tad emotionally underwhelmed. I still think they're good, but not enough for me at least when they're amidst so little other substance.

Oh, that's easy. *looks at Cursed Memories, Death Flower Succubus, Castle Keep Entrance, Nightmare Aria, etc.*. I'm a fan of the ambience of Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and even Zelda, but these don't compare, even if sometimes just because of a few badly chosen samples. Material like "Fog-Enshrouded Nightscape", "Ghostly Theatre", and "House of Sacred Remains" are damn good though. Overall, though, it is a great soundtrack and you remind me I should listen to it more often. The ambience is worse in Curse of Darkness.

Symphony of the Night showed what Castlevania on the PlayStation could do, but times have moved on since then and there's a demand for more interactive and cinematic scores. For me, SotN was only the beginning of what should have been a revolution in Castlevania music and only really Lament of Innocence came close to surpassing it.

Yeah, this thing has been in development by a Spanish studio for a while and it's pretty obvious it was shoehorned into being a Castlevania game of recent, especially given Kojima's mysterious involvement. You'd think they would have advertised that from the beginning. This sudden change in direction may or may have to do with the giant flop that was Judgment, I dunno.

Unfortunately, that's likely what you're going to get. Be careful what you wish for! It's also likely that Lords of Shadow had a composer set before it became a Castlevania title, so much like how the gameplay looks (God of War derivative), I'm sure the score will likely be the same. I'd love to be wrong, though.

Hmm, didn't know that history. Potentially very worrying but I'll keep my hopes up.

Um, Cursed Memories is the save menu theme. Castle Keep Entrance is a cutscene theme. As for Death Flower Succubus, I fail to see how that even remotely counts as ambient. I mean, you could say it sounds like generic JRPG dramatic battle music, but it's not an ambient piece at all. I'll grant you Nightmare Aria, though.

Are you perhaps confusing the cutscene tracks with those actually used during the game? For your information, here they are:
Lament of Innocence: 1-01, 1-13, 1-19, 2-01, 2-02, 2-03, 2-06, 2-08
Curse of Darkness: 1-01, 1-03, 1-04, 1-06, 1-10, 1-13, 1-16, 1-18, 1-25, 2-02, 2-04, 2-06, 2-11, 2-12, 2-14, 2-15, 2-17, 2-18, 2-20, 2-23, 2-24

So yes, I suppose the ambience is worse during Cuirse of Darkness. At least when you're listening to the soundtrack instead of playing the game...

This doesn't actually mean anything. I don't even know why you said it.

I have to admit, this is kind of a loaded statement; it's a lot like when my buddy said "I'm never working in a factory again" when he's only 20 and chances are he will work in a factory again at some point in his life.

The choice of wording - especially the word "cinematic" - is interesting. Honestly, when I see that word I usually run for the hills as words such as "overblown" and "movie-like" pop in my head. I didn't fall in love with VGM because of any kind of cinematic quality; the first two Ninja Gaidens may be the exception with their primitive use of cut scenes - which were awesome BTW. However, with the barrier between VGM and other types of music continuing to narrow I guess such is going to become more and more commonplace. (I have to give props to RE2's "Leon with Clare" here though.)

As for scores being more interactive, this is mostly subjective. Mega Man 2's score doesn't draw me into the experience any less than it originally did because of the *advancements* in sound technology/composition that more recent scores boast.

Back to Yamane, if they want "Lords of Shadow" to be more cinematic they really do need to look elsewhere - or at least have someone else do the cutscene music - six minutes of "Dracula Appears" from LoI proves that to me. However, I honestly feel the cut scene music on the LoI Soundtrack is a hell of a lot more "pitch black" intrusive to the experience than those on the CoD soundtrack. At least those tracks (speedbumps) are a lot shorter on CoD and incorporate some of the game's more prominate themes.

As for "Death Flower Succubus," I wouldn't consider it so much ambient as I would aimless.

Sorry, drunk from a leaver's party. Will keep this brief...

Aimless works fine for me then.

I'm not usually pedantic, but I thought cutscene tracks were used in the game. It's possible for tracks to be ambient without being cutscene tracks. Save menu themes and battle themes can fit this category nicely.

Wow, a concession. I applaud you! Oh wait...

Very generic response... Ehrm, read anything from the industry or game companies and you'll realize it, in fact, does. Would you rather cutscenes with no underscoring or gameplay with no adaptivity? To me, you seem a little stuck in the 90s even though 2010 is round the corner. That's no really a bad thing since the 90s were pretty good for game music But it seems a little like calling humans the pinnacle of evolution. Decent enough, but there's still a lot to improve upon...

Same for Ashley (if he's saying my statement is loaded not Dais' dismissal) who has very interesting opinions but there's a bigger picture. Cinematic and interactive suck to you because you consider the stereotype, not the wider potential.

"read anything", I like that.

Can you name a few games that fit your ideal of the proper evolutionary path of game music?

wait, interactive? like dynamic music? what does that have to do with anything?

Not many, though I don't have time to play many games these days. I liked what I saw of No More Heroes and Dead Space in the past year though.

It's all the rage in Animal Crossing and Nintendo PR in general. Totakeke must die though.

okay, now you're just f---ing with me.

If you're referring to me, sure!

I've always felt that Symphony of the Night has simultaneously one of the most varied and yet "whole" soundtracks in the history of the genre.  By that I mean that each area of the game has a distinct sound that is entirely appropriate for the area.  When I hear pieces of music from the game, I can instantly visualize the area it came from (something I haven't felt recently in a game outside of Mario Galaxy, I don't think).  At the same time, despite how different in style many of the tracks are, they still all work together.  I think that's one of the things that makes SotN such a great OST.

I cannot, however, say the same thing for any Castlevania score since then.  While I still LIKE a lot of the work that Yamane has done in the series, I don't feel that any of the soundtracks since then have recaptured quite what I loved about that one.  I feel they're very interchangeable and haven't really had the same impact for me.

Being that Yamane was relatively unknown when she first started on the series, I think it would be interesting to see some fresh blood take it on.  We've had a decade of her being the primary force directing the music of the series; let's hear a different take on it.

But yet, none of that has anything to do with the quality of the music itself. How does the lack of cinematicness make it "dated"?

I still don't even understand what cinematic music is, at least as regards video game scores. "Cinematic" means it's related to cinema.

Now this is an evaluation and criticism I can appreciate. I disagree with some part (I think SOTN is actually fairly weak as a whole, but feel it's individual tracks excel beyond most game music, even stuff produced since it's release), but it actually, well, makes sense. Thank you.

I have something of a mixed feeling about post-SOTN scores. For the most part, I enjoy them all, but they each have notable flaws. I'd actually say that I find Aria of Sorrow the closest in matching the diversity and creativity of SOTN, but I feel the limits of the platform kept the music from really being comparable (and I love GBA music). Unfortunately, I haven't been that impressed with her work since then, save some select stand out tunes that I feel still surpass (whew) most of what you hear in games these days.

I just recoil at the suggestion that Lords of Shadow could mark an opportunity to refocus the music of the series. In my view, the media so far presented has yet to earn the distinction of even marking the game as consistent with any Castlevania design or tradition, let alone showing anything that might make me swallow Konami's claim that this was their plan all along. I can't conceive of what kind of impact this game's score could have on the Castlevania music "canon" when I can't even accept it as a Castlevania game.

Sober again, yay! I don't think I'm saying anything revolutionary here, but maybe I didn't express myself well or people misunderstood me.

Maybe. When our opinions are so different and your approach is so aggressive, I figured a normal argument would be out of the question.

It's not about the quality of the music itself, just how it works in the game. Static music doesn't offer the most engaging gameplay experience and events really need some underscoring (orchestral or otherwise) to be as affecting as possible.  These weren't big priorities back in Symphony of the Night's day, even if things had vastly improved from five to ten years earlier. However, they tend to be essential in expansive games these days.

Again, I think you're focusing too much on the stereotype that cinematic music automatically comes from Hollywood. All I mean by cinematic is that it convincingly underscores the various movie sequences and whatnot that are now commonplace in games. This can be in any genre, any tone, etc. so long as it works in the game. Of course, it's necessary to make sure the core gameplay doesn't suffer and so many Western games scores (or Xenosaga) suffer from disproportionate focus on cinematic scoring.

There'll probably always be the need for some static music, since it's very demanding to create adaptive music for every scenario, but some interactivity can be achieved quite efficiently. For example, the MGS series is known for its evasion, caution, and alert music that elegantly changes the mood and pace in conjunction with the game. The Kingdom Hearts series nicely transitions from stylistically related stage and battle music. Even a few early games like Banjo Kazooie and DK64 offered some variety within giant levels by simple variations on each level theme. And FFXII's approach of offering expansive music within one single area theme was kind of effective too. Not that interactive, but certainly representative.

Another example: I love the soundtracks to FFVII - FFIX and think they were just right for their time, but I'm not convinced they would fit new Final Fantasy games even with an improvement in technology. They just seem too simple with the more elaborate graphics and too static with the novel gameplay. I guess FFIX did cinematic well though. All the major cutscenes were beautifully underscored with vibrant orchestration by Shiro Hamaguchi. That wasn't generic Hollywood music at all and just as colourful and emotional as the main score. I'd love to see more like that...

I actually somewhat agree with this. Some of its individual tracks in my opinion surpass its achievement as a collective whole. I'd go for fairly strong rather than fairly weak as a whole, but I'd not describe it as downright perfect either. This is part of the reason I thought there was still a lot of room for evolution. For me, Lament of Innocence is a better collective whole and has about as many star tracks, though it also has more weaker ones.

I have to jump on this bandwagon as well. SotN is a wonderful score but time has shown me it's far from the perfect creature I thought it once was.

There's an interesting write up on Lords of Shadow at 1up. Perhaps the most intriguing thing, of course, is that the entire soundtrack will be recorded using a 120 piece orchestra and is being handled by a famous Spanish film composer. For those movie soundtrack buffs out there, any guesses?

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3175699

I'm personally hoping for Javier Navarrete (Pan's Labyrinth), but anything is possible I guess.

My first thought immediately went to Navarrete.  Either him, or Alberto Iglesias, who composed "The Kite Runner."

One source I found for composer is Óscar Araujo, though I'm waiting to see something else to confirm it.

Apparently old themes will be featured in the score, so there's reason to believe this game will be handled better than we might think.

Given that he already has done VGM, I'm calling this the safe bet.
I just hope it's not the Babel guy. Academy Award be damned, I wasn't impressed.

And more importantly for the exact same developer.

Wow have we really gone a year without any mention of Lords of Shadow?  I played it at TGS yesterday and am still very impressed and very hopeful about this title.

The gameplay segment was the night scene in the village, Gabriel vs. a batch of wolve-like creatures culminating in a boss battle with the giga-wolf.  There's definitely a GoW-like flair in the combos you can pull off but with your whip flying everywhere and blood splattering about it feels and looks just right (I'm not interested in seeing the series go hyper-violent but in context the added gore works).  The dark, fairly realistic graphics look great in both a technical and artistic sense... I for one am so relieved to see the character designs go back in the direction of the early NES and SNES Castlevanias.  The orchestral music was dark and at times booming; it accompanied the action well but it remains to be heard how much of a melodic tilt it will take.

Just as encouraging as the gameplay segment is the trailer they were showing.  With Gabriel climbing and swinging about on his whip and solving visually striking puzzles in between taking out smaller minions and massive bosses, I don't see how anyone interested in a modern-day 3D Castlevania with added adventure elements in the vein of Simon's Quest couldn't be excited.

Along with the music, how the story and pacing pan out are the big questions that remain but as it stands now I expect this to the second physical purchase I make for my new PS3 (the first having been Street Fighter IV).

Maybe we're just skeptical because Castlevania has been a massive, decade-long failure in making the transition from 2D to 3D, ultimately splashing down into oblivion as a Wiimote-toting joke of a fighting game in Castlevania Judgement. For me personally, the fact that Igarashi is NOT heading this project up is reason enough to approach this new attempt with an open mind. From the descriptions of the music, I'm not terribly interested in the soundtrack to this one nor do I really have any expectations for it. I'll just stream old-school Castlevania music through my 360 instead, lol.

And yes, the new character designs are VERY welcome. Even...rather kickass, if I do say so myself.

Previews have been overwhelmingly positive, even calling it one of the year's potentially brightest titles yet to be released.  I'm still not entirely convinced of the gameplay; I've about had my fill with the likes of Bayonetta and God of War III, so I'm not sure if I could take on another like-minded game so soon.

With the arrival of Lords of Shadow, we're treated to another one of Gametrailers' most excellent "Retrospective" series.  The first part just went up, covering Castlevanias 1-3.

The Castlevania Retrospective:
http://www.gametrailers.com/game/the-ca … tive/13944

Isn't this an interesting phenomenon...I tried playing through Bayonetta but grew tired - I still want to...God of War which looks amazing, just not interested....yet if a killer 2D game came out, I'd definitely at least be interested...Finally Castlevania gets the 3d action game it deserves, and I have to admit I could barely care...though it is showing up from Gamefly this week.  I guess I'll see if I can find the time and interest

The more I see of this thing the less interested I grow. Despite the somewhat negative connotation that's attached to the terms "Castleroid" and "Metroidvania" I feel that such Castlevania games didn't really copy Metroid's formula as much as they took an influence from it. Such a feeling doesn't really apply when looking at Lords of Shadow, in fact the opposite scenario seems to prevail.

Obviously though, "look" doesn't equal "experience" in any such case, although I can say if Castlevania had indeed become something I don't care for I'm not going to be heartbroken over it, it just means less one less license to worry about. This has already come to light for me when it comes to Mega Man beyond the initial three incarnations but the world still turns.

The second part is up now, covering Super Castlevania IV, Rondo of Blood, Bloodlines, and Symphony of the Night. 

I'm reminded of the musical golden oldies these games boast.  Super Castlevania IV's rendition of Bloody Tears, Rondo of Blood's Bloodlines, Bloodlines' Requiem For The Nameless Victims, Symphony of the Night's Crystal Teardrops and Requiem for the Gods...... all so good.