Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night’s designer made a trivia-filled live commentary

As part of its ongoing “Devs Play” series, Double Fine invited legendary Castlevania designer Koji “IGA” Igarashi to provide a live commentary for his signature game, Symphony Of The Night. He’s joined for the lengthy video by Anna Kipnis, a Double Fine programmer and Symphony super-fan, who handles the controller (until Igarashi takes over for the last 50 minutes) and prompts the developer to discuss some of the finer points of the game’s creation. Maybe it was all the red wine he was drinking, but Igarashi gets into some pretty obscure tidbits, like a deleted feature where a “skeleton carpenter” would help you decorate Alucard’s bedroom and the reason why the game’s menu screens are so barren. (They were default menus used during development, and the team ran out of time before they could spruce them up.)

It’s fun just to hear this trivia about a revered game that’s been discussed for nearly two decades, but this video also serves as a timely primer for Igarashi’s upcoming project. By this point, it’s no secret that he’s working on something that revisits the style of Symphony Of The Night. Fans have been clamoring for that return to form for many years, but Konami, Castlevania’s publisher and Igarashi’s former employer, have wanted no part of it. All signs point to Igarashi unveiling something in the coming weeks. This feature-length commentary should be enough to tide you over.