ame Informer had the honor to sit down with not only Koji Igarashi, famed producer of Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrows & Curse of Darkness, but also with Michiru Yamane, the Musical Composer.

Game Informer: I understand you’re announcing something very big today, but before we talk about that I want to know why you didn’t cut your hair?

Koji Igarashi: (laughs) I didn’t have time!

GI: You didn’t have time? It was six weeks ago.

Igarashi: Sorry, I wasn’t man enough (laughs).

GI: So I’m curious if you could explain this music announcement?

Michiru Yamane: Actually, I composed the music and this guy, a tenor opera singer, he sang for me – or Castlevania, I guess. I’m sorry to tell you he’s not really popular in the States, but he’s a UK singer and he’s really big there. His name is Russell Watson. He sang the introduction for the Nicolas Cage and Penelope Cruz movie called Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. He also sang the theme from Star Trek: Enterprise. There was a big party for the Hollywood Bowl renovation and he performed there as well. I guess this is my first attempt at contributing the music from my end using a professional opera singer.

GI: Did you enjoy the process?

Yamane: He’s the guy that I fell in love with actually. I mean, I’ve been a big fan of him for a long time, and I really wanted to work closely with him. It was recorded in Tokyo. It was like a dream.

GI: How long have you guys worked together?

Yamane: Since Symphony of the Night, so it’s been 10 years.

Igarashi: I did a port from the arcade machine, but I was involved with her music while porting the PC engine. So there was a little connection, but she never knew, I guess.

GI: When you’re making music for a Castlevania game what inspires you? Do you talk to Iga or does it just come to you?

Yamane: I look at the storyboards and background design.

Igarashi: There will be another tie-in with the retailers this time just like with Lament of Innocence. If you pre-order it you get the soundtrack of Curse of Darkness, and that includes the States.

GI: Has this been announced yet?

Igarashi: No, we told you because you’re into music

GI: Well, that’s really cool!

Yamane: It will include 17 tracks from The Curse of Darkness.

GI: And Russell Watson’s song will be on there?

Yamane: Unfortunately not, partially due to licensing issues. Also, it’s used in the ending sequence.

GI: Oh, that makes sense. So it’d be like the spoiler.

Yamane: No, it’s not a spoiler because we’re using it in the TGS trailer and we used it in the Summer BBQ trailer as well.

GI: Do you also help compose the Game Boy Advance and DS Castlevania music too?

Yamane: Yes.

GI: That’s obviously very different to work on PlayStation 2 hardware and GBA and DS. Does it matter to you as a composer?

Yamane: The music development with Dawn of Sorrow, the DS version, is very much like the NES development. It’s very obvious with the structure of the music. It’s very simple and it’s very easy to recognize.

GI: Is that different than the GBA?

Yamane: I would say the Game Boy Advance is very close.

Igarashi: When talking about the sound quality, obviously the DS version’s much better than Game Boy Advance. But when you consider the process of how you compose the music and put it into a portable system, I would say it’s similar for the Game Boy and DS.

Yamane: As a music composer, my purpose is I would like to make it on PlayStation 2 because you get a lot more freedom to compose. But, at the same time, it’s just more pressure because now that I have more freedom I can’t make any excuses. That’s the bad thing.

GI: So what about next-gen, like PS3 and Xbox 360?

Yamane: You’re right!

GI: What about the PSP?

Yamane: In the next-generation I’d really like to use an actual orchestra to do the music for Castlevania, but maybe the company won’t allow me to do it because it’s a business. They might not want to do it because it costs a lot of money. But maybe if I was on the Metal Gear Solid team things would be different. (laughs)

GI: Would you like to work with more vocalists in the future?

Yamane: Personally, yes.

GI: If you could work with anyone who would you like to work with?

Yamane: Maybe John Williams, the conductor or the progressive rock band, Dream Theater.

GI: Have you gotten any numbers back on Dawn of Sorrow?

Igarashi: I don’t have any exact sales numbers, but I hear that it’s doing well here in Japan. I wish it could sell a lot more, but I’m more than happy to have a lot of sales in the United States.

GI: Is the PlayStation 2 game finished?

Igarashi: Development has closed down already, but we are still waiting for approval. We are at the final final stage. Because we are still in the process of code submission, Sony’s checking, Sony’s reporting back to us. The development team can’t visit TGS because they have to fix the bugs.

GI: So with it being pretty much finished, are you happy with how it turned out?

Igarashi: I’m happy that the product’s finished and that it went well. Although there are things I haven’t had the chance to put in so maybe we’ll get to use them on a future project.

GI: Did you see the Nintendo Revolution controller?

Igarashi: Not yet.

GI: I was hoping you were going to say yes. I’m curious to see if you would come up with something for that system.