Castlevania on 3DS "quite a challenge" but "remarkable"

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate developer MercurySteam has nothing but praise for the 3DS despite the difficulties of tackling a whole new platform.

"It was quite a challenge to create new technology. The Mercury Engine, which is the core technology we have, wasn't ready for 3DS before going into development. So we created it," MercurySteam's Enric Alvarez told ONM UK.

"It was challenging because the console is very special, it is very powerful and on top of that it has the stereoscopic capabilities and the two cameras."

Alvarez said developers have to be careful where the cameras are positioned, and that a 2.5D game raises very specific issues thanks to its fixed camera, like views beyond open windows.

"So I think that it's a very interesting experience. It's taken a lot of time to develop, but we've managed something remarkable on 3DS," he said.

"It was a challenge, but we always say at MercurySteam that we're not afraid of technology, what we're afraid of is what we do with that technology. How we make it worthwhile to the players."

Konami producer David Cox said he and MercurySteam wanted to do a handheld game and chose the 3DS because of its stereoscopic capacity, which lends itself to "layers and layers" of 3D.

"And once we got hold of the hardware, we realised what we could do with it. We essentially built an engine from the ground up for the 3DS, we felt that this was the right format," he said, adding: "Traditionally Castlevania has always appeared on Nintendo formats and that appealed to us as fans of the classic."

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate arrives exclusively on 3DS in 2013.