Following the revelation of Alfa System and Arc System Works’s Castle of Shikigami 3 coming to Nintendo’s Wii in the US in Spring of this year, courtesy of publishing outfit Aksys Games, the idea of a potential DS shooter has been broached, as well as discussion of the Wii game in a recent interview.

UK website Cubed³ recently got the chance to quiz the team behind the Wii shmup ‘Castle of Shikigami 3′, which has only just been released over in Japan alongside the Xbox 360 edition. Talking via the translation skills of Michael Manzanares, Associate Producer at Aksys Games, the higher ups over at both Alfa System and Arc System Works stated that due to the popularity of the arcade game, it seemed natural to expand the audience even more by bringing it to both home consoles, with the process taking around a year to complete, with the Wii game taking slightly longer than the 360 version, since Microsoft’s platform was able to mimic the arcade hardware better than Wii. However, “Wii handles Shikigami no Shiro [ Castle of Shikigami 3 ] quite well, so there really aren’t any weaknesses to speak of during development.”

For those that have not heard of the series, the shooter débuted in “Japanese arcades back in 2001 and blended the elements of a bullet hell shooter with a character-driven story. The continued popularity of the game spawned a number of comic books, novels and merchandise in Japan. This new version sees each of the game’s characters have their own unique rapid-fire shots, a Shikigami Attack and a Special Attack, as well as their Hi-Tension Max ability. Because of the differences in character’s shots, this adds a great aspect of strategy to the proceedings, since one particular character may not necessarily work as well as another, all depending on the situation.

Rather than merely tack on pointless Wii motion controls, the development team decided to leave them out as there was really no particular need to include them for this project, especially given how manic the game can get, which could possibly have led to accuracy issues with the motion sensing. There are some key differences between the Xbox 360 and Wii versions, sadly, with the 360 having higher resolutions, an online leaderboard and downloadable content like themes and gamer pictures, whilst the Wii has none of those features. On the good news front, however, the developer is fully aware of fans in PAL territories, so it is trying its best to ensure the game gets a release over there. Also, for traditionalists there is the option of controlling the game using either the GameCube pad or Classic Controller.

Finally, when the topic of the Nintendo DS was brought up and talk of whether or not a portable shooter is on the cards given how that genre’s showing in the DS market is basically empty, bar Shin’en’s Nanostray, the response was certainly a positive one, with the team stating “We have no definite plans at the moment, but since there are very few games similar to this one on the DS, I think that it will be well worth it to develop such a game. In addition, if we can produce a shooting game on the DS with quality like Nanostray, I think the development team will enjoy doing so in the process.”

The full interview on Cubed³ can be read here.

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