Developer Round Table

"Castle of Shikigami 2 was an arcade game released by Alfa System in 2003 as the second title in the Castle of Shikigami series. The vertical scrolling shooter gained popularity for its well-crafted gameplay mechanics and characters, and is still popular to this day."

The release of Castle of Shikigami 2 on the Nintendo Switch and PC (Steam) has been officially announced, although the release date and price are yet to be revealed. In this interview, we’ll be having a roundtable discussion with some of those involved with the port about its original development and any behind-the-scenes stories from this time around. Here’s what four members of the team that worked on Castle of Shikigami have to share.

Naoki Suda

Works for Alfa System and was the director of the original version of Castle of Shikigami 2. He is also involved in the porting of the game for its upcoming release.

Shigeyuki Teruyama

Advisor to Cosmo Machia. He is the planner and producer of the upcoming Castle of Shikigami 2 port.

Akihiko Eiki

Works for Cosmo Machia. He is the director of the upcoming Castle of Shikigami 2 port.

James Wragg

Works freelance. He was the publishing director for Castle of Shikigami, but is not directly involved in the porting of Castle of Shikigami 2.

Castle of Shikigami 2, a response to fan requests

――First off, can you tell us about how Castle of Shikigami 2 came to be ported over to the Nintendo Switch and PC?

James: I guess it would be good to first bring up the PC (Steam) port of the original Castle of Shikigami game. I’m doing freelance now, but I used to work for a company known for helping Steam get set up in Japan called Degica. At Degica, we handled the sales of a certain company’s shoot ’em up games. Around that time was when I happened to connect with Mr. Teruyama, and that led to talks about releasing Castle of Shikigami on Steam.

Teruyama: Yes, a certain company well-known for their shoot ‘em up games introduced me to James, which got the ball rolling on the idea. I then went to negotiate with Mr. Suda on the premise that we’d develop it at Cosmo Machia, and since we’d known each other personally for a long time, he immediately agreed.

Suda: Right, that’s how it went with Castle of Shikigami. So we figured that since the first game was ported that we should also do the same for Castle of Shikigami 2, because people had been voicing a desire for a port of it too. This came about in particular with the release of a shooting game in 2020 called “Sisters Royale: Five Sisters Under Fire.” That title was labeled as a spiritual successor to Castle of Shikigami in terms of gameplay mechanics, and we received comments from people basically saying that it was great but that they wanted to play Castle of Shikigami 2 as well.

James: And this time, Castle of Shikigami 2 is getting released not only on PC, but also on the Nintendo Switch. As it turns out, there are many fans who want to play the game on a home video game console.

――Is it difficult developing both PC and Switch versions at the same time?

Eiki: In a sense it’s not too difficult since the game isn’t a remake or a remaster; we just ported over the source code and implemented it. Of course that’s not to say that there weren’t some challenges. Incorporating additional