Old School Gamer chats with Ezekiel Rage (Lead Developer) of Citadale: The Legends Trilogy, who lets us know how a love of 8-Bit action platformer on the Nintendo Entertainment System and Master System gave birth to a game that could one day end up on the Switch. Powered by its ability to be fun and a gothic art style inspired by Castlevania and a chip tune soundtrack, you have a retro, meets modern experience that doesn’t let up. Combining the original release on Wii U (Citadale: Gate of Souls) with two all-new sequels, the newest version of the game is the most complete available.
About Citadale: The Legends Trilogy:
A Dark Lord plagues the land … and only YOU can stop him. Play as Sonja Dorleac and bring an end to the forces of darkness by wielding the legendary Shadow Blade. Battle the creatures of the night with swords, axes, shurikens and more – and face off against horrific bosses. If you prove your strength, you can unlock alternate endings for the first two games in the series. A boss rush mode for the original game can also be unlocked if you get the “good†ending in first game!
Old School Gamer Magazine: How was this game born?
Ezekiel Rage: Citadale started out as a Castlevania Legends remake project – something I decided to do in order to learn the engine. Over the course of development, I ended up making it my own project instead – while still paying homage to Castlevania.
OSG: What was development like?
Rage: Very frustrating, to be honest. I had no idea how to do basic things. I also had a ton of ideas that couldn’t be put into the game because I didn’t know how! As you can imagine, I spent hours just fixing bugs I was to blame for because I didn’t learn the engine properly in the first place. And then there was this whole Wii U debacle where we accidentally released a beta with placeholder graphics on the Wii U eShop. That was the worst part of all.
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports.
Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders.
His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023.
Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief.
Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale.
Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.
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