Topic: What games would you consider "required reading" for discussing the franchise?

[Lumi Kløvstad]

For instance, it seems rather silly to try to discuss Dracula's origins in canon if you're not at the very least familiar with Lament of Innocence.

So, bearing that in mind, what would you say are the games that are required reading material to be able to confidently (but generally) discuss the Castlevania franchise? For me, Lament is a no-brainer, but I'd also say Castlevania (1986), Simon's Quest, Castlevania 3, Rondo, Symphony, and Aria of Sorrow would all make up the bare-minimum of required understanding to be able to competently engage in Castlevania canon discussions. Every game adds something to the story, of course, but I feel like these are definitely the ground shaking ones where the before and after release periods are irreconcilably different.

Lament gives us Drac's origin story.
Castlevania 3 gives us the first encounter with Dracula and a Belmont, and introduces Alucard (who's kind of a big deal round these parts).
Castlevania (1986) is the OG Castlevania, no skipping allowed.
Simon's Quest was the game that establishes Dracula can, in fact, come back.
Rondo of Blood (sorta) established that humans are the ones responsible for his return -- he doesn't (usually) just show up all "hey I'm alive again" (except when he does). It's also the first game in which we see any of Dracula's personality beyond flinging bats and fireballs at a Belmont.
Symphony of the Night, apart from being a sequel to Rondo of Blood, was our first real look at Dracula other than as a generic doomsday bad guy, as well as the forces around him. It also explains his final descent into villainy post-Lament and is the first reference to Castlevania as something more than a bunch of bricks and mortar. Among other plot developments that would all be expanded on later in other games.
Aria of Sorrow showcases Dracula's karmic redemption, and really serves as a bookend to the franchise by closing on many of the same themes that Lament opens Dracula's story on.


What do you think?

[Super Waffle]

Playing Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure for the NES is pertinent for understanding all Castlevania canon.

[theplottwist]

"Discussing the franchise" is a rather generalized term for me. To me it is very clear that people "discuss the franchise" at different levels: Either by commenting on the gameplay, either by talking of canon, either by going nuts over obscure information, etc etc. Some people also prefer they own headcanons and interpretations over official information, so this expression becomes quite tricky to define (and this is why you'll get people saying it "makes sense for Sonia to be Trevor's mother therefore fuck IGA Sonia is Trevor's mother to me". Though they are discussing franchise, you cannot have a discussion about official info with someone who refuses to acknowledge it).

If you're talking canon discussion, this is what I consider to be the bare minimum required of research for you to get the main ideas:

-Lament of Innocence
-Castlevania I/Chronicles
-Symphony of the Night
-Portrait of Ruin
-Aria of Sorrow

With these you have the origin of Dracula, the Belmont generational conflict, involvement of Dracula's son with a past Belmont and his vendetta with his father, the reason for Dracula's war on humanity, the passing of the whip to another family, and the reincarnation of Dracula after his destruction. Each of the games after Lament cover a bit of the canon info previous to these games, so you're not exactly completelly lost when someone references something previous to these games.

[zangetsu468]

I'd say in addition to plottwist' list, Harmony of Dissonance is also handy to have played. Given it touches upon the nature of Dracula's "resurrection", but that's all I'll say.

[Dracula9]

• wai-wai world
  
• kid dracula
• judgment
• the scripts for every episode of captain n that featured simon belmont

(i don't see the point in repeating the actual ones that've all been duly noted already, so here are the obvious best-story 'vania thingies that you snobby uppity canonites just don't grasp because your heads are 2far up yer asses  )

[zangetsu468]

• the scripts for every episode of captain n that featured simon belmont

This

[Lumi Kløvstad]

• wai-wai world
  
• kid dracula

Obviously. Wai Wai World is a classic.

In truth I'm astonished someone else other than me even remembers that game.

Also Kid Dracula is best prequel with much richness of historical data. Very agreed.

[TheTextGuy]

• wai-wai world
  
• kid dracula
• judgment
• the scripts for every episode of captain n that featured simon belmont

ayyy you forgot Akumajou Dracula X Peke.  The GREATEST

[Dracula9]

fuck you're right i have brought dishonor upon my house

[Shiroi Koumori]

This thread is going nowhere. lol.

Just read everything on the wiki.

[X]

"Discussing the franchise" is a rather generalized term for me. To me it is very clear that people "discuss the franchise" at different levels: Either by commenting on the gameplay, either by talking of canon, either by going nuts over obscure information, etc etc. Some people also prefer they own headcanons and interpretations over official information, so this expression becomes quite tricky to define (and this is why you'll get people saying it "makes sense for Sonia to be Trevor's mother therefore fuck IGA Sonia is Trevor's mother to me". Though they are discussing franchise, you cannot have a discussion about official info with someone who refuses to acknowledge it).

Pretty much this. There are so many fans out there that have their own headcanon regarding the series one must be precise with his/her inquiry.

[Guy Belmont]

(and this is why you'll get people saying it "makes sense for Sonia to be Trevor's mother therefore fuck IGA Sonia is Trevor's mother to me".

Yeah I always hated that whole the Belmont's being linked to Dracula, and that would give Trevor some vampire blood. I don't know why people always do that,  its sooo over used, and the point of the Belmont's are meant to be ultimate Light,

and it really takes away from Alucard as he is the light of the darkness. But if you just slap Trevor with the same brush it just takes something away from the whole story, so I can see why IGA got rid of Legends as a game, but I do wish he just put Sonia some where else  in the timeline.

For instance, it seems rather silly to try to discuss Dracula's origins in canon if you're not at the very least familiar with Lament of Innocence.

So, bearing that in mind, what would you say are the games that are required reading material to be able to confidently (but generally) discuss the Castlevania franchise? For me, Lament is a no-brainer, but I'd also say Castlevania (1986), Simon's Quest, Castlevania 3, Rondo, Symphony, and Aria of Sorrow would all make up the bare-minimum of required understanding to be able to competently engage in Castlevania canon discussions. Every game adds something to the story, of course, but I feel like these are definitely the ground shaking ones where the before and after release periods are irreconcilably different.

Lament gives us Drac's origin story.
Castlevania 3 gives us the first encounter with Dracula and a Belmont, and introduces Alucard (who's kind of a big deal round these parts).
Castlevania (1986) is the OG Castlevania, no skipping allowed.
Simon's Quest was the game that establishes Dracula can, in fact, come back.
Rondo of Blood (sorta) established that humans are the ones responsible for his return -- he doesn't (usually) just show up all "hey I'm alive again" (except when he does). It's also the first game in which we see any of Dracula's personality beyond flinging bats and fireballs at a Belmont.
Symphony of the Night, apart from being a sequel to Rondo of Blood, was our first real look at Dracula other than as a generic doomsday bad guy, as well as the forces around him. It also explains his final descent into villainy post-Lament and is the first reference to Castlevania as something more than a bunch of bricks and mortar. Among other plot developments that would all be expanded on later in other games.
Aria of Sorrow showcases Dracula's karmic redemption, and really serves as a bookend to the franchise by closing on many of the same themes that Lament opens Dracula's story on.


What do you think?

On this yes it is there are many ways to interpret the franchise, and in my Esperance its often a mix of official stuff and the player's head canon.  and it may be just me, but CV seem to be one of the few franchise that fans often refer to there own head canon instead of the Official canon.

But some would say what is the real official canon?

As there was an early canon and as lose as it was, some parts of it seemed to be carried on in to other games. so again some would say that IGA  changed, refined and made  things fit better.

And one of the many things he did was give both Dracula and Alucard  new back story's.

Dracula who was a pure evil cultist who sold his own sons soul for MORE power,

Became a grief stricken man who's life was ruined, and wanted to make the world pay.

And Alucard went from a man who's  was made in to a vampire by his fathers greed thus  he wanted to stop his fathers evil acts.  To upholding his mothers final wish.

So I think that's why the Cv  Fans  often  make there own head canon, cos some like the idea the count being pure evil from the start no hit of love or humanity,

but some love seeing him as  a Tortured soul.  who was once a good man.
same with Alucard, but I have to say that I think IGA's story works a lot better for him, but I find it hard to choose when it comes to the Dracula

Soo I think it really depends on what cannon  your taking about.

But this really has been an interesting and thought provoking topic.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

On this yes it is there are many ways to interpret the franchise, and in my Esperance its often a mix of official stuff and the player's head canon.  and it may be just me, but CV seem to be one of the few franchise that fans often refer to there own head canon instead of the Official canon.
...
So I think that's why the Cv  Fans  often  make there own head canon, cos some like the idea the count being pure evil from the start no hit of love or humanity,

A big part of this is that the mere existence of the official timeline, which was never intended to be made publicly available as goes the story, is incredibly divisive among several large groups of fans. The fandom has never been particularly united about how we feel about it, and probably never will be. Iga, for his part, later said that making a unified timeline was one of the biggest mistakes he feels he'd made during his time as steward of the timeline. Another issue is that Castlevania explains the specifics of its lore rather exceedingly badly. There's a lot of "it's all there in the manual" making it so that the games alone are no longer the sole purveyors of important plot points; in order to fully understand WTF is going on, you've got to trek around a lot across virtually every creative medium in the modern world. There's novels, CD audio dramas, soundtrack liner notes, manuals and beyond -- all of them adding their pieces to the vast puzzle. Past all of that, several key plot elements are inexorably tied up in cultural understandings unique to the Japanese people, which shuts out American fans and European ones by default. It's very complex and difficult to keep track of, though it is admittedly not as bad as a few other series. In my experience, it's the single most divisive part of the fandom, and I've been on both sides in the past.

Personally, while I no longer insist on merely my own headcanon, I do make a conscious decision to disregard anything that is not said in the games themselves -- there's just too much work for me in pursuing the full picture anymore: too many sources and not enough hours in the day (and frankly, I don't really care that much anymore about the nitty gritty of the canon). But, the nebulous and blocky appearance of the lore (at least for anyone not familiar with the extravideogame sources) also leads to a lot of attempting to fill in badly explained plot holes (that don't really exist) through personal interpretation; not that the official sources do a much better job of explaining things competently. There's a lot of bad writers who have worked in this franchise. So, sometimes the fans actually come up with alternate explanations that honestly make more/easier sense.

This is par for the course for a 30 year old franchise with dozens of games and a decidedly late-to-the-party attempt at trying to tie everything together.

Castlevania in the early days was a lot more like George Miller's Mad Max series -- it was treated more like a collection of folk tales that all revolved around a common character (Dracula and the varying generations of Belmonts who opposed him) that largely lined up but had several moments of notable inconsistencies because the focus was on the individual stories rather than how they fit together (and possibly numerous or unreliable narrators, in a sense, much like folklore tends to be). Iga's attempt to make a unified timeline flipped the formula on its head, and suddenly these pieces that were not necessarily meant to fit perfectly together suddenly had to, which resulted in a confusing mess of retcons and unexpected "revelations". While we mostly have this mess finally sorted, it took almost 15 years to do it and there are sizable factions within the fandom that either passively or actively hate the finished result.

As I always say regarding video games: "Do what brings you fun. If you're not having fun, do something that is." But even if you don't ascribe to every detail of the official canon (I still don't), one should definitely try to be familiar with the major storytelling beats and major events, because there are some events in the timeline that no matter your perspective are as objective as things can get in a fictional series. By all means, there's tons of little stuff you can choose to ignore, but the big stuff? That pretty much has to be agreed on.

Hammering out what those major events are is essentially the intended purpose of this thread.

[X]

Yeah I always hated that whole the Belmont's being linked to Dracula, and that would give Trevor some vampire blood. I don't know why people always do that,  its sooo over used, and the point of the Belmont's are meant to be ultimate Light,

IGA kind of did the same thing with the Vampirekiller whip. Before his idea was implemented I always thought it a holy weapon that only a Belmont could use due to their mystic properties of their blood. Now we have an alchemical weapon that isn't quite so holy as it houses a tainted soul. To me that's no different then Trevor Belmont being 1/3 vampire. Others will no doubt see things differently then I and that's fine. Each to his/her own.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

IGA kind of did the same thing with the Vampirekiller whip. Before his idea was implemented I always thought it a holy weapon that only a Belmont could use due to their mystic properties of their blood. Now we have an alchemical weapon that isn't quite so holy as it houses a tainted soul. To me that's no different then Trevor Belmont being 1/3 vampire. Others will no doubt see things differently then I and that's fine. Each to his/her own.

It actually makes more sense to me than "Belmonts can kill Drac because they are related to Drac". Consider that the tainted soul in question is Sara Trantoul's, and hers was only "tainted" in a semantics sense because she was bitten by Walter -- Sara herself was amazingly pure, noble-hearted, and seems to have been a very pious Christian woman. She chose to sacrifice herself so that her beloved could spare others from her own fate. Biologically tainted by the mark of the vampire, absolutely. But she allowed herself to die before the "rot" could affect her actions, so I can't say her soul was really tainted. I think it is in fact, if not Biblical, at least something that speaks of the best of her values and beliefs. That's why the whip seems to "hate" vampires in particular, and this also seems to tie into its ability to retain a memory of its last heir (or at least that's what I inferred from what is presented in the games).

So I think it's actually VERY different than the Belmonts being related to their enemy.