Topic: Do you think Castlevania is dead?

[Nagumo]

From what I gathered from my research, as DragonSlayr81 said, the original progenitor Belmont was Christopher. A couple of months later we got Ralph from CV3/Akumajo Densetsu who was orginally conceived to be same character as Christopher (see this thread for more info). Later during the development of SotN, IGA created the official timeline for the series and he decided to split Ralph/Christopher into two seperate people, making Ralph the first one who killed Dracula and Christopher his descendant, who was in turn Simon's great-grandfather.

A couple of months after SotN got released in Japan, we learn about yet another progenitor Belmont character named Sonia in Konami's official magazine which has coverage about Legends and its story. The same issue also took the opportunity to publish the timeline IGA developed, which before that point had been for internal reference only. The timeline places her before Ralph, sometime during the 1400's. However, things changed pretty quickly afterwards, as the very next issue has a small note which states the timeline from the previous volume was "developed specifically for SotN" and is "unrelated to Legends".

The following is my speculation, as I don't have enough evidence for this claim, but my personal theory is that Legends was not developed with any of the other games in mind. I think it was supposed to be a different "world" from the one that IGA created. Therefore, I don't think Sonia was ever meant to be Trevor/Ralph's mother. So I suppose when IGA became producer, he took the opportunity to fix this mistake. Six years later, we got Leon, Trevor's ancestor in IGA's world.

...and I suppose this is all completely unrelated to the point I'm trying to make. The bottom line is that in both the original CV3/Akumajo Densetsu and IGA's official timeline which assimilated the events of that game, it has always been clear that Trevor was the one who defeated Dracula first.

This is so complicated to explain, I doubt anyone fully understood what I just wrote, haha. 

But as I understand, Legends' backstory had some contradictory elements to what IGA wanted to keep sacred within the official canon. Dracula being Vlad Tepes was one thing, the bigger issue being Alucard's bloodline corrupting the Belmont bloodline that conflicted with LOI's story about their bloodline being pure. Otherwise the VK (with Sara's tainted soul) would have rejected another tainted soul. I wonder if IGA ever thought about keeping Legends but retconning the inference Trevor was Alucard's child.

This is actually quite amusing, as there's an interview from one of the SotN guides where in IGA's headcanon, the reason why Alucard can use both holy and dark weapons is because he inherited the ability to use dark powers from Dracula and the ability to use holy powers from Lisa, who he considers to be from a holy bloodline. It's the exact same situation as Trevor being Alucard and Sonia's child. Except everybody always took issue with it because of the bit described above. It goes to show that we fans don't really have any idea what we're talking about, despite claiming to be experts.   

[X]

But as I understand, Legends' backstory had some contradictory elements to what IGA wanted to keep sacred within the official canon. Dracula being Vlad Tepes was one thing, the bigger issue being Alucard's bloodline corrupting the Belmont bloodline that conflicted with LOI's story about their bloodline being pure. Otherwise the VK (with Sara's tainted soul) would have rejected another tainted soul. I wonder if IGA ever thought about keeping Legends but retconning the inference Trevor was Alucard's child.

In the original Japanese story of Legends Sonia and Alucard never had a child together nor were they lovers. That was all konami of america. Sonia was already pregnant with Trevor by someone else entirely. It's unfortunate that we didn't get the Japanese story as that would made things more clear and less contradicting. And it still could have worked too but IGA wanted to do his own thing.

[Nagumo]

Actually they were lovers, and the child is almost certainly Alucard's. The localisation of Legends was actually very good, except a few omitted details from the manual. However, trying to connect Legends with the other games is missing the point a little bit, as such connections may never have intented, despite how things played out (see my previous post).

[Belmontoya]

If they didn't intend for it to be connected why would they bother to use a character like Alucard at all? And why have them birth another cannon character such a Trevor?

I'm not buying the "it was never meant to be connected" theory. It just doesn't make sense when it is full of connected characters and clearly attempts to make a further back origin story.

[GuyStarwind]

*walks in* Alucard being Trevor's father is a dumb idea. *walks out*

[X]

*walks in* Alucard being Trevor's father is a dumb idea. *walks out*

LOL!

[Shinobi]

Richter's words to annette is somewhat connected to "Alucard being related with the Belmonts" when he said Dracula's blood is calling for Richter and Dracula feels the same way to as well, that's my opinion.

[Nagumo]

If they didn't intend for it to be connected why would they bother to use a character like Alucard at all? And why have them birth another cannon character such a Trevor?

I'm not buying the "it was never meant to be connected" theory. It just doesn't make sense when it is full of connected characters and clearly attempts to make a further back origin story.

I don't have any solid evidence, but I could imagine they wanted to use Alucard just because SotN made him increasingly popular (Legends was released around 7 months after SotN). Seems like an easy way to get people to buy the game. Also, keep in mind that their no official material that every confirmed the identity of Sonia's child. The theory that it's Trevor is fanon. And I understand that if Legends was indeed in the same world as the rest of the games such as CV3 and SotN it obviously makes sense to assume as such, but I'm talking about the original intent of the developers.

The thing is that Legends' plot in relation to CV3's is just bizarre. The most noteable think I can think of is Alucard going to sleep which parallels the sleep he went into inbetween CV3 and SotN, except the timing of it is wrong. Secondly, if you look at the manual and intro of CV3 (from the Japanese version, not the American/European versions) you can see the plot is written in such a way that actively discourages earlier events from taking place. Also, Legends also outright copies story elements from CV3 such Alucard looking for a companion to defeat Dracula with, Dracula as Vlad Tepes making a demonic pact in order to become a vampire, etc.

It's more like Legends tries to overwrite CV3 instead of being a prequel to it. I also considered the possibility that Legends was intented to replace CV3 somehow, but that doesn't make sense as Trevor is firmly established as a character in SotN, being mentioned several times. Hence, I got to the conclusion that it was supposed to be an alternate storyline of some sort. The inconsistenties are too deliberate to be mere oversights as a result of the developers not caring, and Castlevania didn't have any consistent storyline at the time until SotN came along and changed that. This would be something interesting for the director to clarify in an interview.           

[jestercolony]

This whole discussion is like the old debate that Han shot first.

Naw really. The whole concept of Alucard being Trevor's father is kinda strange. Atleast imo. I honestly don't remember the concept between Trevor (Ralph) or Christopher being the same exact character but then, as stated was later split into two different people? This is new to me and I've had an eye on the series since I was a whee lad. Or maybe I'm just reading it all wrong? o.o

[X]

I honestly don't remember the concept between Trevor (Ralph) or Christopher being the same exact character but then, as stated was later split into two different people? This is new to me and I've had an eye on the series since I was a whee lad. Or maybe I'm just reading it all wrong? o.o

I've been with the series since CV II and I didn't know this either until it was brought up in an earlier thread, lol.

[DragonSlayr81]

I don't have any solid evidence, but I could imagine they wanted to use Alucard just because SotN made him increasingly popular (Legends was released around 7 months after SotN). Seems like an easy way to get people to buy the game.

The "solid evidence" takes the form of the fact that they chose to use SotN's artwork of Dracula and Alucard as the basis for their Legends designs. Alucard only ever appears like that again in DoS's Julius mode, and Dracula NEVER uses that design again in the series(each additional design differs). Note that I only mean within installments meant to be "main series canon" or were designed to be in the canon(which I'm sure some of the non-IGA canon games were created to be), not spinoffs games like Harmony of Dispair. The only other exception would be CotM's Dracula, which still uses concepts in style from the SotN Dracula, but is not as "overly obvious" as Legends's take(which is basically just a more "anime-ized" version of Ayame Kojima's work). Still, like Legends, I do believe CotM(which was the NEXT "Metroidvania"), pulled a LOT of inspiration from SotN. At the time, I think SotN was to Castlevania as what Final Fantasy VII was to JRPGs(after FFVII, not just with FF, but we saw an influx of spikey haired protags and the whole over accessorizing of belts and zippers, which really wasn't a thing in older JRPGs).

[beingthehero]

and Dracula NEVER uses that design again in the series

?

[KaZudra]

?

Which brings the real question, Does anyone else believe that Curse of Darkness started out to be a 3D SoTN or but scrapped the idea and made Alucard into Hector along with a few other changes somewhere in development?
because alot of elements used in that game are pretty uncanny

[X]

That could have been IGA's mistake right there. He obviously was still riding the SotN train when CoD was produced since it has so many similarities. In my mind he should not have bothered with it. And if it is the case that CoD was originally SotN 3D then it's clear that re-making it its own game and story was a very poor idea. It should not have been attempted in the first place. Rather he should have concentrated all his creative energies in to the 1999 game.

[beingthehero]

Pretty sure Curse didn't start out as a SotN remake, but X-kun is probably on to something where it was meant to be more akin to a SotN-style game. Some of the common complaints about Lament at the time was that it deviated too much from the SotN-style gameplay and interface, with the limited weaponry and the odd real-time menu. So Curse remedied some of that. It -is- more convenient than Lament in that regard.

Also Hector was originally supposed to be able to wield two weapons at once, like SotN and OoE:



Anyways Curse is a guilty pleasure of mine. It's very cathartic to just mow your way through all the enemies and beating the everliving shit out of the stronger ones. I just wish the game was as dark as the artwork and hype suggested, and Hector a bit more of anti-hero. As it is, he immediately comes across as "good", whereas all the materials leading up the game suggested that he was going to be more "dark grey" in terms of morality.

I guess I should also wish the levels were actually interesting in terms of layout.