Topic: "The Dragon Returns" - Castlevania Lords of Shadow Sequel (HERE BE SPOILER INFO)

[Ahasverus]

Well following this logic, every Castlevania game undermines the previous one then, because every Belmont's struggle was for nothing.

That's why the old timeline was so terrible. It had no direction, no goal, no character arc, nothing, it was the same thing over and over again randomly put in time. That's where my fondness of the separation of universes come from.

[Melanicus]

As far as Mercurystream is concerned, who knows. Gabriel actually calls himself Dracul not Dracula, but every where else in the game refers to him as Dracula. I wonder why that is.

Cox explained it once as something like this: "The Dragon" is supposed to be the ultimate evil, which Gabriel views himself as. Others view Satan as the ultimate evil, and Gabriel as a lesser one. I think "Dracula" fits because Gabriel-as-Dracula is in a metaphorical sense the son of Satan--he became what he became because of Satan and his machinations.

[Flame]

Not everyone knows that Dracul means dragon and that Dracula means son of the dragon in Romanian. I just learned that a year or so ago. Perhaps IGA didn't know that when he came up with the Mathias thing. Or, he didn't care. After all, story always came second to gameplay for IGA. I remember he admitted it at least once.

As far as Mercurystream is concerned, who knows. Gabriel actually calls himself Dracul not Dracula, but every where else in the game refers to him as Dracula. I wonder why that is.

think about it. To normal people, who is the Dragon? Satan. Gabe is almost as bad as Satan. So he gets called Son of the Dragon. IOW, son of the devil.

Gabe meanwhile, considers himself the dragon, the prince of darkness, since he defeated Satan 1 on 1.

[Slit_Zurifa]

Do you think that Satan will transform during the fight this time around? Or do ou think he will remain "human"?
If not, what do you believe will he look like in his transformed form? Will he be a dragon or more like a huge demon?

[darkwzrd4]

Let's just hope that if Satan is in "human form", this time he'll wear some clothes. Maybe he be in human form and when we beat him, we'll get a cutscene in which both he and Gabriel transform into dragons and do battle as such. Hell, if that happens perhaps we will get an all QTE battle as a dragon (which we'll not like much because we hate QTEs so much) against Satan as a dragon (I would simply prefer a cutscene).

[crisis]

Mortal Kombat Annihilation Final Battle HD 1080p Part 2

[darkwzrd4]

Well, I was thinking on a grander and more epic scale. Skyscrapers falling. streets getting torn up. humans trying to get away yet getting slaughtered. Etc.

That scene from Mortal Kombat Annihilation was crap (just like the rest of that movie).

[DragonSlayr81]

because there was no father. It's a problem wothj classic Dracula when he became mathias. If he's the SON of the Dragon, who's the dragon?

The "Dragon", as far as Mathias was concerned, was the "Opposer of God", the Devil. IGA said he renamed himself specifically for that reason, saying Dracula's name to mean specifically "Son of the Devil" rather than "Son of the Dragon". Though the name as taken up both titles as far as history's concerned. And if you want to apply the "Son of the Dragon" title, with liberties, you can say that Walter Bernhard was the "Dragon"(his armor and his lair, Pagoda of the Misty Moon, has some dragon motif). Mathias literally becomes Walter's successor, thus becomes the "Son of the Dragon".

That's why the old timeline was so terrible. It had no direction, no goal, no character arc, nothing, it was the same thing over and over again randomly put in time. That's where my fondness of the separation of universes come from.

I don't see it as that. The repetition is not unlike other game series at the time. Evil always returns, which I always felt is symbolic. The Belmont's struggles is not for nothing. IF you want to look deeper into it, with Dracula representing the evils of man, it's a proper representation of the history of man. Fighting the good fight. There will always be evil in the world. There will always be hatred, murdering, tyranny, terrorism and violence, and when it gets out of control, there will always be those who stand up to quash it with hopes of restoring what little peace we once had, for how long or little we can retain it. That state of peace, if even if the dark forces of life rear their ugly heads again, is worth the fight, each and every time. It's the unending struggle. In CV, it eventually DOES end, but the road from it's proposed start to finish repeats. Evil ushers Dracula into the world, the heroes have to make their stand to stop his dark reign each and every time. No threat is minimal(at least IMO). All are world threatening and must be dealt with accordingly.

[EstebanT]

Do you think that Satan will transform during the fight this time around? Or do ou think he will remain "human"?
If not, what do you believe will he look like in his transformed form? Will he be a dragon or more like a huge demon?

Well... I have an idea

(click to show/hide)

If you pay attention in Lords of Shadow and Mirror of Fate, you will notice that alot of the statues and decoration continuously use a monster with twisted horns on his head then another set going downwards. I believe this will be satans true form... forgive the shitty quality of these images..




There are way more in the game, but I dont remember where. If that doesn't convince you... here is what his lifebar emblem looks like....

[Darkweaver]

I was hoping for more with the final battle in LoS.  I hope this time he does have a monstrous form.  I know it's cliched in video games but I love big boss battles.

[DragonSlayr81]

I was hoping for more with the final battle in LoS.  I hope this time he does have a monstrous form.  I know it's cliched in video games but I love big boss battles.

Screw the hate regarding cliche final boss transformations. I'm a sap for that kind of thing. It's kinda why I prefer some of the earlier Tales games. The big monstrous transformation into demi-god demons. Some of the remakes of, say Tales of Phantasia and Destiny completely redid the final battles and nixed the transformation and kept there more human forms. Even some of the more modern Tales games feature non-transformed human-like final bosses. Yawn!! Give me over-the-top demonic/angelic/mutant/alien transformations!!!! Keep 'em coming!!

[crisis]

One of the most memorable final boss fights is Mundus from Devil May Cry 1

• It's been so long since I've played it, but from what I can recall it was pretty damn epic and no other final boss from the rest of the series has topped it imo

To be honest, Menace from Dawn of Sorrow could've been epic if

it utilized both the DS screens, he was certainly huge enough
had more ranged deadlier attacks
overall more difficulty
among other factors that could've made it a better fight. Excellent design, though

[Ahasverus]

.

Oh come on, that's the dept YOU give to it, the games never hinted at something like that, even Dracula is kinda amnesiac, pathetic, he's not consistent, the Belmonts are complete cardboard cuts, the closest the old series got to an emotional story was Ecclesia.
It was always "hurr bad guy durr good guy hurr oh noes this friend betrays me durrdurr die monster durrdurr why did I fail again doing eaxactly the same as the last 100 years hurrdurr evil never wins".
As i've always said, the old storyline means something due to the stuff we filled with our own imaginations, our own headcannon. The original one is terrible.

[The Puritan]

Screw the hate regarding cliche final boss transformations. I'm a sap for that kind of thing. It's kinda why I prefer some of the earlier Tales games. The big monstrous transformation into demi-god demons. Some of the remakes of, say Tales of Phantasia and Destiny completely redid the final battles and nixed the transformation and kept there more human forms. Even some of the more modern Tales games feature non-transformed human-like final bosses. Yawn!! Give me over-the-top demonic/angelic/mutant/alien transformations!!!! Keep 'em coming!!

You must've loved Drac's SOTN and HOD final forms then. I know I did.

[Munchy]

As i've always said, the old storyline means something due to the stuff we filled with our own imaginations

You mean... we'd have to think for ourselves!? That everything isn't cut and dry? Fuck that noise!

...Srsly tho, I actually like some gaps that don't have an easy explanation. Sure, sometimes (okay, a lot of the time) it's due to incompetence or someone trying to pick up where someone else left off, not really knowing their original intentions, but the mystery is often half the fun.

For example, it used to drive me crazy that there was no explicit ties between the Mega Man Original and X series. But Keiji Inafune gave some insight on this that made me rethink my view of it:

"I get a lot of people asking me if Serges is Wily. I always give them the same answer, 'He might be... he might not be.' (laughs) I think this is one of those things that is best left without an official comment. As creators, one of the fun things we get to do is plant seeds of imagination in our players and let them come to their own conclusions."

This is also why the idea of an official Zelda timeline doesn't really interest me. The insane theories that people come up with about certain symbols are amazing sometimes, ie The Message Behind Majora's Mask:

http://www.zeldauniverse.net/articles/the-message-of-majoras-mask/

Maybe it's just because I was an English lit major, but I've become increasingly fond of things that require you to come up with an explanation rather than just handing it to you.

And all of this stuff is why I cringe at origin stories, such as Lament of Innocence. It's a great game, but I honestly never really wanted to know where Dracula "came from".