Castlevania Dungeon Forums
The Castlevania Dungeon Forums => General Castlevania Discussion => Classic Castlevania Threads => Topic started by: Thomas Belmont on February 18, 2013, 11:17:38 AM
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Did anybody at Konami ever give a reason on why Super Castlevania IV was made as a remake instead of a sequel? It could easily have been a new Belmont fighting a newly resurrected Dracula. All it had to do was state it in the intro story.
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Maybe it would be cheesy since Dracula only rises once every century, but already have risen 2 times (CV1 and CV2). A third time would turn this legend in a joke.
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Maybe it would be cheesy since Dracula only rises once every century, but already have risen 2 times (CV1 and CV2). A third time would turn this legend in a joke.
But what I'm saying is that part IV could have taken place 100 years after part 1 or 2.
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I have a theory that Super Castlevania IV was meant to be a mini-reboot of the storyline or a one-shot AU story featuring a different incarnation of Simon.
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Perhaps they thought it was "safer" to do a remake, but alas we'll never know for sure.
I think the programmers were just huge fans of CV1 and wanted to do another homage of sorts.
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Maybe it would be cheesy since Dracula only rises once every century, but already have risen 2 times (CV1 and CV2). A third time would turn this legend in a joke.
THIS
Castlevania Simon's Quest (http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/85225)
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THIS
Castlevania Simon's Quest (http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/85225)
That was great. My question is: If CV4 is a remake of the first game, why does it say in the intro that ONCE AGAIN Simon is going to fight Dracula (well at least it does in the US version)?
All things considered, SCV4 is the best classicvania to this day. Level design was great. Controls were nice. Difficulty was very fair (the game got harder as you progressed, but was never unfair).
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That was great. My question is: If CV4 is a remake of the first game, why does it say in the intro that ONCE AGAIN Simon is going to fight Dracula (well at least it does in the US version)?
Its not in the original JP version, they tried to make it a sequel in US changing this.
Mooning Freddy- lol
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To this day I still see Super Castlevania IV as THE sequel to Castlevania II. The SCV 4 intro tombstone is virtually identical to the CV II best ending sequence. Simon is freed from the curse that plagued him and now that he has his strength back he's ready and ripped to face the count once more. Plus Slogra and Gaibon were introduced in SCV IV and have been are very popular boss characters onward.
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Simon Belmont was a very popular game character back in those days, so the devs likely wanted to make a game pitting him against Count Dracula, but they realized it would be silly for Simon to keep fighting a guy that supposedly only rises once every 100 years again and again.
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I admit that they could simple give a excuse that Dracula isn't really dead (like in CV: Adventure), but so no one would take seriously that blab about "every century".
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You know, they could also have called him Simon Belmont VII. Or say that the protagonist was named after Simon Belmont or whatever. So, I think that argument is a little weak.
To expand on why I think Castlevania IV was meant to be a reboot, when the game was a released, a guidebook was released called "All About Akumajo Dracula". It's a very interesting guidebook because it expands on the storyline of the game and pretty much ignores the games that came before it. For example, the guidebook says that the Belmont Clan is not an actual family, but a clan of Dhampirs.
Secondly, when I had that talk with IGA he told me he considers Castlevania IV to be an alternate continuity. So, I think the common assumption that this game is a "remake" is false. The only game that has been confirmed to be a remake (in the loose sense of the word) is Akumajo Dracula X68000, and even that game is described as a "rearrangement" of the original game.
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For example, the guidebook says that the Belmont Clan is not an actual family, but a clan of Dhampirs.
They are drunk? lol
I mean, if atleast they I've already launched CV Legends this can be plausible, but writing that from the blue is like saying that they are a clan of aliens, or robots, or mutants and so on.
I agree with you that they could change the name of the char and year of the game, but thats 2 changes needed, which is a great hint that they ever planned to this game doesnt be a sequel.
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They are drunk? lol
I mean, if atleast they I've already launched CV Legends this can be plausible, but writing that from the blue is like saying that they are a clan of aliens, or robots, or mutants and so on.
I think it's a really cool and unique take on the Castlevania mythos. I think the reason they are Dhampirs is because according to legends Dhampirs are naturally born vampire hunters.
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Well, thats new to me, but now that you've mentioned that it seems natural, like in Blade from Marvel lol
But I still feel that odd to put the idea in a random guide but doesnt use the idea in a game.
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To expand on why I think Castlevania IV was meant to be a reboot, when the game was a released, a guidebook was released called "All About Akumajo Dracula". It's a very interesting guidebook because it expands on the storyline of the game and pretty much ignores the games that came before it. For example, the guidebook says that the Belmont Clan is not an actual family, but a clan of Dhampirs.
It is the guidebook author's fiction Akumanochi-chinoakumu prototype and is not an KONAMI official opinion.
http://castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:All_About_Akumajo_Dracula (http://castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:All_About_Akumajo_Dracula)
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Haha, it seems that she already knew that. :p
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It is the guidebook author's fiction Akumanochi-chinoakumu prototype and is not an KONAMI official opinion.
http://castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:All_About_Akumajo_Dracula (http://castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:All_About_Akumajo_Dracula)
Yes, but I've been thinking, this book serves as a prototype for the author's novel, but technically the guidebook and the novel are different. Also, although the guidebook contains a lot of original inventions by the author, I think the author wouldn't have been allowed to put this information in the guidebook if it wasn't approved by Konami.
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Back when I first played this it never occurred to me that it was anything but a direct sequel to Simon's Quest. This is mainly due to how closely the ending of Simon's Quest matched up to the intro of SCVIV.
The "best" ending to Simon's Quest (which you would think means is the "true" ending since its the hardest to achieve) is the view of the grave, followed by Dracula's hand coming up out of it, implying that he's not dead and Simon hasn't heard the last of him. Then the third game in the NES trilogy was the Trevor prequel that had nothing to do with Simon, and the GB games from that time also featured a different Belmont that had nothing to do with Simon. So there was basically no real closure to Simon's story (especially when you consider the incredibly anticlimactic final boss fight in Simon's Quest).
Now you have Super Castlevania IV, which opens with the almost identical grave that we last saw Dracula's hand come up out of, and its struck by lightening and we are then informed that Dracula has risen and "once again" Simon would challenge him. I get it that the intro also told us "it has been 100 years since the Belmonts last battled Dracula", but I always took this as just establishing the whole "Dracula rises every 100 years" thing, not literally meaning he just rose and Simon has never fought him yet.
Considering the above, I always liked to think of SCVIV as a direct sequel to Simon's Quest instead of a remake of the original, for the following reasons:
-SCVIV intro follows "best" SQ ending so well, as described above.
-Simon's Quest final battle/ending was unsatisfying, SCVIV gives better closure to Simon's story.
-If I want to play all the games in order to experience the full Castlevania story, I am forced to skip either the original or SCVIV because they tell the same story... when those are two of the greatest Castlevania games!
I understand that the original Japanese version has SCVIV as a remake and the US version hinted at it as a sequel, and to hammer that point home Iga made it "official" in his canon that its a remake. But back in those early days, the story was still open to interpretation, the whole complex Iga canon hadn't come into play yet. And these days, with the new games "re-imagining" old characters and story concepts, it seems that Iga's canon isn't worth the paper it's printed on. This is the era of interpreting the Castlevania story how you choose... if MercurySteam can do it, why can't we?
So to me, Super Castlevania IV will always be the epic conclusion to the Simon trilogy, the final battle between him and Dracula after their first two encounters, and the fight that after two failed attempts finally puts Dracula back in the ground for the next 100 years so Simon can live happily ever after making babies for the next generation. If you prefer to think of it as a remake, that's fine too. To me there's no wrong answer, it's all up to how each individual interprets things.
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You can do that if you ignore the japanese text (US version mistranslated the prologue on purpose) and ignore that Simon would be more than 100 years old or if you ignore the story of the game altogheter. So its not impossible.
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to me, SCVIV is from a diferent timeline and chronicles is the Iga´s cannon history and this is why it is so unique to me and it was my first castlevania game. the music, the gameplay all thing´s from it is special( Yamada where is you man, i need your coding and ideas to make my game :'( )
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to me, SCVIV is from a diferent timeline and chronicles is the Iga´s cannon history and this is why it is so unique to me and it was my first castlevania game. the music, the gameplay all thing´s from it is special( Yamada where is you man, i need your coding and ideas to make my game :'( )
Well, SCIV is an alternate timeline as far as IGA is concerned. He treats the original CV as the "legitimate" version.
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You can do that if you ignore the japanese text (US version mistranslated the prologue on purpose) and ignore that Simon would be more than 100 years old or if you ignore the story of the game altogheter. So its not impossible.
I've never played the Japanese version and can't read Japanese so probably couldn't understand it if I did play it, so ignoring Japanese text is no problem.
And since the US version has a contradiction in the intro, you have to ignore something in order for it to make sense. So either you can ignore the "it has been 100 years since the last confrontation", or you ignore the "once again Simon is called upon". Not a huge stretch to choose to ignore the former instead of the latter, is it?
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SCV4 = Akuma-jou Dracula Rebirth. It's a remake/revision/reboot/whatever. It's all semantics. Also, I wouldn't put much credence in a guidebook that wasn't made by Konami directly. Furthermore, some of the ideas in the guidebook seem to deviate greatly from what's in the actual games.
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I didn't see the world Rebirth anywhere that I search about this game nor in-game... Why?
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Furthermore, some of the ideas in the guidebook seem to deviate greatly from what's in the actual games.
Yes, but that's the point of my argument. :P Because it deviates from the storyline that might imply they wanted to establish a whole new continuity with this game. I think it's likely the author of the guidebook had some involved with the developers while writing the guide, so although they may not have created the content themselves it's possible they approved of it.
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Honestly this is why I liked it better when CV didn't really have a concrete storyline outside of each individual game. Each game was just a great game and no one worried about where it fit in some timeline. :-X
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I chose to think of it as a sequel and that Simon had to fight Dracula a whole bunch of times before he went down for keeps.
Heck, if Christoher Lee and the Marvel comics version could keep coming back to life every few years, why not the CV Dracula?
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Something interesting I found out about Castlevania Chronicles/Akumajo Dracula X68000:
http://www3.ocn.ne.jp/~kikux68k/x68k_interview_ohx2.htm (http://www3.ocn.ne.jp/~kikux68k/x68k_interview_ohx2.htm)
This is an interview from 1993. It's explained that that the game originally was an enhanced port of the original Famicom/NES game, but they decided to alter things after they realised they could do a lot of interesting things with the Sharp X68000.
Perhaps the same thing happend with this game? First it was an updated port for the SNES but later evolved into it's own game? This is also supported by the fact that Vampire Killer, Haunted Castle etc are considered different "versions" of the original game.