Topic: So... why exactly was SotN such a huge runaway success in 1997?

[Super Waffle]

Don't get me wrong. SotN is one of the greatest games in the history of forever on a technical level. I'm not questioning any of the praise it gets, but

- The prologue is an exact re-creation of the ending to a game that wouldn't exist in America for another decade

- Nobody REALLY knew who Richter was because the game was tailor-made for native Japanese audiences who played Rondo, and the closest the West got to RoB was the completely watered down Castlevania: Dracula X

- Nobody knew who Maria was and she just kept popping up as "Other girl randomly wandering around in the castle"

- If you haven't played Rondo, Shaft is just some ghostly other dude who comes out of nowhere halfway through the game

- The entire plot (and some of the level layout) is dependent on you knowing what Rondo of Blood is

- Even if you HAVE played Rondo, the depiction of Dracula doesn't match up. Rondo Dracula is, like, campy over the top early-90s Sailor Moon Villain Dracula reveling in how evil he is. SotN Dracula is sad lonely misunderstood Shakespearean Dracula with a deep backstory concerning his wife who's never been mentioned before. But this is supposed to be the same character from two games directly connected set only four years apart. So even if you're the "intended" audience, it creates a different set of problems.

What a weird formula for one of the greatest games ever made. I can't figure it out.

[BLOOD MONKEY]

IT WAS RICHTER BELMONT, THE LEGENDARY VAMPIRE HUNTER WHO SUCCEEDED IN FINALLY ENDING THE MENACE OF COUNT DRACULA, LORD OF THE VAMPIRES WHO HAD BEEN BROUGHT BACK FROM THE GRAVE BY THE DARK PRIEST SHAFT.
HOWEVER, ONE NIGHT FOUR YEARS LATER, UNDER THE GLARE OF A FULL MOON, RICHTER MYSTERIOUSLY VANISHED.
WITH NO IDEA OF WHERE TO BEGIN HER SEARCH, MARIA RENARD SET OUT TO LOOK FOR HIM. IT WAS THEN THAT FATE INTERVENED.
CASTLEVANIA, THE CASTLE OF DRACULA, WHICH IS RUMORED TO APPEAR ONCE EVERY CENTURY, SUDDENLY MATERIALIZED IN THE MIST AS IF TO SHOW HER THE WAY.

I mean, that kinda says it all doesn't it? Dracula's portrayal can mostly be chalked up to differences in tone. SotN wanted to be a lot more serious as a story so it created a much more realistic personality for him.

[Belmontoya]

Not to mention the games booklet literally told you in pretty decent detail who every important character was.

[X]

- The prologue is an exact re-creation of the ending to a game that wouldn't exist in America for another decade

Almost. It used a completely new set of sprites and background (3D) tiles.

- Nobody REALLY knew who Richter was because the game was tailor-made for native Japanese audiences who played Rondo, and the closest the West got to RoB was the completely watered down Castlevania: Dracula X

Oh I knew who Richter Belmont was. To me it was very obvious when I first booted up SotN and I played through the prologue stage. But to a lot of other people it wasn't as apparent. Others believed it to be connected to Bloodlines, which in my mind, make no lick of sense. How did they ever come to that conclusion?? The sprites don't match and the stories are way too different.

- Nobody knew who Maria was and she just kept popping up as "Other girl randomly wandering around in the castle"

I never had an issue with who Maria was either. When Dracula did beat me in the prologue stage Maria showed up and granted me her power, and it was there that I recognized her despite the difference in her hairstyle (Rondo Maria had long hair whereas Dracula XX Maria had short cropped hair). But I guess it would be true for some not to recognize her if they finished the prologue stage without dying.

- If you haven't played Rondo, Shaft is just some ghostly other dude who comes out of nowhere halfway through the game

This is true. He was a bit of an unknown until I started investigating Rondo.

- Even if you HAVE played Rondo, the depiction of Dracula doesn't match up. Rondo Dracula is, like, campy over the top early-90s Sailor Moon Villain Dracula reveling in how evil he is. SotN Dracula is sad lonely misunderstood Shakespearean Dracula with a deep backstory concerning his wife who's never been mentioned before. But this is supposed to be the same character from two games directly connected set only four years apart. So even if you're the "intended" audience, it creates a different set of problems.

Yup. 

[Darkmoon]

Actually, technically it wasn't a huge success immediately. Part of the reason why Konami went in a number of different directions afterwards -- Castlevania 64, Legends, and then Circle of the Moon -- was because they were trying to find a game that would be a huge success. SotN became a big seller over time, but it was Circle, not Symphony, that gave the company it's much desired "million seller".

[JR]

Actually, technically it wasn't a huge success immediately. Part of the reason why Konami went in a number of different directions afterwards -- Castlevania 64, Legends, and then Circle of the Moon -- was because they were trying to find a game that would be a huge success. SotN became a big seller over time, but it was Circle, not Symphony, that gave the company it's much desired "million seller".

Yup. Came in to say the same thing.

And with the many times I've heard people in the fanbase say, "who cares about the story?" when talking about Castlevania in general, I really don't think any storyline issues were a factor either way here.

[Shinobi]

Most people in my country who is familiar with castlevania compares or connect it more with Castlevania 3 due to the fact that Alucard one of the playable characters from the game becomes the main playable character plus Ralph or Trevor was mentioned or referenced(Then later became a boss as a fake zombie) in SOTN.

[zangetsu468]

- The prologue is an exact re-creation of the ending to a game that wouldn't exist in America for another decade

We all assumed it as Vampire's Kiss/ XX's final boss battle minus the minus'd platforms, for ease of storytelling.

- Nobody REALLY knew who Richter was because the game was tailor-made for native Japanese audiences who played Rondo, and the closest the West got to RoB was the completely watered down Castlevania: Dracula X

[/quote]

So many things wrong with this point, but I digress... Majority of CV fans are hardcore fans who bother to know things and anyone playing SOTN knew who Richter was either from VK/ XX or by playing the Prologue. We also knew about Rondo and some of us even found ways to play it... It's exactly the same way that people knew who Alucard was prior to buying the actual game (yeah, not thinking he was the black-haired dude from CVIII who looked NOTHING like this current incarnation...): Articles published in Gaming Magazines such as EGM and Nintendo Power, among various others stacked on shelves at the time (when paper wasn't just a thing that hip hop artists rapped about having..) For those who didn't want to splurge on mags, they read them and left them on the shelf.

It may surprise you to know that CVIII never received an NES PAL release, yet somehow in the 90's people in PAL regions knew about it

- Nobody knew who Maria was and she just kept popping up as "Other girl randomly wandering around in the castle"

Nah, we did. We also  suspected that Maria was probably different from VK/XX, but nonetheless, we played on.

- If you haven't played Rondo, Shaft is just some ghostly other dude who comes out of nowhere halfway through the game

Pretty much........ "SHAFT!!!"

Seriously though, it's some other dude trying to resurrect Dracula, what is to know.

You know what would have been really handy to know, is the fact that Shaft's spirit entered Richter's body after the 1792 Dracula battle, explaining why he disappeared one night, why he opened the Infinity Corridor (thanks plottwist), why he became the Dark Lord of the 'fake Castlevania', Shaft's general nature in SOTN and why Richter felt so much guilt (noted in the Japan only talkee) afterwards. Yet the only piece of media I've seen mention this was Iga's timeline which came as a bonus with PoR back in the day... So yeah, story Shmory at this stage. 

- The entire plot (and some of the level layout) is dependent on you knowing what Rondo of Blood is

Irrelevant. Rondo has one level in the castle, which has certain similarities even though the difference between them are both substantial and directly commented on by Maria and explained by Alucard (in-game).

- Even if you HAVE played Rondo, the depiction of Dracula doesn't match up. Rondo Dracula is, like, campy over the top early-90s Sailor Moon Villain Dracula reveling in how evil he is. SotN Dracula is sad lonely misunderstood Shakespearean Dracula with a deep backstory concerning his wife who's never been mentioned before. But this is supposed to be the same character from two games directly connected set only four years apart. So even if you're the "intended" audience, it creates a different set of problems.

Yes on the surface, no beneath it... i.e. Not really. Iga explained this by SOTN's incarnation being the final human incarnation of Dracula, which explains why OOE>PoR Dracula reverts back to his strange-flesh-toned and more sinister form who appears to be bereft of empathy and human emotions.

In context, as a previous poster mentioned re: Konami branching out and having the N64 games etc at the time, if you look at those stories, similary one finds a theme that the narratives and their methods of delivery in-game were becoming increasingly mature in the CVerse at the time. Dracula was being 'fleshed out' - excuse the #resurrectPun - to go beyond a final boss battle that had now happened several times, with a lack of dialogue for the most part until RoB. Games from the late 80's which were popular were becoming more mature, as well as most franchises transitioning from 2d>3d, successfully.

What a weird formula for one of the greatest games ever made. I can't figure it out.

Although it isn't my favourite CV, the game is a damn masterpiece. There will never be another CV that changes the blueprint as much as this game has. Nuff said.

[X]

So... why exactly was SotN such a huge runaway success in 1997?

With regards to this question specifically, I'd have to say the reason why it was such a runaway success was because it was a formula that had never been tried before. By the time Super Metroid had come out the Metroid formula had already perfected non-linear action/exploration gameplay. They simply combined this with Castlevania and we got SotN. We've never seen it before in CV and never saw it coming.

[Darkmoon]

Except we had seen it from Castlevania games. Vampire Killer, Castlevania II, and the first Wai Wai game. Not to mention all the other Metroid-esque games that Konami produced over the years. Taken from the wide perspective of everything Konami had made up to that point, SotN feels more like an evolution of the idea instead of a revolution.

[X]

Darkmoon@

There are those exceptions, yes 

[Darkmoon]

Getsu Fuma Den, Knightmare II, Goonies, Goonies II, I'm sure we can go on...

[X]

Except those titles, while touching upon the Metroid formulae aren't Castlevania. Yes they did come out of Konami, but again are not of said series.

[PFG9000]

Others believed it to be connected to Bloodlines, which in my mind, make no lick of sense. How did they ever come to that conclusion?? The sprites don't match and the stories are way too different.

[X]

^^^
If that's what it took to confuse multiple people into thinking SotN was the sequel to Bloodlines then I've obviously never gone on that train, lol!

You know what would have been really handy to know, is the fact that Shaft's spirit entered Richter's body after the 1792 Dracula battle

I'm not sure that this is the case. Remember seeing that floating orb controlling Richter if you wear the holy goggles? I'm pretty sure Shaft was contained in that till Alucard shattered it. Kinda like how Shaft's Ghost was using an orb when we fought him in Rondo.