Castlevania Dungeon Forums
The Castlevania Dungeon Forums => General Castlevania Discussion => Topic started by: CVFanSinceTheNESDays on January 15, 2025, 12:33:30 AM
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I read somewhere online that the last time a main series Castlevania game was released was 10 years ago. Can someone please clarify me on this?
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Yeah, it was Lords of Shadow 2 back in 2014.
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I may be wrong but i believe the last canonical entry was Order of Ecclesia, way back in 2008
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Grimoire of souls was the last main series game. It just gets overlooked because it was released on mobile and is currently only available on Apple devices. It continues the story from the series main timeline.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y95lBCsQ07c (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y95lBCsQ07c)
LOS was a hard reboot I would hardly consider that a mainline game.
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It's hard to group them, since it's not clear in the late games how canonical things really are, and whether you can consider them a shared universe or their own separate thing (see for example the Lord of Shadows series). As crisis said, Order of Ecclesia may be the closest bet, back in 2008.
Apart from that, after LOS2, everything has been spin-offs (mostly slot machines), collections, or cameos to other franchises: List of Castlevania media (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Castlevania_media)
Grimoire of Souls is mainly considered its own thing, since both in style and execution it's probably more close to a spin-off.
On the same note, some people consider Bloodstained in the same pack as a "spiritual successor" of the series; if you include that, I believe it's been almost five years since the last big release.
(Grimoire was also a gacha game until it was discontinued and rereleased without the monetization elements, so it's not a great look...)
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In what way is GOS styled as a spinoff?
It has a prologue that establishes It takes place after the last chronological game, it has an art direction deliberately designed to make it look like a continuation of the previous games, Death and Dracula are the major antagonists and it makes frequent references to events in the main timeline sometimes even presenting explanations for some of the irregularities.
But because it was released on mobile with gacha mechanics that somehow disqualifies it?
I get that It's not the game that everyone wanted but had it been released on any other system than mobile I doubt there would be any question over whether it's a mainline game or not.
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The 3D models on a "2D-ish" platform view is way more similar to Bloodstained than to the previous Castlevania platformers, that's what I meant when I was talking about its style. In any case that's my point, it's hard to group these franchises.
I don't think it being on mobile is the reason; Harmony of Despair was released on Xbox Live Arcade and it's sometimes considered a spin-off as well. I guess it's just about where you put the line.
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they've all been spinoffs and remakes after cv3 olol
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GoS is technically a main-line title.
Harmony of Despair's premise is that all the 'stages' are pages in a book.
That makes the stages in that game 'stories' within the book.
If that book is one of the Grimoires in GoS, then that could make those stories within that universe.
But in terms of it being a canon game? It doesn't quite work out, story-wise.
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But in terms of it being a canon game? It doesn't quite work out, story-wise.
Canon =/= Official
A example outside of CV:
Super Dragon Ball Heroes = Official, but it’s not canon to main timeline DBS, which mostly follows the manga.
GoS appears to be a canon entry, despite whatever game placement and / or timeline mechanics are required(from an outsider who hasn’t played it), similar to Judgement..
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I was talking about Harmony of Despair, since its 'stages' are all supposedly stories in a book.
Grimoire of Souls is a continuation past 2035's events and is canon.