Castlevania Dungeon Forums
The Castlevania Dungeon Forums => General Castlevania Discussion => Topic started by: Think Tank on December 10, 2008, 06:03:09 PM
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I heard this game fits into the "official timeline" somewhere between SotN and Bloodlines. Someone care to elaborate on this for me? I don't see any dates mentioned in the game. I'm about halfway through and loving it. First videogame besides Family Feud and Jeopardy I've played all year!
Yeah, I'm sure this has been brought up a few times recently, but there's no way I'm reading that 162 page thread. At least I ctrl-F'd the page for "timeline" before posting this.
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Well, if you were paying attention, the prologue says that it takes place in the mid 19th century (1800s).
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Well obviously I wasn't paying attention.
Is there more info on how Dracula is back and any ties between SotN and Bloodlines mentioned?
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Dracula returns thru the same method he always returns.
The events of Symphony and Bloodlines aren't mentioned.
The story isn't specific on the exact year, but it's gotta be either middle or late 19th century.
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I believe it's the same timeline as the Nintendo 64 games which was officially remove in canon.
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Considering all the games they have made, Konami should run out of ''time'' sooner or later :P I wonder what their next Castlevania game will be.
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Considering all the games they have made, Konami should run out of ''time'' sooner or later :P I wonder what their next Castlevania game will be.
Most likely the 1999 game or another sorrow game. Then again, there is that game coming out for xbox 360 and ps3 that looks like a sequel to SotN.
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Most likely the 1999 game or another sorrow game.
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In Reply To #8
Actually the quote in the game is;
"But early in the 19th century..."
That's about the limit of any timing mentioned in the game.
Igarashi: "In regards to the timeline, this game takes place right after the era of Richter Belmont, where the last Belmont disappears with the whip. That's where the series fits overall in the timeline; right after the era of Richter Belmont." http://ds.ign.com/articles/874/874323p1.html
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So does that mean it takes place after the game where you play as Richter, or after Alucard saves his ass and he dies an old man? Because if this game took place between Rondo and Symphony well that would be crazy.
Also, does anyone have a link to the official Konami Castlevanis timeline handy?
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In Reply To #10
After both Symphony and Rondo. Richter's dead by OoE probably.
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In Reply To #8
Igarashi: "In regards to the timeline, this game takes place right after the era of Richter Belmont, where the last Belmont disappears with the whip. That's where the series fits overall in the timeline; right after the era of Richter Belmont." http://ds.ign.com/articles/874/874323p1.html
I'm guessing it takes place around 1840-50.
I think the "era of Richter Belmont" would mean after his death. So let's say he lives to be 60 or 70, after he dies the Belmont's go lost, so I think thats when Ecclesia would happen
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Here is another interview where IGA discusses the timing of the game;
http://games.kikizo.com/features/koji-igarashi-interview-oct08-p2.asp
Igarashi: The game itself doesn't indicate that it takes place at a specific point in the series timeline. However, the game happens during a time when the Belmont clan has vanished, along with their legendary whip, the Vampire Killer. But, Dracula is still around, so there are a lot of organizations are trying to bring him down, and a lot of effort and money are being expended. None of them have been successful save Ecclesia. Shanoa, the lead, is a member of this organization.
As for Belmonts who go missing, it could possibly be Richtor himself. If he goes missing, then his era is essentially over.
Apparently Nintendo power, claims the game takes place mid-1800s?
My guess the game takes place sometime between between 1820-1850 or so, maybe as late as 1870 (mid-1800s is a bit unspecific). If we knew when Shanoa was born, and when she joined the Ecclesia, it would help. But we don't have any exact dates. We at least know her age at the time of the game...? But that hardly helps us to understand when it takes place.
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I thin the era of Richter is that it is an era where he is gone, hence takin his bloodline with him.
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I thin the era of Richter is that it is an era where he is gone, hence takin his bloodline with him.
I would go as far as saying the bloodline is gone and the whip is gone as the Whip reappears in the 20th Century and the Belmont Clan reemerges in the late 20th Century.
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I'm guessing it takes place around 1840-50.
I think the "era of Richter Belmont" would mean after his death. So let's say he lives to be 60 or 70, after he dies the Belmont's go lost, so I think thats when Ecclesia would happen
I think he'd live longer than that though, and the way he says it is like Richter didn't have a son, this may have been the problem. Maybe there was something that happened that kept Richter from having a son and kept another male belmont from being born until Julius hence them giving the whip to other clans and they just had the female belmonts keep their last names and give the belmont name to the male belmont who was supposed to fight in 1999 instead of the fathers name. This would be a very traditional japanese way of thinking. The father passes all the clans secrets onto his eldest son, if there is no son 1 of 2 things generally happens from what I've read and seen I may be somewhat off on this so please feel free to correct me, the secrets are hidden away and lost or another clan or individual is picked to carry on the secrets of the clan, a trusted family or person who shares the honor and ideals of the clan and someone with which the clan has no problem passing their secrets onto, like the father's best friend, so the clan's secrets aren't lost. Frank Deux from Bloodsport is a good example.
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We don't know how long Belmonts lived, but at historically average lifespan during the 1800s was about 37-40 as I recall, if that helps.
Also with Judgment it is confirmed that the events of Cornell happened... So 1844 needs to be factored in. If one assumes that no one was successful at defeating Dracula before Ecclessia came along, then that would imply that events of OoE had to occur before 1844.
Although what I got out of OoE was that the problem was not being able to defeat Dracula, but keeping him from regenerating (he was apparently very active during that era).
However we know someone had defeat him to capture him in the black statue thing. The statue was originally held by the Church. We learned that the Church let OoE borrow the statue after it had shown its success in defeating Dracula's forces in hopes they could discover a way to destroy it permanantly. Of course we learn that OoE's real intent was to try to raise Dracula instead.
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In Reply To #17
Also with Judgment it is confirmed that the events of Cornell happened... So 1844 needs to be factored in. If one assumes that no one was successful at defeating Dracula before Ecclessia came along, then that would imply that events of OoE had to occur before 1844.
but judgement isn't considered canon, so yeah
iga said himself that the game itself never happened in the timeline, and only some of its bits are canon (like character's motivations/relationships)
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Oh, where is that said? I've looked for interviews online, but he only discusses the fact that it has a story, and never about canonacity or not...
http://wii.gamespy.com/wii/castlevania-judgment/917612p1.html
GameSpy: People have been wondering how characters from different Castlevania time periods can appear in the same game. Is this explained in the story mode?
IGA: Yes, the story of why all these characters from different time periods come together is explained, but the story is not the main focus for Judgment. The main focus of this game is a celebration of the franchise's 22-year history, so I wanted to bring these characters together like a festival.
only some of its bits are canon (like character's motivations/relationships)
The game does introduce Cornell's motivations/relationships... So we are back to my point that 1844 occured.
Also point of note the time rift actually exists outside of time, in its own dimension. So yes events in the time rift are not part of Earth's timeline... Perhaps you misinterpreted IGA somewhere?
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it's not like it introduces anything new. everything's ripped straight from lod, and iga said he included cornell only because he wanted to have a furry/beast character who can actually think and talk to others.
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So you can't quote IGA, and give the source where you said he said it wasn't canon? Umm, ok...
Honestly, "citation needed"...
Yes, this is very important. Alot of articles have treated Judgment as canon. Even the owner of this site.
http://castlevania.classicgaming.gamespy.com/Games/judgment.html
So the source of your mysterious comment would be extremely relevant... Also the exact quote is needed to make sure you aren't putting words into IGA's mouth, or misinterpreting him...
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i'm waiting for that guy who saves all interviews and cites them especially after they go offline. don't expect me to store every single review to exist, i don't care enough to do something like that.
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In Reply To #22
Yeah but by the same token you lose some credibility when you say "Iga said this" and "Iga said that" with nothing more afterwards...
The reaction is, thus, understandable.
Plus there's the whole "Some dude is translating what he's saying so even what we think he said might not be what he said" deallyo.
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Exactly, well put, Jorge.
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whatever's the case, lod is still not part of the canon. it's not on the timeline, so stop lying to yourself that *maybe* it is just because one character appeared in some fighting game where stuff that should never happen happens. it still isn't. :o
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Its not on some timelines and it is shown on other timelines... The timelines of this series are always in a flux its ridiculous. A new one gets printed almost every other year. The timelines are all inconsistent.
Half the time when people discuss this subject, I notice they put in alot of hyperbole and personal interpretations, misquotes, and misrepresentations of quotes without citing proper evidence.
As Jorge pointed out mistranslations of interviews adds to the problem as well.
So I wouldn't consider your word more reliable than another... All I see is different people with different interpretations of what is and isn't canon... based on their interpretations of rough translations in interviews, that may not necessarily mean what people interpret them to mean. ...or people misremebering what they think they read...
Actually most of the time from what I've seen the term canon is never even used in any interviews...
Also, the term "timeline" in and of its self is a vague term. I.E. If I was talking about the timeline of history of Madagascar in 1920s, I probably wouldn't be inserting events from the history of Nebraska in the 1920s. As that datapoint would be irrelevent to the Madagascar's history. Yet both have history that occured in the 1920s. Just one is irrelevent to the other.
In other words not being listed on a timeline in and of itself doesn't "deny" canoncity.
I don't always know what IGA is trying to convey, the translations of his words can sometimes be contradictory. I think its pretty clear that IGA intentionally removed Legends from the story. But his comments for the N64 games were not removed, they were always "side projects"http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=4&cId=3152109. have been how can I put this "open to interpretation" by the fans... It may be possible that "side project" just means that it occurs in the same history, but is not relevent to a particular timeline IGA was trying to tell. The debates will probably never end...
Also, IGA once admited that story is not exactly his reason for making the games... He doesn't make the games to tell the story... He makes a story after he's designed the game's interface, and decides what kind of story will fit.
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In Reply To #26
as far as i remember the only official timeline (as in, a list of years and the dracula-related events that happened during them) to have any mention of the n64+cotm games was the usa made gift that was thrown together from random sources for the pork+20th anniversary release, which wasn't consulted with iga.
(random sources because the quality of it varied. some images were pretty good quality, others like bloodlines were terribly lacking in details and blurry, as if they downloaded them from the internet and photoshopped)
his own version of that timeline thing doesn't include the removed games and as far as i know in the latest interviews he called them gaidens/side stories/legends/stuff that didn't really happen like you said.
someone once suggested it could be interpreted as "bedtime stories" or "exaggerated gossip/tales" made into games, and to be honest i liked that idea. that way at least they have a slight place in the cv universe, even if as a fairy tale told to kids made into game format, instead of happening in another dimension/reality/universe, completely disconnected from the main series. :o
"once upon a time there was a man who could turn into a werewolf at will. the eeeevil dracula kidnapped his loli sister and the wolf man wanted revenge..." ;D
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The first timeline I remember seeing for CV was printed in Nintendo Power. It wasn't from Konami I'm pretty sure, and Iga had nothing to do with it. But all the games had dates and most of them were Nintendo games, so Nintendo Power made a timeline, and all the games at the time existed within it. Now we have a timeline created by Iga. All of a sudden, not every game "fit", at least to him. Even games he approved as producer of the series don't necessarily exist. If you were to look at an actual timeline of the series, it's not the games that contradict each other, it's the offhand information like Lisa's death that create the problems.
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In Reply To #28
lisa's death is a small reason for contradictions though. if you think about it, dracula goes to war with humans during cv3. why would he attack them before that? until cv3 he was living in seclusion, eternally cursing god and only when humans kill his wife he starts his unholy crusade not too long afterwards.
then, dracula's first confirmed death is in cv3, up to which he was alive, not resurrected, and yet in legends he's obviously killed.
during cv3 alucard is supposed to be a teenager. why would he be an adult 26 years earlier?
also lisa is iga's creation, so he decides when she dies anyway.
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The contradictions don't have to exist though. And the majority of the contradictions exist because of Iga.
Iga may have created Lisa, and he may be able to do whatever he wants with her, but that doesn't make it responsible. He is the current producer of a franchise that he didn't create. One of his responsibilities is to keep the franchise cohesive. It's a little confusing when you try to explain to people how this half of the games are in continuity and this half don't matter.
Things like Lisa's death and Alucard being a teenager, both thrown in after the fact, just do more to clutter and confuse the timeline. He should be working to fix it instead.
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To answer the question in the first post: 1845.
How I know: Daniella talks about watching her grandfather train to be a Vampire Hunter, when she was a young child. And we know that all the villagers are descendants of the Belmont clan, and the last Belmont to "train as a Vampire Hunter" is Richter.
So, if Richter is Daniella's Grandfather, he had to be training in the late 1780's and early 1790's, that would make Daniella 10 years old in 1790 and 65 years old in 1845.
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"as far as i remember the only official timeline (as in, a list of years and the dracula-related events that happened during them) to have any mention of the n64+cotm games was the usa made gift that was thrown together from random sources for the pork+20th anniversary release, which wasn't consulted with iga.
(random sources because the quality of it varied. some images were pretty good quality, others like bloodlines were terribly lacking in details and blurry, as if they downloaded them from the internet and photoshopped)
Despite the fact you forgot that IGA actually wrote a 20th anniversary letter for that packin... We don't actually know who was behind it... It could have been IGA, it could have been someone else. Any comments on who made it exactly would be speculation at best... and rather irrelevent to any discussion...
If you want to dispute it give actual evidence and citations proving your point... Otherwise its just assumptions, and lacks credibility.
his own version of that timeline thing doesn't include the removed games and as far as i know in the latest interviews he called them gaidens/side stories/legends/stuff that didn't really happen like you said.
Actually the interviews he called them gaidens, side stories (for reference did he actually use the term "side story"?), was actually 2-3+ years ago. Those interviews are far from being the latest interviews. That info is actually from some of his older interviews... Since then later interviews actually started warming up to the n64 games and Cotm. The only one he's fully disavowed completely in recent interviews is Legends.
BTW, the 20th anniversy timeline actually came out later than most his interviews where he completely denied the n64 games. It came out the same year, but a little after the article that mentions him calling it a "side project"). But as we don't know who was behind it exactly, it could show his changes, or the US interpretation. If it was IGA then it essentially foreshadowed his use of Cornell in Judgement.
Also "side story" doesn't mean "alternate universe" or non-canon by definition. It can refer to any story that is less important to main storyline of the universe but still occurs in the universe, and it can also refer to completely AU stories. While its possible side stories can be alternate universe stories, many side stories are stories that 'really' happened in the same universe, just not important to the main events. That's a far cry from being "non canon".
So ya, I'd love to see you actually show real quotes from IGA, and not insert your own opinions on it. Show evidence and prove your point... Please stop the rampant speculation, and heresay...
If you can't show evidence and want to continue to spout heresay, then as far as I'm concerned you have little credibility.
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If you want to dispute it give actual evidence and citations proving your point... Otherwise its just assumptions, and lacks credibility.
stop this. i'm not assuming anything, just saying what other people said in the past, with their sources.
and btw. all you did was assume too, you never gave any proofs either. ;D
Also "side story" doesn't mean "alternate universe" or non-canon by definition
then again, those titles are "gaidens" not side stories. similar but not the same thing as far as i know. gaidens are more of spinoffs than side stories.
here's a translated version of the most recent iga-made timeline btw:
http://castlevania.armster.org/trans_timeline.php
and *gasp* no cotm or n64 titles. :o
needs some updating since iga didn't update it since before pork, but there you go, your proof that iga doesn't consider them as a part of official canon.
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Actually you just linked to a translation of the Lament of Innocence timeline from way back in 2003. Old (2003 is not 'recent' in any stretch of the imagination)... Other timelines and sources have come out since then. If you want real evidence please post to something more recent, like say in the last year. Something that can refute Judgment. You also would need citations to refute the official 20th anniversery timeline directly. Regardless of who made, it was still released officially by Konami, and is copyrighted to Konami. You would need to evidence that Konami later disowned the source, or explained its reasonings behind the source. All I can state is that the dates are listed on the timeline, and that IGA at least acknowledged the pack-in via a special letter printed with it. How much actual say so he had with the material is anyone's guess. But to totally refute that source you would need citeable evidence.
Actually I'm not making assumptions I've pointed out that we have been getting mixed signals from Konami, and IGA between older sources and newer sources. I also stated that the newer sources imply a change in direction from his original comments made years ago. I've posted dozens of his comments in this thread...
All I've asked for was proof on your part. Not your heresay based on "past arguements" that you think you remember. That shows little credibility.
Also you bring up the idea of "gaiden" from what I understand. Gaiden translates into side story. But in japanese usage of the word it can be spino-off that is canon or otherwise. So some gaidens are canon and some are not. They may not be considered prequels or sequels however, but still occur in the same universe.
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Ummm... Any chance we can all just agree that Order did not do a good job secifying any chronology pertaining to the CV timeline (official or otherwise)? Much of the game feels incomplete and, to some degree, a bit rushed right down to the instruction manual. In many ways, so does Judgment. As if Konami had spent too much time divided between the two games rather than focusing on one at a time. It's DoS and CoD all over again. Heck, it's Mortal Kombat 4 and MK Mythologies: Sub-Zero all over again.