Castlevania Dungeon Forums
The Castlevania Dungeon Forums => General Castlevania Discussion => Topic started by: cecil-kain on December 30, 2008, 02:04:50 PM
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In the beginning it was simple.
Belmont + Dracula + Castle = Castlevania
Simon's Quest gave us a Castlevania without a Castle.
Aria of Sorrow gave us a Castlevania without Draulca.
And now Order of Ecclesia has finally given us a Castlevania without a Belmont.
So if those 3 key elements are all expendable, what the hell IS Castlevania anyway?
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A miserable pile of secrets!
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In Reply To #1
To be fair, Cecil, the Belmonts are in OoE...
*spoiler*
they're all in that little village, aren't they? Or related to the Belmonts, at least? v_v
*spoiler*
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In Reply To #1
To be fair, Cecil, the Belmonts are in OoE...
*spoiler*
they're all in that little village, aren't they? Or related to the Belmonts, at least? v_v
*spoiler*
By "Belmont" I'm referring to whip wielding playable character. Hope that makes a bit more sense...
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Soma was Dracula though kinda sorta and Simon's Quest had a castle that was just... kinda in ruins.
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In Reply To #5
that and graham took over the dracula role gameplay wise.
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The series is about the forces of good fighting against Dracula. However, things change after the battle in 1999, after which Dracula is reincarnated and the series is then about the reincarnation of Dracula trying not the become the dark lord.
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Simon's Quest gave us a Castlevania without a Castle.
uh dracula's castle is in the game. It's just still completely fucked up from the first clash. And the mansions act as "mini" castles.
Aria of Sorrow gave us a Castlevania without Draulca
soma is dracula, he just doesn't let himself awaken. The only CV game to not include dracula at all is LOI. And ironically it's the only one called "castlevania" in JP.
And now Order of Ecclesia has finally given us a Castlevania without a Belmont.
so did SOTN, bloodlines and POR. They all focused on non belmont characters.
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soma is dracula, he just doesn't let himself awaken. The only CV game to not include dracula at all is LOI. And ironically it's the only one called "castlevania" in JP.
In AoS, Graham acts as Dracula. Walter can count as a Dracula counterpart as well.
so did SOTN, bloodlines and POR. They all focused on non belmont characters.
I'm pretty sure he means OoE is the only game with no Belmonts or Belmont descendants(there are Belmont descendants, but no whip users, only villagers). Every CV game other than OoE has a playable Belmont or Belmont descendant.
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soma is dracula, he just doesn't let himself awaken. The only CV game to not include dracula at all is LOI. And ironically it's the only one called "castlevania" in JP.
If we can say Soma is Dracula, I think we can say Matthias is Dracula too.
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As a series, I think Castlevania shouldn't limit itself to just Belmont's vs Dracula anymore.
We know there are a crap load of Belmont's that never had anything to do with Dracula, but they still had to train and learn to master the Vampire Killer. We also know that they hunt other monsters and evils. Why can't we see some of those stories?
We've seen creatures like Galamoth or people like Graham who try to destroy/take over/remake the world in their image. There have to be other evil cults out there who aren't devoted to Dracula. Where are these stories?
Lastly, we know the Belnades family has a history of fighting evils and working for a Church that doesn't acknowledge them officially, to save a humanity that persecutes them as witches. How cool of a story would it be to focus on one of them? There's also characters like Henry Oldrey, Cornell, and Shanoa. They have nothing to do with the Belmonts, and are barely connected to Dracula. I would love to see more characters like this also.
I guess what I'm saying is that when I see something labeled Castlevania, I know I'm going to see something that takes place in the CV universe. I love watching the different chapters of the Belmont's vs Dracula play out, but I also wouldn't mind exploring the CV universe beyond Dracula's castle.
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If we can say Soma is Dracula, I think we can say Matthias is Dracula too.
the reason I discount mathias is because he isn't fully transformed at the end of LOI just sort of like a protodracula who hasn't gained any real power yet. Hence he runs away from leon and lets Death lose to him as a scapegoat. Soma literally is the reincarnation of dracula with all of his powers, memory, strength and dominating aura. He just won't let himself awaken.
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Soma literally is the reincarnation of dracula with all of his powers, memory, strength and dominating aura. He just won't let himself awaken.
Wrong. He doesn't have all of his powers, nor his memory. Mathias should count just as much, if not more, since he's literally Dracula himself, not his reincarnation. How would you know that he wasn't "fully transformed" anyway?
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Wrong. He doesn't have all of his powers, nor his memory.
if he awakened he would. That was the whole point of Aos, to stop soma from becoming his true self.
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if he awakened he would. That was the whole point of Aos, to stop soma from becoming his true self.
But it didn't happen, so it doesn't count.
Also, that was the point of DoS, not AoS.
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But it didn't happen, so it doesn't count.
Also, that was the point of DoS, not AoS.
Uh no that's just not true, AOS was soma slowly awakening to his true self and the bad ending of the game isn't canon but it is proof as to what would have happened had soma not won the final battle. All that makes up dracula is inside soma dormant unable to awaken. I've only played through DOS once awhile back so my memory isn't the best on that game but the main goal of the game in AOS is to stop soma from transforming once soma starts to turn after you kill Graham. That much I know 100% is true.
The series is about the forces of good fighting against Dracula. However, things change after the battle in 1999, after which Dracula is reincarnated and the series is then about the reincarnation of Dracula trying not the become the dark lord.
Agreed. Everything changes, right down to the belmonts returning to the spotlight after the 1800's tragedy, relinquishing or whatever happened.
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Uh no that's just not true, AOS was soma slowly awakening to his true self and the bad ending of the game isn't canon but it is proof as to what would have happened had soma not won the final battle. All that makes up dracula is inside soma dormant unable to awaken. I've only played through DOS once awhile back so my memory isn't the best on that game but the main goal of the game in AOS is to stop soma from transforming once soma starts to turn after you kill Graham. That much I know 100% is true.
The point of AoS isn't to stop Soma from "transforming". The only part it's remotely true is the ending. The point of AoS was to have Dracula die at some point, and to reveal its main character as his reincarnation in the future. DoS's point was to stop Soma from turning(a very pointless sequel, by the way).
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LOL @ Castlevania storyline!
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In Reply To #18
Indeed. What else can you do at this point?
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Castlevania is just a mix of Castle + Transilvania. It has nothing to do with Dracula or Belmonts.
In Japan it's another story, it's called Demon Castle Dracula. So Dracula and the castle HAVE to be in there.
That's the reason the series in Japan was briefly changed to Castlevania, so they could do storylines where it didn't involve Dracula or the castle.
It didn't work though.
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Castlevania is just a mix of Castle + Transilvania. It has nothing to do with Dracula or Belmonts.
In Japan it's another story, it's called Demon Castle Dracula. So Dracula and the castle HAVE to be in there.
That's the reason the series in Japan was briefly changed to Castlevania, so they could do storylines where it didn't involve Dracula or the castle.
It didn't work though.
I think if they had picked a better game for beginning the process it would have. LOI just wasn't the best place to start. Not that it's horrible or anything, but it pretty much is an akumajou dracula game in every sense of the words except dracula isn't complete yet.
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That naming started with Harmony of Dissonance, not LOI.
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That naming started with Harmony of Dissonance, not LOI.
really? I didn't know those games where known as castlevania over there too. Hunh and aria is a great game. Guess they just like the way the Kanji looks better. Have to look up what happened on wikipedia or something.
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really? I didn't know those games where known as castlevania over there too. Hunh and aria is a great game. Guess they just like the way the Kanji looks better. Have to look up what happened on wikipedia or something.
Where did that come from?
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Where did that come from?
If they started with HOD, aria came out after HOD and any games released before LOI which afterwards for some reason they stopped using castlevania would be castlevania over there too. I was getting at that if AOS was so well accepted and beloved over there why get rid of the name after LOI? If they had used the name several times and already had one groundbreaking fantastic game with the name why discontinue it? Just trying to financially see the reasoning behind it. Would be like changing the name to castlevania over there 2 years after symphony of the night came out and hadn't even been taken off the production lines and was still relatively easy to buy. (although pricey), you'd think they would have waited it out a bit longer before just up and switching names again. Unless it was like the new coke/coke 2 thing in the 80's and the customer backlash got too great.
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I have absolutely no idea where you're going with this. Are you saying that it makes no sense to have changed the name after LoI because AoS was great? I don't...
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I have absolutely no idea where you're going with this. Are you saying that it makes no sense to have changed the name after LoI because AoS was great? I don't...
Well it's just not the best marketing strategy when you have a great product to keep changing the name around. makes it harder on the non hardcore castlevania consumers. I'm looking at it from an economical point of view. Basically all I'm saying was that it was a waste of money to just change the name if it got changed right back 2 years later. I don't know all of the facts yet but it's never a good idea to keep flip flopping product names in any industry. you have to keep it stupid simple so even the dumbest customers known what they are getting. Those 3 games may never get played by alot of people in jp who aren't hardcore castlevania fans because of the different name. There's no way for the customer to tell w/out playing the games, konami informing them when the switch happened (which won't do any good years down the line for future generations) or going to castlevania websites or informing themselves some other way. I know alot of people there are isolationist, and just going into a corner market, unless informed, it would be impossible to tell that those 3 games are in fact Akumajou Dracula games. Related to the ones from the 80's, just with the north american title. And this is just strictly theoretical I haven't done any real research yet into the switchback. For all I know those 3 games names were changed and they were rereleased with the akumajou dracula kanji.
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What is Castlevania? I'd like to ask the same question, yet with different intentions. In LoI, the Castle is already there. We never learn who built it, how Walter came into possession of it, why it has such strange properties, etc etc. That'd be an interesting game, I think; showing Castlevania's construction, and perhaps the protagonist's obviously failed attempt to stop it.
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maybe the castle in loi wasn't the same castle. i mean, drac's castle is usually pretty similar structure wise, but in loi it was way different, with the castle keep almost directly above the entrance and all of the other parts far away, accessible only with teleporters.
the castle could be simply a creation of magic, created by the ruling vampire, so when he's dead the castle crumbles too without the vampire's magic, its "fuel" to be supported with.
drac could simply create his own castle after becoming a vampire lord/dark lord/etc.
tl;dr dracula's magic created castlevania :o
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Titles doesn't nessesarily need to be directly connected to the actual game. Like Legend of Zelda. It's not a legend that's about Zelda the princess. It's more about Link saving the world.
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I never thought that the castle in LoI was actually Castlevania. I just figured it was Walter's.
I thought that when Mathias becomes Dracula thats when Castlevania was created as well
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In Reply To #31
But...when Leon enters the Castle, "Castlevania" appears on the screen. Why wouldn't it have been Castlevania, anyway?
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And why the bloody Mary's hairy virgin crotch would even the Japanese themselves have named the friggin' game "Castlevania" anyway?
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In Reply To #31
But...when Leon enters the Castle, "Castlevania" appears on the screen. Why wouldn't it have been Castlevania, anyway?
Because the titles been established already and I just figured they were showing the title of the game, sort of like if your watching a movie and after it gets through an intro it shows the title on the screen. Same deal.
Its been a pretty long time since I've played it though, so I don't really remember how its shown or anything.
And why the bloody Mary's hairy virgin crotch would even the Japanese themselves have named the friggin' game "Castlevania" anyway?
I'm not part of the development team so I don't know!
I could understand where you're coming from if the game was about the creation of Castlevania, but it isn't. There is never any mention of it being the same castle, so I just figured it was a different one, since it doesn't belong to Dracula.
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Because the titles been established already and I just figured they were showing the title of the game, sort of like if your watching a movie and after it gets through an intro it shows the title on the screen. Same deal.
Its been a pretty long time since I've played it though, so I don't really remember how its shown or anything.
It's shown in plain white text. It's the same castle.
I'm not part of the development team so I don't know!
I could understand where you're coming from if the game was about the creation of Castlevania, but it isn't. There is never any mention of it being the same castle, so I just figured it was a different one, since it doesn't belong to Dracula.
It does belong to Dracula. Walter had the Crimson Stone, and that's what let him rule the castle, until Mathias took it. It then became his castle. You shouldn't even need all of that story-telling to be able to realize that it's the same castle, to be honest. It's all common sense.
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In Reply To #35
First, LOI should not be mistaken as the first Castlevania, it is merely what many might call a 'prequel'.
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It does belong to Dracula. Walter had the Crimson Stone, and that's what let him rule the castle, until Mathias took it. It then became his castle. You shouldn't even need all of that story-telling to be able to realize that it's the same castle, to be honest. It's all common sense.
no he didn't, walter only had the ebony stone. mathias always had the crimson one.
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In Reply To #37
I always get confused with the stones. >.< The Ebony Stone let the castle stay in eternal night, so...
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Well well...
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IMO the Castlevania series is now defined by the mood --the experience of adventuring within a melancholy but sometimes beautiful world.
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But it didn't happen, so it doesn't count.
Which also explains why Soma is a fool! To run from one's destiny is the plight of a miscreant, especially when 'twouldst open such amazing opportunities...
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In other words the Castlevania experience is in its Music --not in its gameplay.
I think you really hit the nail on the head.
Castlevania is so much more than just a Belmont, a castle, and Dracula. If you go by those rubrics, Non-Dracula characters like Walter and Brauner would technically remove LOI and POR from the series (although I can't say I'm sorry to see them go).
I think there is definitely something about the mood-- something that isn't usually replicated in other games.
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The crimson and ebony stones (until LOI) never existed in the CV universe...
What if the red stone in HoD is a chip of the Crimson stone??? :o
Obvious prattle, but imagine the consequences...