Castlevania Dungeon Forums
The Castlevania Dungeon Forums => General Castlevania Discussion => Topic started by: Nagumo on July 01, 2012, 08:08:59 PM
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One of my weird quirks is that I like to know how exactly each Castlevania game relates to the next. It's kind off a guilty pleasure of mine. I already mentiond this before, but a few months ago I got IGA to answer a few questions for me. I asked him about the canonity about a whole bunch of games and he told me these games (which were not included in his timeline) took place in alternate timelines (like how the Zelda timeline has three alternate timelines that run parallel to each other). Inspired by his answer and the Zelda timeline, I decided to come up with ideas how all those gaidens (which is the term used for those kind of stories) could relate to the "main timeline". The timeline below is a combination of those ideas. First I would like to explain a few basic principles I used while making it:
- All games that are not listed on the offical timeline (with the exception of Legends and Lords of Shadow) are gaiden according to IGA.
- I've constructed the timeline in such a way that there is only one point where alternate timelines start branching off because I thought it would more cleaner than having a seperate branch for each gaiden.
- There are a few games that are "retellings" of other games. These games have mostly the same story as the original game but are completely different design wise. IGA said that the original game always takes precedence so all retellings are gaiden. The only exception, he said, is Castlevania Chronicles which has the same canonity as the original Castlevania. Therefore, I've listed games like Castlevania IV, Haunted Castle etc as seperate adventures on different branches of the timeline.
- If two games on different timeline branches are listed at about the same height, it means that they roughly they place around the same time. For example, Castlevania: The Arcade takes place around the same time as the original Castlevania.
- I've included three Japanese exclusive CV books which most of you probably don't know anything about. You can read more about them at Mr P's site. Roughly translated they are called: Legend of Demon Castle - The Vampire Hunters (http://"http://www.vgmuseum.com/mrp/multi/Memorabilia/collect-gvhnovel.htm"), Nightmare of Blood (http://"http://www.vgmuseum.com/mrp/multi/Memorabilia/collect-sad.htm") and Battle of the Old Castle (http://"http://www.vgmuseum.com/mrp/multi/Memorabilia/collect-ad.htm).
- Most of these timeline placements have no real factual basis and are just based on my ideas. The only exceptions are the Pachislot games and Adventure Rebirth which are gaiden sequels to Castlevania III.
Timeline:
Castlevania: Lament of Innocence
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|
Castlevania III
^ ^ | ^ ^
| | | | |
Pachislot 1/2 | Castlevania: | |
| | Curse of Darkness | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
Legend of Demon Castle: | Castlevania: Castlevania: Castlevania:
The Vampire Hunters | The Adventure The Adventure The Belmont Legacy
| | | Rebirth |
| | Castlevania II: | |
| | Belmont's Revenge | |
Castlevania: | | | |
Order of Shadows | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
Castlevania: Super Castlevania Vampire Killer Haunted Castle
The Arcade Castlevania IV (Chronicles) | |
| | | |
| | | |
| Castlevania: | |
| Harmony of Dissonance | |
| | | |
| | | |
| Castlevania: | Castlevania: Dracula X
| Rondo of Blood | |
| | | |
| Castlevania: | |
| Symphony of the Night | |
| | | Castlevania:
| | | Legacy of Darkness
| Castlevania: | |
| Order of Ecclesia | Castlevania 64
| | |
Nightmare of Blood Quincy Morris |
event |
| |
Castlevania: |
Bloodlines |
| |
Castlevania: Battle of the
Portrait of Ruin Old Castle
|
(rest of the timeline)
I will explain later why I decided to place a specific game together in a timeline branch with certain other games. If you got a question about my timeline, just ask away.
For the sake of discussion, what you think about having a timeline like this? Would you like it? How would you place all the games in relation to each other? etc.
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You forgot Simon's Quest.
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You forgot Simon's Quest.
No, he didn't.
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I'm not seeing Simon's Quest either. Also I'm not seeing CV: Legends as well as CotM.
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You've created an interesting timeline, but I'm not sure I understand your reasoning as to why certain stories are on the same track as others.
Aside from the Lords of Shadow series, there's really very little contradiction between the games. I always saw multiple versions of the same game, like the original CV or Dracula X, as no different than villagers retelling a story. Things may end up being altered or exaggerated, but the core of the story is there and it always ends the same way. And when it comes to games like CotM or Legends, even Iga seems to be loosening his embargo against them.
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Woops, tought Belmont's Revenge was Simon's Quest. Forgot about the GB title. My bad.
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You forgot Simon's Quest.
Yes, I forgot Simon's Quest. Just imagine it's there between CV1 and HoD.
Also I'm not seeing CV: Legends as well as CotM.
It appears I didn't explain myself very well. Sorry about that. IGA told me CV: Legends was a "story from another world" which means it takes place in a completely different universe then the rest of the series. Other games like CV64, CotM etc are "gaiden" and he makes a distinction between that and "story from another world". So gaidens games still take place in the world of IGA's timeline, albeit as an alternate timeline, while Legends is a completely different world altogether.
As for CotM, I decided to leave that one out for now because I'm not sure how Nathan's story would relate to that of the Belmonts. He is from a completely different family, uses a different whip etc.
You've created an interesting timeline, but I'm not sure I understand your reasoning as to why certain stories are on the same track as others.
Thank you for thinking my timeline is interesting. As for why which games are together on the same track, I was going to explain that. :)
I'll start with the left most branch.
- It starts out with the Pachislot games. I wasn't sure if these Pachislots even had stories at all, but according to the developer's blog of Pachislot III, they are gaiden sequels that run parallel to Curse of Darkness. Trevor is the hero again however, and not Hector. Pachislot I and II are the same story while III adapts Castlevania 3.
- The story that follows is told in a gamebook called "Legend of Demon Castle: The Vampire Hunters". It's an sequel to CV3 that deals with the descendants of Trevor, Sypha, Grant and Alucard defeating Dracula again. This story was ignored by IGA's timeline so I included it on this branch instead.
Oddly enough, it appears Trevor never married Sypha according to this story because Trevor's descendant, Sid, and Sypha's, are not said to be related at all and have the surname Belmont and Belnades respectively. Therefore, in order to be consistent, I decided that this story would fit pretty nicely with the Pachislots, and I came up with the idea that in this timeline, Trevor marries Angela (who is a character in the Pachislots) instead of Sypha, and that she marries somebody else too. As a result, a completely different line of Belmonts comes into existence, and characters like Simon, Christopher etc are never born in this timeline.
Also, I mentioned Alucard has a descendant in the book, so in this timeline, Alucard decided not to seal himself away.
- Next up is Order of Shadows. IGA said this game was gaiden too, and I thought this timeline is where it fits best. I decided not to put in any of the other branches, because I thought its story would conflict with Simon's otherwise. That's because the manual stories of Simon's various adventures tend to mention the last time Dracula was defeated was 100 years ago. Order of Shadows being set in the 1600's, wouldn't fit in very well.
Desmond also inherited his fabulous hair from Sid.
- The last story in this branch is CV: The Arcade. I really wanted to include this story somewhere and I thought it worked very well in this spot. The story is very vague, but despite not outright stating so, it seems to imply Dracula resurrects again after 100 years. You also don't really know anything about the main character, Vampire Hunter, but for the sake of this timeline I'm assuming he is a descendant of Desmond.
At the end of this story, the Little Witch character absorbs Dracula's powers, and becomes the new Demon Queen. I thought that would put an nice end to the "Dracula saga" of this branch of the timeline.
Anyway, I'll stop for now because this is getting quite lengthy. :)
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It appears I didn't explain myself very well. Sorry about that. IGA told me CV: Legends was a "story from another world" which means it takes place in a completely different universe then the rest of the series.
Last time I checked 'another world' and 'alternate realities' are in essence the same thing. Both still happen on Earth even if the stories are different. So by this reasoning IGA doesn't really know what he's saying.
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Are you familiar with the tv-series "Awake", X? It's about a policeman who gets into a car crash with his wife and son. From the moment of the incident two timelines come into existence: one where his wife dies and one where his son dies. He experiences both of these timelines and they are both just as real. This is what a gaiden/alternate timeline is in this case. What IGA meant with "story from another world" is that Legends is like Lords of Shadow, it takes place in a parallel world, it mirrors IGA's world in some cases but also differs from it in substantial ways. Essentially what Termina from the Legend of Zelda series is to Hyrule, except in Castlevania's case, both worlds are called Earth.
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Personally I see this "timeline" as quite confusing.
As for me I see remakes as different interpretation of the same event by villagers (as someone sad before). Though, I made the story (consider it a fanfic) that explained why Simon has five different appearances and five different versions of the same adventure.
Nightmare of Blood
Wouldn't you mind to tell what is this?
My personal CV timeline is close to the official thing - it discards all Pachislots and Arcade. CVL, CV64, LOD and COTM are different timeline (universe) all together. And remakes doesn't count (i.e. there is only one version of each event, like CV1 is true story and the rest are glorified retellings).
Last time I checked 'another world' and 'alternate realities' are in essence the same thing.
If I understood it right, then "different timeline" happens in the same reality as "normal timeline".
For example some Mike Random goes on the left on the road, but somehow he manages to go right at the same time. So we have two Mike Randoms co-existing in the same universe, but they kind of disconnected from each other, each living in their own version of reality. In a sense it is a different universe, but not.
Confusing concept. :o
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Nightmare of Blood is a Japanese Castlevania novel published by Aspect in 1994. The full (awkward) title is Demon Castle Dracula: Blood of the Demon - Nightmare of Blood. It's rather creative with its source material. Simon Belmont is actually in this novel and he is basically turned into Alucard. He is revived as a Dhampir about 200 years after he killed Dracula. Dracula himself returns as well, by possessing Simon's best friend.
Regarding "remakes", just to be clear, the part about them being in alternate timelines is not fanfiction. I can back that up with evidence:
Regarding Castlevania: Rondo of Blood and Castlevania: Dracula X, though Dracula X was created as a port of Rondo of Blood, it does not reflect the intentions of the Rondo of Blood staff at all. For myself, I give priority to the intent of the original creators and treat Dracula X as a separate continuity.
Because Castlevania: the Adventure Rebirth is more a completely new game than a remake, I think it is best to treat is as a separate continuity.
Regarding the Famicom version and the X68000 version, the X68000 version is an arrangment based on the Famicon version. The arrangement of a game is the kind of thing where you add a lot of different things as needed, so honestly speaking, it think they both should be considered legitimate.
Personally, these remakes always bothered me and I considered the explanation that they were different versions of the same story a bit of a cop-out. So I definitely like this alternate timeline explanation better. In my opinion, it's the least confusing explanation.
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Nightmare of Blood is a Japanese Castlevania novel published by Aspect in 1994. The full (awkward) title is Demon Castle Dracula: Blood of the Demon - Nightmare of Blood.
Does this story have any relation to the canon? Or was it completely discarded?
Personally I find interpretation of "remakes" being (rumor based in-universe) retellings of the same story much simplier rather the whole "fest of alternate timelines". IGA's approach makes the Castlevania universe incredibly bloated with different contiunities. If every remake have its own timeline...what it would be...10+ CV timelines?!
IGA is certainly not so great storyteller. I mean it is easy to say that the game is in different timeline, but with amount of stuff that could be regarded in CV'verse as "alternate timeline" (at least 1/3 of the series) it opens a very big barrel of fat worms. And still it doesn't help to indicate what is a "true version" of the story in main timeline.
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Does this story have any relation to the canon? Or was it completely discarded?
No, it was completely ignored.
Personally I find interpretation of "remakes" being (rumor based in-universe) retellings of the same story much simplier rather the whole "fest of alternate timelines". IGA's approach makes the Castlevania universe incredibly bloated with different contiunities. If every remake have its own timeline...what it would be...10+ CV timelines?!
Well, there are four versions of Simon's adventure (if you count the original and X68000 as the same event), so at the very least, there would be four timelines. I came up with five because there were a couple of games I didn't want to shoehorn into the other ones. That's of course, not assuming each retelling has its own timeline (which would indeed be a bit ridiculous) and that they can share a continuity with other retellings. For example, I came up with the idea that Vampire Killer follows up on Rebirth etc.
IGA is certainly not so great storyteller. I mean it is easy to say that the game is in different timeline, but with amount of stuff that could be regarded in CV'verse as "alternate timeline" (at least 1/3 of the series) it opens a very big barrel of fat worms. And still it doesn't help to indicate what is a "true version" of the story in main timeline.
I don't really think that's really IGA's fault, but rather the result of the developers doing whatever they wanted back then, and they are still doing that now.
As for what is the "true version", that's pretty easy. It's always the original version. And in case of Simon's adventure, it's the original and the "rearrangement" of the original.
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I don't really think that's really IGA's fault, but rather the result of the developers doing whatever they wanted back then, and they are still doing that now.
I am agree with that, but I still think that he shouldn't try to explain purely marketing decisions "in-story". It's useless and creates more mess than it clear.
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That depends on what we're talking about has to do with "marketing" or was original intent all along. All Castlevania games so far except maybe Legends are not in continuity with IGA's timeline because that was original intent. I can easily imagine that being the case with the "remakes" too.
For example, do you know about that Gamecenter CX interview with IGA where he states the X in the Japanese title for Sypmphony of the Night means gaiden (spin-off)? There is a theory (not mine) that the extra X in the title of Dracula XX for the SNES means gaiden too. So the title would be read as "Dracula X gaiden".
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For example, do you know about that Gamecenter CX interview with IGA where he states the X in the Japanese title for Sypmphony of the Night means gaiden (spin-off)? There is a theory (not mine) that the extra X in the title of Dracula XX for the SNES means gaiden too. So the title would be read as "Dracula X gaiden".
Gaiden of a gaiden? Oh my...
About marketing stuff I meant that, when all of thiese remakes were created no-one thought how they will fit timeline. They were being created because Konami thought it would be a good idea to make SNES and Sharp games remakes - there were no BIG idea behind it. And attempting to make sense of it is kind of useless. It always come a bit as farfetched.
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I only said the extra X could mean gaiden. The X from Rondo of Blood means "10".
I understand that they there didn't really care back then but that doesn't mean the original intent wasn't for them to be gaiden. Back when Bloodlines was still not in continuity with the rest of the series (before the timeline was made) they also just said briefly "this game is a gaiden", and that was that. They were not "trying to make sense" out of anything because it was always meant to be that way. It might be the case with the "remakes" too.
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It might be the case with the "remakes" too.
Allrighty then. :)
Though, I still uphold to believe that trying to explain how remakes fit the timeline is kind of bad idea.
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Gee...another minus? Some idiot certainly have a boner for me. What with chasing me around the whole forum?
But, oh, well everyone must have their hobbies, even if they are completely stupid and idiotic...
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Though, I still uphold to believe that trying to explain how remakes fit the timeline is kind of bad idea.
I agree. It really isn't necessary. For instance all the remakes of the original Castlevania. In my humble opinion everyone has their most favorite Simon-based game. It's much easier just to leave it up to them to decide which version of Castlevania is the one that's canon rather then IGA try and squeeze them all into some form of order, which ended up being more convoluted in the end. Let us fans decide for ourselves.
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All of Simon's games are canon in a way. That seems like the ideal solution to me since one would not have to choose and invalidate the others as a result.
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All of Simon's games are canon in a way.
And each have different timeline...that create a mess of timelines.
It's like some guy from Capcom who said, maybe a decade ago, that every Street Fighter game happens in its own world (i.e. SFA2 in its own world, SFA3 - in another, e.t.c.).
I mean, it creates problems where there should be none. Not a big issue, but rather a material for possible confusion.
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Sumac,
No matter what your personal view of what is or isn't useless, it is not uncommon for the human mind to try to weave a web of meaning where there may be none.
Thus, it is human nature to try and make sense of this, or organize it.
I actually had a comprehensive multi-span timeline that worked every game (except the Pachislot and DraculaKun ones) into a timeline, including all four versions of Castlevania (CV, VK, HC, CV4), though I personally believe that "Chronicles" (X68000) really is just CV1, but that's personal.
EDIT: Then my drive died and I lost it. That was a while back. And then "The Arcade", "Lords of Shadow" and "Harmony of Despair" came out and I stopped bothering, haha.
I think your constant condescending tone is what's giving you the minuses. If you don't like 'em, try to post things that aren't constantly berating others.
Oh, and don't tell me you don't care, 'cuz it's obvious you do otherwise you'd just take the minuses in stride. The fact that you're posting about it means it irks you. So the terrorists are winning.
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That's very interesting, Horge. How did you your timeline go?
And each have different timeline...that create a mess of timelines.
That depends on how the concept is executed. They managed to pull it off properly with the Zelda timeline.
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No matter what your personal view of what is or isn't useless, it is not uncommon for the human mind to try to weave a web of meaning where there may be none.
Human mind could have something more usefull to do rather than trying to make sense of something that never was supposed to be made sense of. Besides, I believe, I never used offensive or condescending tone in this particular discussion, so your really condescending tone is unjustified in this case.
That depends on how the concept is executed. They managed to pull it off properly with the Zelda timeline.
As far as I know Zelda have something like 3,5 timelines or something like that, not 10+ timelines for every single remake.
I think your constant condescending tone is what's giving you the minuses. If you don't like 'em, try to post things that aren't constantly berating others.
Oh, and don't tell me you don't care, 'cuz it's obvious you do otherwise you'd just take the minuses in stride. The fact that you're posting about it means it irks you. So the terrorists are winning.
Oh, yeah, because given a critical opinion is deserved to be punished. Ha-ha. How openminded.
And you think its normal that some retard give minuses to the posts where I am not even commenting on anything like here (http://castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/index.php/topic,4550.msg110104.html#msg110104) or here (http://castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/index.php/topic,4550.msg110369.html#msg110369), for example?
I am OK, with justified critic (and not against "justified minuses"), when I said something, that some people could find offensive (though more often than not I see obssessed people getting pissed of because not everyone lick their feet and praise their favorite games and by the way I'm not aloine in this opinion, there are much more people who pissed of with those users, though they don't tell it outright). However, I am not OK, with some fantard getting a stupid campain against everything that I write. I believe such behavior should be punished or at least person who in charge of this stupidity should be warned. Its stupid vandalism in its glory.
I did such think in the past once, but as you know I stopped and since then NEVER gave anyone ever single minus. You have prove of it. Besides, I behaved in more good fashion in the past few weeks, so I see this constant minusing as really out-of-nowhere. As someone who cares about order, as you noted before, I think, you shouldn't let random users going around chasing others. But, its all up to you. We all have our reasons and politics, though I have pretty good idea about politics in Castlevania fandom in general.
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As far as I know Zelda have something like 3,5 timelines or something like that, not 10+ timelines for every single remake.
That's assuming each retelling (not just the ones with Simon) gets its own timeline, in which case you would get 5 extra timelines. However, like I said, it depends on the execution of the idea. You could easily condense the total amount of timelines to 4, and in case you don't want to shoehorn in some games, you could create another timeline just for those, which would amount to 5. That's either 1 or 2 more timelines than Zelda has currently.
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Human mind could have something more usefull to do rather than trying to make sense of something that never was supposed to be made sense of. Besides, I believe, I never used offensive or condescending tone in this particular discussion, so your really condescending tone is unjustified in this case.
I do not think that we are at the best place to tell people what's useful and what isn't, since this is a videogame forum. Anyone outside could arguably tell you that you're wasting your life here and could be 'doing something more useful'. The fact that you take it upon yourself to tell people what is or isn't, or that they could be doing something better with their time only further proves that your posts have an air of condescending attitude towards them.
No one likes to be told something they're passionate about is a waste of time.
@Nagumo,
The timeline was created before Lords of Shadow, when that game was a twinkle in Cox's eye. Although it worked well, I had to change some of the dates around (by just a few years, nothing too major... it was usually stuff around Legends' time).
I don't remember a lot of the details, mostly 'cuz I was really mad when I lost the file, but essentially, there was an IGA-like timeline (which uses CV1/Chronicles, Simon's Quest, Harmony, Rondo, etc.), while there were two other timelines (one used Order of Shadows, Haunted Castle, Circle of the Moon, and Castlevania 64).
The lynchpin that changed timelines around was:
-Judgement with Aeon
-CoD with Germaine (who is in an organization started by Aeon)
-Time Travelling anomalies and the 'erasing' of Sonia from Time (like Marle from Chrono Trigger), creating another dimension where she doesn't exist. Victor Belmont restored this dimension, but whenever one makes a choice, a new universe is born.
I think I had a limit of three timelines, mostly to accomodate CV1/VK/X68000; Haunted Castle; and CV4.
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Yeah, I was thinking whatever caused these seperate timelines would be due to time travel, though I'm not sure what. I'd like to think the Pachislot timeline is the one that Germaine was trying to prevent from happening. Is that timeline, Hector becomes Dracula's vessel instead of Isaac and Trevor has to stop him. From what I can tell, that theory seems more or less supported by the developer's blog. Not sure how the other timelines came into existence, though.
Germaine does mention he is there because there is something wrong with the flow of time, though he doesn't explain why and who is responsible. If I had to come with an explanation for these alternate timelines, I would say it has something to do with these "errors" in time, and that alternate timelines are created as a result of them, as a means for time to "correct" itself.
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Yeah, I was thinking whatever caused these seperate timelines would be due to time travel
I pretty much had the same idea, though in more...destructive way, so to speak.
My idea was that there is one single timeline, that was once completely destroyed and then altered multiple times due to the ill will of some higher force (not Galamoth). Sent-Germaine and Aeon helped to restore timeline from scraps, thus causing some of the events to be "off timeline".
The fact that you take it upon yourself to tell people what is or isn't, or that they could be doing something better with their time only further proves that your posts have an air of condescending attitude towards them.
It was a general statement not aimed at anyone in particular. No need to get it close to a heart like that. Besides, you didn't answered my statements...not that it was surprising.
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I don't know how to answer statements. I answer questions, not statements.
And you just did it again. Every other thing that you post has some sort of 'barb' somewhere. "...not that it was surprising".
The fact that you hide under such passive-aggressive measures is disconcerting.
I just explained to you that that attitude is why you have people following you around giving you minuses.
I'm not saying I agree with what they're doing, but I understand. It's not the most mature thing to do but then again neither is hiding under the veil of 'it's just a general statement' or whatever other backhanded thing that comes out of your keyboard.
There's a difference between 'having a critical opinion', and 'being an ass', that difference being that one of those is actually frowned upon here heavily (it's in the rules). The fact that you don't get it through your head that you have to follow some basic level of diplomacy with your posts shows me that either you don't care about the rules here, or that you're a numbskull.
And I don't think you're a numbskull, so I will once appeal to your intelligence and tell you to play ball.
You're allowed to be critical... even bordering on critcal cynical, but once you start being an ass, I have to tell you to dial it back, and if you cannot do that, then do feel free to migrate to many of the established boards where going around slyly insulting the fanbase is allowed and applauded.
I don't want to have to tell you again.