Castlevania Dungeon Forums
The Castlevania Dungeon Forums => Fan Stuff => Topic started by: Corpsecrank on November 29, 2013, 09:57:43 AM
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I want to detail the events leading up to and including castlevania 1 on the nes. My problem however is the inconsistency in the official storyline and some of the characters barely being talked about like christopher's son and the fact that he is simon's father. Did soleiyu encounter dracula? Is there really any information at all on this character?
Still yet there are other issues like legends being pulled from the official story. Should that be included or dropped? I feel like the story should be accurate to the official timeline but as a fan who played the games as they were released I also feel like those games matter to the story overall in some way and I hate to simply discard that part of things completely.
Anyways I am looking for as much input on this as possible. I want to hear what you think about including or dropping legends. Is it necessary to fill in missing details ourselves to properly cover the parts with the least information? Or is there a better source of information on some of this stuff?
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I'll need to caution you here as many of us have our own beliefs in what information is relevant according to our own personal tastes about CV's convoluted history. And many of those contradictions came from IGA when he was shoehorning his stories into the series.
I personally feel that Legends did not need to be removed. There was plenty of room in between Vlad's rise to the Vampire king Dracula (1462 as mentioned in the 1992 movie adaption) and his assassination in 1472. Legends could easily fit in there with Sonia being the one to assassinate him. And since CV III originally took place in 1492 (20 years later) it would have been enough time for Trevor Belmont to be born, grow to maturity and hunt down Dracula when he began his war on humanity. But then IGA messed it up with CoD taking place three years after 1476. CoD I feel should not have been made.
In terms of Soleiyu encountering Dracula yes that did happen. But it was Dracula that got to him first and not the other way around. Dracula had gained control over Soleiyu in order to use his power and to have him eliminate Christopher. But Dracula could not use the powers of a Belmont because it's impossible. I also don't think Soleiyu is Simon's Father but Grandfather. You have to remember that in those days people weren't living very long as they do today. Also many married early in their lives (in their mid to late teens).
I personally find 1094 to be in error in terms of the LoI back story. It says that Leon and Mathias were warriors in the crusades yet the Crusades did not start until 1095 (one year later) So Leon and Mathias could not be in that war. We also have the fact that Mathias later becomes Dracula, yet according the Bram Stoker's Dracula (which was made canon into the CV series long before LoI) Vlad is Dracula and he did not become Dracula until (again) 1462. Both Vlad and Mathias are to totally different people. Personality, style, looks (Mathias is a pretty boy while Vlad is reported as being somewhat ugly in looks by Turkish standards). And their general attitude towards people (Mathias is very cold and removed while Vlad is very temperamental and extreme. Ergo they cannot be the same person, but IGA went and did his own thing without thinking everything through. He's a perfectionist yet he made all these errors. No that in itself is a contradiction.
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Ha pretty good call I suppose as this is about how I felt and did not know what to do considering what a mess things are in the official timeline as you mentioned.
I also felt that legends fit just fine in the story and had no idea what they were thinking by just pulling it vs adjusting how it fit into the whole picture or something.
Here is a question then. Should I simply strike out some of the weird inconsistencies myself by replacing them with details from the classic stories about drac while adding legends back into the mix? Or is there a better way to handle this?
Basically I just need a solid timeline of events and characters to explain all the early stuff prior to simon entering draculas castle for the first time. The greater portion of this is going to focus on cv1 but I want to provide the back story in short leading up to that time.
I did consider going one step further by covering the events of cv2 since that is a direct continuation of simon's story. I would stop after that point. I will leave that idea on the back burner until I get almost done with this one. At that point if I still have interest in adding it I will.
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The problems you're going to run into go beyond just IGA's retcons, the games have been contradicting and retconning themselves almost from day 1. The problem with Legends is that it contradicts CV3. Taken at face value CV3 and CVA are actually supposed to be telling the same story. Ralph C. Belmont = Christopher Belmont originally, then ReBirth happened an that was retconned with official finality. so until we get some more remakes there are still going to be contradictions that have stemmed from retcons and the US versions having mistranslations or plainly making shit up doesn't help either.
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Maybe you could leave the inconsistencies as notes or dead-end splinters off the timeline? Then again, that might be enough work that some night's you'd say, "What a horrible curse to have this night."
And not to go off topic, but a question for X...didn't even the manual in CV3 say it all went down in 1476? I thought CoD was a continuation from the events in CV3, happening 3 years after that...hence the date of 1479 and Trevor's appearance in the game. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean?
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Concerning the Mathias-Vlad-Dracula connection:
Although it is true that Castlevania's timeline acknowledges Quincey Morris' encounter with Dracula in 1897, it's still debatable whether the events that happened in the novel are also considered part of the canon. The timeline that came with the Portrait of Ruin preorder bonus states that in 1897, Quincey "keeps Dracula at bay" and leaves it at that. A theoretical game set in 1897 will most likely be very different from Bram Stoker's novel; I feel it will just use several character's names and that's it. I mean, they already took liberty with it by making Quincey a descendant of the Belmonts, when there is no Belmonts in Bram Stoker's novel. He also murders Dracula with a bowie knife, but in the CV universe he without a doubt used the Vampire Killer to kill him instead. So who knows what else can change if they actually make a game based (or should I say, inspired) by the novel.
Now, the Symphony of the Night manual states that Dracula is estimated to be 800 years old. The Castlevania Adventure manual also states that before Dracula was Dracula, he was an ancient evil sorceror that made a pact with an evil deity and conducted taboo rituals in his castle every night. This is most likely the main reason why Mathias and the events of Lament of Innocence exist; to give credence to the few details concerning Dracula's age & origin as revealed in those manuals.
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And not to go off topic, but a question for X...didn't even the manual in CV3 say it all went down in 1476? I thought CoD was a continuation from the events in CV3, happening 3 years after that...hence the date of 1479 and Trevor's appearance in the game. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean?
Before IGA had made his official time line of events, Konami had done there own. And in that timeline CV III was stated to take place in 1492. I personally choose not to follow IGA's time line due to many conflicting issues that lie therein. As I had mentioned before everyone here has their own personal interpretation of the CV timeline. Go with what you feel is correct since the official sources haven't been keeping their ducks in a row very well.
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Yeah I see what you mean. I knew it was pretty chopped up I just had no idea the extent.
Well in that case maybe I should be putting together some type of "original" story to fill it all in and just try to keep it true to the way fans look at the series if that makes sense.
But hey you can see why I started asking questions. The timeline is a mess and there is a lot of missing info making things almost impossible to fix.
I may just end up doing something completely different here. I don't know what but with the mess left to work with I feel like trying to cram even more changes into that timeline to tell a story is going to be crap compared to something that doesn't try to adhere closely to the already mangled info in the official story.
Well back to the drawing board I suppose lol.
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I personally feel that Legends did not need to be removed. There was plenty of room in between Vlad's rise to the Vampire king Dracula (1462 as mentioned in the 1992 movie adaption) and his assassination in 1472. Legends could easily fit in there with Sonia being the one to assassinate him. And since CV III originally took place in 1492 (20 years later) it would have been enough time for Trevor Belmont to be born, grow to maturity and hunt down Dracula when he began his war on humanity. But then IGA messed it up with CoD taking place three years after 1476. CoD I feel should not have been made.
Except Legends tampered with the timeline implying Trevor was Alucard's son. I didn't think this was an issue, but after LOI konami made it clear that the Belmonts swore an oath to 'hunt the night' which if they were part of its offspring wouldn't really make sense. Also Iga retconned Legends basically accepted that after Trevor was the first Belmont to defeat Dracula.
COD was an incomplete resurrection, Isaac was the failed host/ body.
I personally find 1094 to be in error in terms of the LoI back story. It says that Leon and Mathias were warriors in the crusades yet the Crusades did not start until 1095 (one year later) So Leon and Mathias could not be in that war. We also have the fact that Mathias later becomes Dracula, yet according the Bram Stoker's Dracula (which was made canon into the CV series long before LoI) Vlad is Dracula and he did not become Dracula until (again) 1462. Both Vlad and Mathias are to totally different people. Personality, style, looks (Mathias is a pretty boy while Vlad is reported as being somewhat ugly in looks by Turkish standards). And their general attitude towards people (Mathias is very cold and removed while Vlad is very temperamental and extreme. Ergo they cannot be the same person, but IGA went and did his own thing without thinking everything through. He's a perfectionist yet he made all these errors. No that in itself is a contradiction.
The Novel never fit in perfectly with Castlevania, the series also states that John Morris saw his father Quincy die, and he'd have to be like two years old witnessing the last scene of the book, which isn't possible.
The point of LOI's ending is that Mathias escapes and starts creating his army of Darkness up to the events of CVIII.
The novel Dracula actually states that he sought the Turks who dabbled in the black arts over the [Carpathian] Mountains, it never says when. Black arts could be construed as Alchemy; the Crimson and Ebony Stones - Mathias finding the Crimson Stone.
Concerning the Mathias-Vlad-Dracula connection:
Now, the Symphony of the Night manual states that Dracula is estimated to be 800 years old. The Castlevania Adventure manual also states that before Dracula was Dracula, he was an ancient evil sorceror that made a pact with an evil deity and conducted taboo rituals in his castle every night. This is most likely the main reason why Mathias and the events of Lament of Innocence exist; to give credence to the few details concerning Dracula's age & origin as revealed in those manuals.
Agreed, and as above the novel references the Black Arts which potentially means a Myriad of things i.e. How Mathias becomes Dracula in LOI.
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Before IGA had made his official time line of events, Konami had done there own. And in that timeline CV III was stated to take place in 1492. I personally choose not to follow IGA's time line due to many conflicting issues that lie therein. As I had mentioned before everyone here has their own personal interpretation of the CV timeline. Go with what you feel is correct since the official sources haven't been keeping their ducks in a row very well.
I promise I'm not looking to argue here...I realize everyone has their own interpretation, and I just don't like to argue anyway. I'm just looking for a possible source. Reason being that when I questioned you the first time I was surprised at what you said, so I'd googled it. I hadn't done much digging or theorizing before, so I really didn't realize there was that much conflict in the timeline (although, if I'd thought about it I could have guessed...it's the same way with the LoZ timeline). My google search found a few places that said CV 3 happened in 1476, but I didn't see 1492...so I guess I'm just curious where some of the other theories come from.
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Most things are understood if this is seen.
http://castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Castlevania_Timeline (http://castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Castlevania_Timeline)
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My google search found a few places that said CV 3 happened in 1476, but I didn't see 1492...so I guess I'm just curious where some of the other theories come from.
The Castlevania dungeon use to feature the Konami timeline before IGA came along with his and Jorge updated the dungeon to reflect it. But I remember the year being 1492 and I still have that timeline printed off somewhere.
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The problems you're going to run into go beyond just IGA's retcons, the games have been contradicting and retconning themselves almost from day 1. The problem with Legends is that it contradicts CV3.
THIS^^^
It just wears thin on me that people seem to throw all kinds of crap at IGA's decisions, the man is not perfect but he had his reasons for removing Legends from the timeline since it contradicted CV3 before he even got his hands on the series.
Trevor was said to be the FIRST Belmont to beat Dracula, and then we have Legends which has a female Belmont kill him 20 years prior to Trevor even being born.
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I still think that legends should have just been shifted around in the timeline or something but hey it is what it is eh.
Well here is what I think at this point. I don't see myself trying to fix all the problems who could really. And since that was actually my initial plan before I knew what things were going to be like I got left hanging. So now I have to figure out where to go from here.
Should I continue with covering simon's story and simply drop all the prior stuff up to that point assuming that people know that history already or possibly telling it in such a way that the rest of the story need not even be mentioned? I could simply tell the original tale as we knew it prior to future games being released. The only problem is that I doubt anyone who hadn't played the first couple of games back when that was all we had would really understand the story as it is intended to be interpreted. I think that the viewpoint I am trying to express may simply be lost for the majority of people seeing that scenerio.
I could toss the idea of sticking with official material outside of basic core elements. Maybe tell an original piece that falls in between other evens or just make shit up entirely.
Again I need input from other fans to proceed I suppose. Basically I want to tell a story fans in particular could enjoy. What that story is about I suppose is less important than it holding some amount of value with the viewer. I know I can't please everyone but I would like to try to please as many viewers with my material as possible lol.
What do you guys think?
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that your say's great but this distant story line including time and honestly title , is turn conceptual' creator .....
for time line story , creating most console version for , story is impasse in time line... ( reprising Dracula at one 100 years time )...and for title , Only count called a legend for century...
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In the version of the timeline I'm writing, I fixed the problems with Legends somewhat. I made it so that Sonia and Alucard's relationship is purely platonic, and they have a more brothers-in-arms type relationship, and on top of that, I made it so that Sonia was defeated by Dracula, and only managed to escape because Alucard held off his father (leading to him being possessed, which led to his and Trevor's fight in CV3).
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Yeah I ended up just ditching the timeline idea since it is impossible to work with. I feel like trying to use the timeline may cause the overall story to suffer.
If anything it would be alt reality or something so that no time has to be spent cramming things together when they don't fit. It allows way more freedom as well.
Anyhow still fooling around with different ideas at the moment until I eventually settle on something.
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In the version of the timeline I'm writing, I fixed the problems with Legends somewhat. I made it so that Sonia and Alucard's relationship is purely platonic, and they have a more brothers-in-arms type relationship, and on top of that, I made it so that Sonia was defeated by Dracula, and only managed to escape because Alucard held off his father (leading to him being possessed, which led to his and Trevor's fight in CV3).
No offense Claimh Solais but I'm kinda seeing this as where, despite Sonia's efforts she is beaten down be Dracula even though she's a Belmont by name, blood and wields the vampirekiller and had battled and defeated Alucard. In your scenario she has no choice but to be helped from a predominantly stronger male character to save her, thus denouncing female strength (the ability to stand on her own) in the face of male dominion. To me it's just what we've already seen come from IGA in his stories with regards to Castlevania. But this is your means of fitting Legends into the timeline so 'do what thou wilt'.
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Just wanted to bring this up:
Where does it say LOI took place in 1094? I haven't read all of the documentation and references, but the Konami website says the Castlevania saga started in 1094; it doesn't say LoI took place in 1094. The Japanese Wiki doesn't even say it took place in 1094, just the English Wiki. So if all anyone is going off of is the Konami timeline, then technically there's nothing wrong with the date at all -- it would be Leon's birthyear.
The First Crusades started in 1095 when the Byzantine empire asked for aid to defend against the Turks. The Crusades lasted many, many years. The Venetian Crusade was in 1122, which would have put Leon at the age of 27 or 28. The Damascus Crusade was 1129, which was when the Templars were officially recognized by the papacy. Thus by the time of the Templars, if Leon was born in 1094 rather than the game taking place in 1094, Leon should have been in his early 30s.
So it wouldn't be a mistake on Konami's part, but a misinterpretation of the chronology.
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No offense Claimh Solais but I'm kinda seeing this as where, despite Sonia's efforts she is beaten down be Dracula even though she's a Belmont by name, blood and wields the vampirekiller and had battled and defeated Alucard. In your scenario she has no choice but to be helped from a predominantly stronger male character to save her, thus denouncing female strength (the ability to stand on her own) in the face of male dominion. To me it's just what we've already seen come from IGA in his stories with regards to Castlevania. But this is your means of fitting Legends into the timeline so 'do what thou wilt'.
*shrug* People can perceive it how they want. I wanted Sonia to be included in the plotline, and this is the only way I could think of where it wouldn't contradict the plot around it. Sonia is still the one who is the main protagonist, who is the one who fights Dracula. Hell, I could even make Alucard have his ass handed to him in the fight. It's just the way I wanted to work it.
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Where does it say LOI took place in 1094?
Think hard.
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If it's in the game, where in the game? The prologue was the only time I remember seeing any time period mentioned and that just talked about the end of the 11th century when knights became protectors of the order or whatever, no specific date and definitely not saying the game took place at the end of the 11th century necessarily. The US manual says the same thing. Same with the Japanese manual -- no hard dates. Is there a memo from IGA or someone hard-stating 1094 as the time LoI takes place? As I said, all I see is the Konami.jp website and the English Wiki, both of which say two different things. So yeah, I'm already thinking pretty hard about this -- how hard do you ever think, Nagumo?
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Calm down, I was just taking a friendly jab at you. :)
The timeline article at the Castlevania wiki has a pretty extensive gallery of offical timelines from various websites, guidebooks, and magazines. All of them confirm LoI takes place in 1094.
http://castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Castlevania_Timeline (http://castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Castlevania_Timeline)
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That Castlevania Wiki doesn't mention anything about Castlevania: Resurrection. Since it's a part of the 'Legends continuity' it should be mentioned there even if the game never did see the light of day.
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No I think it was left out for the same reasons that the canceled 32x game was left out. There never was a game to include because it was canceled so early on in development. Besides why include things that never happened?
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CV: Resurrection was not cancelled early on. In fact I think they were a little more then halfway done, possibly 2/3's complete. But then Konami pulled the plug rather then see if it could succeed. The 32X game never became a reality because it evolved into SotN which was released. So in essence SotN is the 32X game, just with a lot of differences.
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CV: Resurrection was not cancelled early on. In fact I think they were a little more then halfway done, possibly 2/3's complete. But then Konami pulled the plug rather then see if it could succeed.
I think it largely had to do with Dreamcast's declining popularity, especially with the dawn of the PlayStation 2, which did everything the Dreamcast did, only better.
Which was a shame. The Dreamcast had so many good games on it (never did play any of the online features).
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I think it largely had to do with Dreamcast's declining popularity, especially with the dawn of the PlayStation 2, which did everything the Dreamcast did, only better.
Which was a shame. The Dreamcast had so many good games on it (never did play any of the online features).
I'm thinking this too. But I just don't see why they didn't make the for both platforms. If the Dreamcast failed and the PS2 succeeded then we'd still have the game.
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I'm thinking this too. But I just don't see why they didn't make the for both platforms. If the Dreamcast failed and the PS2 succeeded then we'd still have the game.
Konami seemed to have high hopes for the game, and were putting their backs toward it. Why didn't they port it over to the PS2? Yeah, that's more work than it sounds, but still.
Something tells me that if we had that game today, Castlevania might have taken a different direction than what it's taken now.
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I try not to worry about what could have been or would have been I guess.
This does however seem to help my cause. I totally missed the fact that I could use what could have been for my story. I could explore what may have taken place in res as one possible route.
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This does however seem to help my cause. I totally missed the fact that I could use what could have been for my story. I could explore what may have taken place in res as one possible route.
I have been tempted many times to write out a possible Resurrection storyline. But with the introduction of Victor Belmont in LoS2, I've been wanting to take a look at his character in that.
One thing I did not like with Resurrection at all was the character designs. Victor looking like Tim Curry was kinda weird and Sonia just looked awful.
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Had they gone with a better art style then I think the characters would have looked much better. I wasn't fond of how Sonia looked in Resurrection either. But then again those cut scenes could still have been in Beta format and not the final product. Maybe they were testing the limits of the Dreamcast's engine to see how far they could take a realistic design. who knows.
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Yeah I think if I was ever to explore the idea of writing out a res story I would do my own thing with it. Only save the very basic concept that was used for the game and make almost everything up from scratch.
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Had they gone with a better art style then I think the characters would have looked much better. I wasn't fond of how Sonia looked in Resurrection either. But then again those cut scenes could still have been in Beta format and not the final product. Maybe they were testing the limits of the Dreamcast's engine to see how far they could take a realistic design. who knows.
It's the designs themselves, though. Sonia's outfit is along the likes of Ada Wong's Resident Evil 4 outfit (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_S1Kvv0iD6Vg/TJ0BWVoJd2I/AAAAAAAAADc/Y8vOSoRPY0c/s1600/AdaWong.jpg) in the sense that it's extremely impractical. Now a little bit of sexuality in a video game doesn't bother me, but Sonia's outfit looks like it was made simply for the point of making her look "sexy" and doesn't end up being a mixture of that and looking cool (while the aforementioned Ada outfit succeeds in doing both, though I much prefer her alternate costume (http://gamexgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/ada-wong-assignment-adaassignment-ada---wiki-resident-evil-4-worlds-gfltanga.jpg) in the game).
Yeah I think if I was ever to explore the idea of writing out a res story I would do my own thing with it. Only save the very basic concept that was used for the game and make almost everything up from scratch.
Yeah, I'd keep the time travel plot, Victor running away from his destiny, the taking place in 1666, Death riding a horse, Lady Dracula, etc., but make up the rest of the stuff.
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And don't forget that Sonia was resurrected in Resurrection ;D