Wait, so is DoS set in Romania? I thought it was set in Japan.
It has to be in Europe imo. The streetscape outside of the castle has non-Japanese architecture and its vehicles look European.
Yeh, but it's set in 2036, so I wouldn't be surprised if they built the buildings in European buildings. Most buildings looks like that nowdays. Also it could be some sort of Ijinkan (Japanese buildings/towns with classic Western architecture).
Firstly 2036 isn't so far into the future. Not enough to alter the vernacular architecture of countries which have been established for hundreds and thousands of years.
I don't understand your comment about building buildings within buildings.
Secondly, it could be some western-looking town in Japan, but I'm choosing to use Occam's razor here. Given that plottwist has already noted evidence which is substantiated about a European location, assuming that "City Street" is in Japan, does not make sense.
In the intro, the town's name is Hakuba(-cho).
About Celia's castle, I think it's in Japan as well, because DoS is all set within one night. There's no way that Mina will be in Japan (her home) at the start (probably shortly after sunset) and arrive anywhere in Europe by the dawn (10 hours to at least land anywhere in Europe, almost 15 hours to Romania). Unless of some kind of teleport, but I didn't see a hint of it from Soma's side of people.
Maybe the castle ruins under Celia's replica actually belong to Walter's Castle.
Do you have source on that? I also believe the town in the intro is at Japan, but I'm yet to see a source for its name.
Unless you're talking about the scrolling text, which is actually talking about events in the past year.
Not a good idea to use Mina or time scale for two reasons:
1. We don't know if it really takes place over one single night. Granted, we only ever see the moon. But this is also a Demon Castle, and we've seen a Demon Castle produce artificial night before. On top of that, we've seen by Dracula's Castle that time does NOT follow an orderly flow inside a Demon Castle (OoE- Machine Tower, look at the outside). For all we know, it could've taken minutes to weeks to finish the quest. It's impossible to guess how long it took.
2. The start of the castle is not in the same day as the intro. Mina sends Soma a letter and in it she says that Soma disappeared right after the event with Celia at the intro, and the she grew worried that he might've gone after the cult. It takes more than one full day to grow worried to that point. So, you have here a believable large time span previous to Soma's arrival at the castle that could include Mina making her way after him and arriving just some hours past Soma's arrival at the castle. The time scale is also supported by a Yoko line, saying that it's been long now that Soma doesn't see Mina -- meaning that it COULD have been days ago that Soma left from home to reach the castle, and Mina followed behind. You can't comment on "how long it has been since you last saw a person" if it was just some hours ago.
Nice find man, definitely great job on your part. I never gave it much of a second look.
The first image is LOI's map, the middle image is a location in Sweden, but it's been mirrored.
[EDIT]
As I thought, any references to Dracula as a "Count" are A) post-Dark Lordification as Sweden has no records of any sort of [formally recognized] peerage earlier than 1280 AD or (more likely) B) a reference to the books and films that inspired the series -- he almost assuredly wouldn't have actually been a Count in-universe as the Church doesn't exactly hand out a Countship/Grafdom to the walking embodiment of Chaos that is their sworn enemy. Any noble heritage Mathias might have had in 1094 probably went WAAAAY back; possibly without any sort of formal title.
Mathias was already a Count by LoI's time. May be inconsistent with reality (as many things on CV's universe are), but it's true.
Well, there was no title ANYWHERE called a Count in 1094 (it doesn't emerge until much later), but I have no trouble reading that as he was some equivalent rank and just updated the wording when the term eventually came about, which is something actual historians do in real life as well. So, at least to me, that seems to make the most sense.
Therefore, strictly speaking, he's always been essentially a Count even if that wasn't always the term used to describe his rank.
Certainly by the time Trevor Belmont came to whip him at the head off, the term "count" had come into adoption, so in terms of game canon, he goes from "essentially a Count but semantically not" to "actual Count for all intents and purposes plus he's the Dark Lord who's gonna argue with him" literally on the next notch in the timeline down from LoI.
As for who's gonna argue with him, clearly Trevor did. With a whip. His argument seems to have had mixed results.
Also, I just want to add I didn't take it from some speculation or something. It was on Mathias' bio itself:
(https://castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2F6DNkaFY.png&hash=fa401f75e670c5a779b7ec6d0571f82347b3ffe4)
It says: "A prodigious genius tactician in a knighthood society where education is neglected. He has a close relationship with Leon, and has the title of Count/Earl. He fell ill after losing his wife Elisabetha. The person who told Leon his fiance had been kidnapped."
I wonder what he did to merit the promotion; Earls in his day couldn't usually inherit the title (though the King automatically appointing the eldest son of a previous Earl out of a sense of gratitude wasn't unheard of). So now I'm wondering how he came by that title, but that's another question for another thread.
by being really fucking pretty
I will point out that, at least in-game, he's never been referred to as a count prior to the term coming into use -- every time he's been called Count Dracula has been in a calendar year that takes place after the term began to come into wide adoption, which I think bolsters this theory.
But given the evidence you provided, I would definitely go with Earl -- at least for his original title. Not only is it an older title that goes back further than Count, but it's also almost exactly equivalent in rank and social standing in the British Isles and Scandinavia, making it a more accurate translation in terms of communicating meaning. As mentioned before, Mathias' surname definitely pegs him as a Swede and this is actually a real world detail that Castlevania has historically gotten mostly right, so Earl is very likely the one.
So... they did do their homework when writing Lament after all. :D It's actually hitting the target pretty dead-center in that regard. So it would seem that when he made his war upon mankind later on, he simply presented himself using a contemporary but equivalent title that the rest of Europe would have easily recognized by that time -- which is actually pretty smart. But Dracula is also a pretty modern man who is routinely slightly ahead of whichever time he tends to appear in, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by that.
I wonder what he did to merit the promotion; Earls in his day couldn't usually inherit the title (though the King automatically appointing the eldest son of a previous Earl out of a sense of gratitude wasn't unheard of). So now I'm wondering how he came by that title, but that's another question for another thread.
Wow! I never knew that the Scandinavians practiced better hygiene than the rest of Europe during that era.
Bernhard seems to be German in origin, while
It is indeed, and there's an intentional corollary with Walter's name and the name of "Vlad Tepes" -- the names Vlad and Walter both derive from the same Germanic root "Wald" which means "Ruler". In fact, the name Walter derives from the earlier "Waldihar" which literally means "Ruler of an Army". This name was apparently very deliberately chosen during development, and the desired implication at the time was that Mathias essentially becomes the next "Ruler" by double crossing Walter and using the Crimson Stone and Death's help to steal his power/essence, transforming into "Vlad", a new "Ruler" over Walter's legions, which would have explained how Dracula got his first servants.
Iga later backtracked on that a little bit with his later works. Early on, the idea seemed to be that Walter served as the previous Dark Lord, but this detail in particular seemed to have been retconned later into something more or less ambiguous about Walter's status, with the new stance mostly being that Walter was simply the most powerful vampire in existence at the time (both in terms of personal power and the numbers/capabilities of his servants) but not necessarily the "Dark Lord". Nevertheless, that core essence of that story --that command of the Earthly forces of Evil transferred to Dracula upon his ascension after killing Walter-- is still rooted in Dracula's origins in the current canon.
Crap, we were supposed to be talking about a map, I think.
Gandolfi seems to be Italian in origin
Maybe the castle ruins under Celia's replica actually belong to Walter's Castle.I always held on to this theory, even back when DoS was released. I saw a lot of the areas within Celia's castle to be modern versions of the areas in Walter's Castle (House of Sacred Remains -> Dark Chapel, Anti-Soul Mysteries Lab -> Wizardry Lab, Ghostly Theater -> Demon Guest House, Dark Palace of Waterfalls -> Subterranean Hell, and Garden Forgotten by Time -> Garden of Madness). The Lost Village was built in an area that was formerly the Forest of Eternal Night (over 1000 prior, thus without the veil and threat of monsters, people built a town within that grew to a nice size). I'd think Subterranean Hell is the 1000 year old ruins of what is left of Dark Palace of Waterfalls after Walter's Castle crumbled (hence a lot of it is submerged and structures have been water-worn for a millennium). I also think the Condemned Tower was built over where the Prison of Eternal Torture once was, and the Mines of Judgement were an extended portion of the Prison that remained intact, and perhaps excavated sometime int he 1000 after LoI (Forgotten One's chamber, however, remained demolished and buried).
I always held on to this theory, even back when DoS was released. I saw a lot of the areas within Celia's castle to be modern versions of the areas in Walter's Castle (House of Sacred Remains -> Dark Chapel, Anti-Soul Mysteries Lab -> Wizardry Lab, Ghostly Theater -> Demon Guest House, Dark Palace of Waterfalls -> Subterranean Hell, and Garden Forgotten by Time -> Garden of Madness). The Lost Village was built in an area that was formerly the Forest of Eternal Night (over 1000 prior, thus without the veil and threat of monsters, people built a town within that grew to a nice size). I'd think Subterranean Hell is the 1000 year old ruins of what is left of Dark Palace of Waterfalls after Walter's Castle crumbled (hence a lot of it is submerged and structures have been water-worn for a millennium). I also think the Condemned Tower was built over where the Prison of Eternal Torture once was, and the Mines of Judgement were an extended portion of the Prison that remained intact, and perhaps excavated sometime int he 1000 after LoI (Forgotten One's chamber, however, remained demolished and buried).
Though the first hint I got (even though it is likely do to just reusing assets) is that both LoI and DoS use the same render art of the Walter's Castle:
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/d5/db/83/d5db8374e413cf050b5811c029bb283d.jpg) (https://r.mprd.se/fup/up/46192-Castlevania_-_Dawn_of_Sorrow_(U)(Legacy)-1.png)
The only thing that nags at me with LOI's castle being DOS' castle is it being described as a "towering replica of Dracula's Castle" (which I believe is stated on the back of the box) purely given that LOI's Castle is largely not believed to be Dracula's Castle. Maybe this is simply a translation issue, but it adds to the fact I've never thought of LOI's castle as "towering", I can only recall an actual tower/ outer wall in one part of the game (where you fight the optional boss and receive the lightning whip) and I thought the place was relatively regular aside from Pagoda.
I won't however deny the similarities between the two, it's possible they just rebuilt it upon the ruins or it was rebuilt in the past and used by Celia's cult.
The castle did crumble at the end of Lament, and there's almost 1000 years until Dawn. They would have to rebuild it.
The "replica" thing is not a translation issue. IGA referred to it as a replica of Dracula's Castle himself, but the game explains that the "replica" part is on the "Demon Castle" part, not on the "Dracula's Castle". Celia is trying to make the castle into a replica of Dracula's Castle by turning it into a Demon Castle, like Dracula's was.
DoS' Castle does feel more regimented than AoS'. Even comparing the maps it's quite evident that this is the case. I also don't think they included the map on Yoko's room for no good reason and the parallels with LOI's castle leads me to believe this is the case.