Castlevania Dungeon Forums
The Castlevania Dungeon Forums => General Castlevania Discussion => Topic started by: Lumi Kløvstad on August 01, 2018, 04:15:21 PM
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What follows is strictly my personal opinion; feel free to disagree and even argue why you think I'm wrong.
Lament of Innocence is probably one of the best games in the series, when taken as a whole. The music, Castle, characters, fast combat (relative to what Castlevania usually has), and sheer level of personality exuded by every facet of the game easily put it up there as one of Iga's crown jewels, right up there with Symphony of the Night.
For years, I talked it up as "required reading" concerning the series.
And now I've reconsidered.
While Lament is something that I think every fan should definitely play as it represents arguably the best 3D take on Castlevania to date, the narrative is, unfortunately, just a gaiden tale -- a side story. It's interesting and fun to play through, but it doesn't really tell us anything we didn't already know that was actually important.
For example: Walter is a gloriously magnificent example of vampire melodrama and Exhibit A for how sexy a boisterous scenery-chewing male baritone can be, but he doesn't really move the needle much as a villain. Indeed, he's scarcely a character. He's more like a plot device with dialogue meant to justify Leon being the first Belmont vampire hunter in a world in which Dracula isn't made yet. Nothing of Walter's origin is explained, and, aside from kidnapping Rinaldo's daughter prior to this adventure, we really don't know anything else about him because frankly, Walter is the least important part of Lament of Innocence. He's like Dracula was portrayed in the first Castlevania: he allegedly did some stuff earlier (trust the manua-- I MEAN RINALDO on this) and he totally has to die because of it. He's an obviously evil final boss who shows up to taunt you once or twice before you fight him (and he's not even the actual final boss!). The game doesn't actually need Walter so much as it needs any plausibly powerful monster that could provide that boss battle for you (and preferably hurt and/or kill Sara before you fight it). There was some potential for backstory via Joachim, but his aired grievances are generic, undetailed, and too brief to add significant weight to Walter's villainous role*.
And concerning Dracula's origin story, Lament is just a repackaging of Castlevania 3's story that was gleaned from details in Symphony; Dracula really should stop falling for gentle blondes named Lisa because it will plainly never end well. We don't strictly need to know he was once Mathias Cronqvist. It doesn't progress our understanding of Dracula. And aside from some very subtle yaoi-fuel and scenery-chewing (that term again!) present in the single six minute cutscene in which he appears, there's no reason to find that Matthias adds much to the narrative. Why not have him already as Vlad Tepes, possibly already a vampire, and manipulating Leon into killing a more powerful rival in true Game of Thrones fashion? At least that way he avoids the Edgelord Emo Boi "Oh my wife died so now the Man's gotta pay" plot points we've already seen played out earlier in the series. Aside from establishing that Dracula is prone to that sort of behavior, we learn nothing from it that we couldn't have learned from another version of the plot. He's still a manipulative bastard either way, but removing Elisabetha's death as a motive and making it petty and ambitious instead makes him a Manipulative Bastard who doesn't listen to Nine Inch Nails on a loop. Also, establishing him as ACTUALLY Vlad would spare the story some confusing retcons about how Mathias became Dracula-who-pretended-to-be-Vlad that became necessary in the wake of this game.
Needless to say, we don't learn anything particularly useful with the story as written.
Lament veers closer to earlier Castlevanias in terms of the relationship of story to gameplay: the story is there strictly to justify the gameplay, and you really can ignore it if you want. That being said, like with those earlier games, there's some fun nuggets to dig out if you want to analyze them, like how "Walter" and "Vlad" have similar meanings (they both derive from the same root word, Wald, "To Rule") which helps establish how similar Dracula is to Walter, and denoting him as Walter's "successor". Knowing how the Vampire Killer was created, and by extension, a bit of how it works is kind of neat too, but it didn't really rate the list of important things to know.
If it sounds like I'm dumping on the game, I'm really not. I love it, it's one of my favorites, and it definitely deserves to be remembered as one of the Greatest Hits of the franchise, but in hindsight... the story really isn't as essential to know as I previously thought. Castlevania 3 is still the true starting point of the story, and Lament of Innocence bends over backwards to make sure of it, but sacrifices everything that could have made the story essential in doing so.
All Lament really tells us that we didn't already know is precisely when and why Dracula became such a douchebag to begin with.
Hardly the sort of stuff required reading is made from.
Man, hindsight sucks.
*Maybe add more vampirized former hunters? Their presence alone might have established Walter's role better.
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What follows is strictly my personal opinion; feel free to disagree and even argue why you think I'm wrong.
Lament of Innocence is probably one of the best games in the series, when taken as a whole. The music, Castle, characters, fast combat (relative to what Castlevania usually has), and sheer level of personality exuded by every facet of the game easily put it up there as one of Iga's crown jewels, right up there with Symphony of the Night.
For years, I talked it up as "required reading" concerning the series.
And now I've reconsidered.
While Lament is something that I think every fan should definitely play as it represents arguably the best 3D take on Castlevania to date, the narrative is, unfortunately, just a gaiden tale -- a side story. It's interesting and fun to play through, but it doesn't really tell us anything we didn't already know that was actually important.
For example: Walter is a gloriously magnificent example of vampire melodrama and Exhibit A for how sexy a boisterous scenery-chewing male baritone can be, but he doesn't really move the needle much as a villain. Indeed, he's scarcely a character. He's more like a plot device with dialogue meant to justify Leon being the first Belmont vampire hunter in a world in which Dracula isn't made yet. Nothing of Walter's origin is explained, and, aside from kidnapping Rinaldo's daughter prior to this adventure, we really don't know anything else about him because frankly, Walter is the least important part of Lament of Innocence. He's like Dracula was portrayed in the first Castlevania: he allegedly did some stuff earlier (trust the manua-- I MEAN RINALDO on this) and he totally has to die because of it. He's an obviously evil final boss who shows up to taunt you once or twice before you fight him (and he's not even the actual final boss!). The game doesn't actually need Walter so much as it needs any plausibly powerful monster that could provide that boss battle for you (and preferably hurt and/or kill Sara before you fight it). There was some potential for backstory via Joachim, but his aired grievances are generic, undetailed, and too brief to add significant weight to Walter's villainous role*.
And concerning Dracula's origin story, Lament is just a repackaging of Castlevania 3's story that was gleaned from details in Symphony; Dracula really should stop falling for gentle blondes named Lisa because it will plainly never end well. We don't strictly need to know he was once Mathias Cronqvist. It doesn't progress our understanding of Dracula. And aside from some very subtle yaoi-fuel and scenery-chewing (that term again!) present in the single six minute cutscene in which he appears, there's no reason to find that Matthias adds much to the narrative. Why not have him already as Vlad Tepes, possibly already a vampire, and manipulating Leon into killing a more powerful rival in true Game of Thrones fashion? At least that way he avoids the Edgelord Emo Boi "Oh my wife died so now the Man's gotta pay" plot points we've already seen played out earlier in the series. Aside from establishing that Dracula is prone to that sort of behavior, we learn nothing from it that we couldn't have learned from another version of the plot. He's still a manipulative bastard either way, but removing Elisabetha's death as a motive and making it petty and ambitious instead makes him a Manipulative Bastard who doesn't listen to Nine Inch Nails on a loop. Also, establishing him as ACTUALLY Vlad would spare the story some confusing retcons about how Mathias became Dracula-who-pretended-to-be-Vlad that became necessary in the wake of this game.
Needless to say, we don't learn anything particularly useful with the story as written.
Lament veers closer to earlier Castlevanias in terms of the relationship of story to gameplay: the story is there strictly to justify the gameplay, and you really can ignore it if you want. That being said, like with those earlier games, there's some fun nuggets to dig out if you want to analyze them, like how "Walter" and "Vlad" have similar meanings (they both derive from the same root word, Wald, "To Rule") which helps establish how similar Dracula is to Walter, and denoting him as Walter's "successor". Knowing how the Vampire Killer was created, and by extension, a bit of how it works is kind of neat too, but it didn't really rate the list of important things to know.
If it sounds like I'm dumping on the game, I'm really not. I love it, it's one of my favorites, and it definitely deserves to be remembered as one of the Greatest Hits of the franchise, but in hindsight... the story really isn't as essential to know as I previously thought. Castlevania 3 is still the true starting point of the story, and Lament of Innocence bends over backwards to make sure of it, but sacrifices everything that could have made the story essential in doing so.
All Lament really tells us that we didn't already know is precisely when and why Dracula became such a douchebag to begin with.
Hardly the sort of stuff required reading is made from.
Man, hindsight sucks.
*Maybe add more vampirized former hunters? Their presence alone might have established Walter's role better.
I agree with A LOT of what you said.
Walter was sort of pointless. He was more of just a plot twist device than a character of any substance.
Dracula would be much better as Vlad. Never been a fan of the Mathias backstory. It's one of my biggest gripes of the whole series.
I think Lament should've been Sonia Belmonts reboot. Her against Vlad. It would've been much better imo. A lot of fans (myself included) felt cheated out of her role with the cancellation of Ressurection and her later being wiped from the story. A simple reboot of her as a character would've worked. She should have stayed at the origin of CV imo.
I think story wise the best part about LOI was the origin of the whip. But that could've been told differently of course.
Leon is a weak, uninteresting character.
But I agree it's a great game.
I'm listening to Nine Inch Nails as I write this lol.
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LoI was good for what it was. I enjoyed playing it and some of the music was fantastic. But like Belmontoya I disagree whole-heartedly about the Dracula origins. It should have been left out. Everyone already knew before the game was thought up that Vlad was Dracula. It was a given. The vampirekiller's origin was okay but I felt it detracted from its more divine presence by being a creation of alchemy coupled with a tainted soul rather then an actual holy relic of godly power bestowed upon the Belmonts, possibly by an Angelic being. And also having Mathias/Dracula being the progenitor of the whip via his alchemical book is too much of a stretch for me. It's a very popular theme in Japan to have as much character connections as possible, even if it serves little to no real purpose and is nonsensical. The Belmont origins I don't mind either as that was kinda the point of the game, although Leon seems to be a male personified version of Sonia (minus the french-braided hairstyle and her armour). That thought immediately came to mind when I first saw his images. But fo all it's flaws including the ones they never fixed but made worse in CoD, LoI is still fun to play from time to time.
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If you wanted to streamline the plot as much as possible, you could just have Dracula be a human Vlad Tepes who becomes a vampire after Lisa died because he cursed God or whatever (just like Bram Stoker's Dracula). The feud between Dracula and the Belmonts, while interesting, feels a bit tacked on because is never referenced again and the Belmonts already had a clear motivation for going after Dracula before then. The whip's origin is not very important, either.
Supposedly, IGA's motivation for creating LoI was because Dracula had been mentioned to be 800 years in RoB, but I'm not sure why he didn't just ignore this, as he had no qualms about ignoring other pre-SotN lore that didn't fit with his vision of the story.
I like LoI, though. However, it's best regarded as a prologue to the Castlevania series rather than the beginning.
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it's best regarded as a prologue to the Castlevania series rather than the beginning.
Took the words right out of my mouth, there.
I think Lament should've been Sonia Belmonts reboot. Her against Vlad. It would've been much better imo. A lot of fans (myself included) felt cheated out of her role with the cancellation of Ressurection and her later being wiped from the story. A simple reboot of her as a character would've worked. She should have stayed at the origin of CV imo.
...
Leon is a weak, uninteresting character.
Leon was... lacking something. Like Walter, he never feels like a fully developed character.
I also agree that Sonia Belmont could have and should have been reinvented for the game -- her "relationship" with the vampire antagonist (be it Walter, Dracula, or Count goddamn Chocula for all I care) would have been easy to work into something that hits home thematically: heroines in mythic storytelling have a lot of connections with the sanctity of natural life, along with birth and growth (and basically motherhood in general), and that makes vampires (as walking and talking corruptions of the natural order of life) diametrically opposed to them in terms of thematic imagery. Sonia would have been a shoo-in for that kind of story given the whole "Sacred Mother of the Belmont Lineage" role Legends gave her. Iga had one hell of an opportunity that he passed up to put his official spin on that.
Maybe Iga was right when he said "the series isn't ready yet" for a female protagonist at the time. Maybe not. I personally don't believe that he was. But we'll never know for certain. I personally think that Sonia would have made a more effective hero than Leon though.
Strictly as a tangential aside, erasing Sonia Belmont's role as the start of the Belmont lineage was hardly the only controversial move Iga made during the production of Lament. It was very much the height of the period where the series was transitioning to his singular vision, and the patchy folkloric version of canon was being largely swept away, tinkered with, retconned and retailored into something that would fit his version. Really, Lament was effectively his giant rubber stamp: "this is the way things are while I'm here, learn to like it."
I firmly believe that heavy handed and absolutist approach to establishing his unified canon vision is why he still has very vocal detractors to this day. It's like when Disney came in and outright told the Star Wars fandom that almost none of the stuff they loved outside the films ever happened and they had to be cool with the decision because it's Disney's show now and what are ya gonna do about it, ya scrubs?
When you take that approach, no matter what good you accomplish afterwards, people are going to be salty because you just invalidated something they loved very dearly. Whether we agree that Iga solved more problems than he caused by doing that or vice versa, it will forever be a divisive decision: the best thing we can do is live with it and try to like what came out during that period (not exactly a hard decision, imo). I would know. I protested Sonia being stricken from canon for damn near 15 years and I'm still not thrilled with it even though I understand perfectly well why it was done. I've always been a Sonia Belmont fan.
I even named my fucking cat after her. :P
But this is veering into the category of "just make a new thread to talk about this" material, so I'll let my keyboard rest.
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Strictly as a tangential aside, erasing Sonia Belmont's role as the start of the Belmont lineage was hardly the only controversial move Iga made during the production of Lament. It was very much the height of the period where the series was transitioning to his singular vision, and the patchy folkloric version of canon was being largely swept away, tinkered with, retconned and retailored into something that would fit his version. Really, Lament was effectively his giant rubber stamp: "this is the way things are while I'm here, learn to like it."
I firmly believe that heavy handed and absolutist approach to establishing his unified canon vision is why he still has very vocal detractors to this day. It's like when Disney came in and outright told the Star Wars fandom that almost none of the stuff they loved outside the films ever happened and they had to be cool with the decision because it's Disney's show now and what are ya gonna do about it, ya scrubs?
I'm in complete disagreement with this sentiment, something IGA has been shown to be through the years is VERY humble and the picture you paint about him has him in a selfish and stubborn light which just is not the case. IGA's attempt to create a timeline was from a standpoint of ATTEMPTING to salvage the series into 1 coherent storyline and he did his best to do that by retconing and adding new games into the mythos, none of this ever came from a giant rubber stamp of "this is mine learn to like it" type of mindset you apparently think he had, this all came from a guy who took over the series and wanted to tie in games that before where pretty much standalone for the most part into 1 canon storyline and while Lament if Innocene is by no means perfect there is no disputing its place in the official canon as the beginning of the Castlevania storyline. Fans can make their own headcannon and ignore that if they want but until Konami revives the series and has someone else take over and officially start a new canon or alter the current one THIS is the canon we have for those older games pre LOS saga.
In short I just think you have the complete wrong idea concerning IGA's motives behind creating the canon for this series, interviews through the years if you have been keeping up would let you know this is a guy who loved the series, has been humble and not big headed in the slightest, and only did what he did to try to give fans the most coherent lore he possibly could.
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I'll second DarkPrinceAlucard's sentiment and add something else: To this day I do not get the ire some fans got from the fact that this or that game is not canon. And every time I ask (save very few exceptions), the ire comes from a misconception.
A game not being canon doesn't mean it "doesn't exist" or that it is "less" than the canon ones. My favorite classicvania is not canon and I don't give a singular shit about it.
Canon is fun because "story", but that's pretty much it. Castlevania's focus is not the story, so I don't get what the big deal is.
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I'll second DarkPrinceAlucard's sentiment and add something else: To this day I do not get the ire some fans got from the fact that this or that game is not canon. And every time I ask (save very few exceptions), the ire comes from a misconception.
A game not being canon doesn't mean it "doesn't exist" or that it is "less" than the canon ones. My favorite classicvania is not canon and I don't give a singular shit about it.
Canon is fun because "story", but that's pretty much it. Castlevania's focus is not the story, so I don't get what the big deal is.
The reason fans don't like it is because we liked the character of Sonia and it meant that there would be no more CV games with her in it.
@DarkPrinceAlucard I don't think Lumi is attacking Iga or accusing him of an inflated ego. She's simply stating that LOI marks a point where he made decisions with the story that she didn't care for.
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@DarkPrinceAlucard I don't think Lumi is attacking Iga or accusing him of an inflated ego. She's simply stating that LOI marks a point where he made decisions with the story that she didn't care for.
She is stating more than that dude, statements such as these,
retconned and retailored into something that would fit his version. Really, Lament was effectively his giant rubber stamp: "this is the way things are while I'm here, learn to like it."
I firmly believe that heavy handed and absolutist approach to establishing his unified canon vision is why he still has very vocal detractors to this day
Namely the bolded part shows that she is of a opinion that IGA is apparently a selfish man who wants and does things heavy handed and absolutist and feels fans needs to "learn to like it" and as I said IGA simply is just not that type of guy which is obvious to anyone who actually has been watching his work, conduct, and interviews through the years.
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She's only stating an opinion about how he handled this isolated game in the series.
I didnt read that she thinks anything negative about him as a person in general from that. More that she thinks in this particular case, he didn't handle it as well as he could have.
Everyone has moments in life where they mistep or make rash decisions. This doesn't put a label on him as a creator for the rest of his life.
Iga is an awesome guy but you're implying that he's never had lapses in judgement, fleeting moments of selfishness or made hasty decisions.
He deserves all the praise he gets but let's not forget that he's human and can make mistakes too.
Maybe in this case he did make a heavy handed decision. That doesn't mean he isn't humble over all.
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Iga is a very humble guy and was brought up in a culture where humbleness is the norm. However with regards to women with power and strength said culture is uncomfortable with that aspect. Iga was raised in that culture. While he said the world isn't ready for a female lead in the series I feel that he wasn't talking about the world per se so much as it was more about himself. He wasn't comfortable with a female Belmont lead even though the rest of the world wouldn't have minded one iota. The backlash from that point onward obviously got his attention and now he seems to have moved on from his previous mindset. Bloodstained has a female protagonist. Unfortunately for CV as long as Konami continues on their present course we may never see a female Belmont lead let alone an actual console game.
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I'm in complete disagreement with this sentiment, something IGA has been shown to be through the years is VERY humble and the picture you paint about him has him in a selfish and stubborn light which just is not the case. IGA's attempt to create a timeline was from a standpoint of ATTEMPTING to salvage the series into 1 coherent storyline and he did his best to do that by retconing and adding new games into the mythos, none of this ever came from a giant rubber stamp of "this is mine learn to like it" type of mindset you apparently think he had, this all came from a guy who took over the series and wanted to tie in games that before where pretty much standalone for the most part into 1 canon storyline and while Lament if Innocene is by no means perfect there is no disputing its place in the official canon as the beginning of the Castlevania storyline. Fans can make their own headcannon and ignore that if they want but until Konami revives the series and has someone else take over and officially start a new canon or alter the current one THIS is the canon we have for those older games pre LOS saga.
In short I just think you have the complete wrong idea concerning IGA's motives behind creating the canon for this series, interviews through the years if you have been keeping up would let you know this is a guy who loved the series, has been humble and not big headed in the slightest, and only did what he did to try to give fans the most coherent lore he possibly could.
She is stating more than that dude, statements such as these,
Namely the bolded part shows that she is of a opinion that IGA is apparently a selfish man who wants and does things heavy handed and absolutist and feels fans needs to "learn to like it" and as I said IGA simply is just not that type of guy which is obvious to anyone who actually has been watching his work, conduct, and interviews through the years.
I really don't know why some people seem to enjoy taking the harshest possible read on my word choice on this forum, but okay. This isn't exactly new for me here.
To clarify: I'm a fan of Igarashi. I think he saved Castlevania from inevitable obscurity for at least a decade. He made a golden age out of a shit ton of tarnishing bronze. Under him, Castlevania truly found itself because he brought together the people who would redefine it into its current gothic fantasy identity, like Ayami Kojima and Michiru Yamane.
But the way he did it stepped on a LOT of toes. This was, unfortunately, necessary. As the saying goes, "you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs".
By unifying the canon, Iga had set out to make one hell of an omelette, and one of my favorite characters got lost in the crossfire. It's wretched unfortunate, but the price, in the end, was one I was ultimately willing to pay. Because as much as I love the idea of her, Sonia Belmont wasn't exactly handled with a lot of dexterity by her writers and her game was a bit of a mess that contradicted Castlevania 3 a bit, and that's just one thing that Castlevania fans don't ever allow. There are things that just aren't done, and contradicting CV3 is one of those.
So I'm not badmouthing Iga here. I think he was in a position where he'd never have gotten anything done if he'd refused to piss someone off, especially in 2000-2001 as he was readying LoI to be the first step in his grand vision of a Castlevania timeline.
So yeah, I wish he'd rebooted Sonia.
I wish he hadn't stepped on so many toes when crafting LoI even though there was no possible way to do so. I'm human. We occasionally want things we know are impossible.
I wish Lament of Innocence had a more original and essential story (my original point here).
But I don't hate Iga. I pretty much adore every game he crafted in his time as the Executive Producer. Lament of Innocence is, by virtue of the gameplay and music alone, one of the best entries in the series. I'm glad we have it. I'm glad Iga made it.
But it is his rubber stamp moment. It was the definitive moment wherein he made the series his.
And we did have to learn to like it.
That's not opinion. That's documented fact.
I don't hate him for making a necessary management decision that every showrunner who'd ever taken over from someone else has had to make. So no, I don't hate Iga or his first episode on the job, just like I don't hate Russell T Davies for Rose or Steven Moffat for The Eleventh Hour on Doctor Who, or Disney for The Force Awakens or Iron Man 3 even though they are all supremely rough spots for one reason or another.
But Lament of Innocence was definitely and categorically the point where the series changed from one thing into something else. And change is always difficult and often painful.
As for Iga, he's a wonderful man with a lot of passion for his art that I share. I don't think he's selfish in the slightest.
To this day I do not get the ire some fans got from the fact that this or that game is not canon. And every time I ask (save very few exceptions), the ire comes from a misconception.
A game not being canon doesn't mean it "doesn't exist" or that it is "less" than the canon ones. My favorite classicvania is not canon and I don't give a singular shit about it.
Canon is fun because "story", but that's pretty much it. Castlevania's focus is not the story, so I don't get what the big deal is.
Because we get invested in things we like, and we like those things to have value in the greater scope. Cutting a game from the timeline removes its narrative value because it can no longer effectively contribute. Things we want to see built on can no longer be built on. Oftentimes characters we love are doomed to the ash heap of "enjoy never seeing them again, ever", which has so far been true for Legends.
People get mad about Legends not because they enjoyed the game so much as because they enjoyed the doors it opened. By striking it from canon, there was a very real perception (that has so far been proven right) that those doors have been slammed shut and locked forever. People who were upset about Sonia Belmont being thrown away weren't suddenly and arbitrarily made happy again when Shanoa cropped up almost a decade later just because we had a heroine again. We didn't like Sonia because she had pixellated titties. We liked Sonia Belmont, not the general idea of a female protagonist. Fortunately Shanoa became as or more compelling a character than Sonia. But the equivalence between the two characters and stories that several people on several forums have tried to make over the years does not exist.
So when Legends fans like me get a bit salty, it's because while yes, we can go and enjoy the game at any time we like thanks to the wondrous invention of emulation, we can never enjoy the version of Castlevania that could have been if it had remained a relevant and connected part of the story. People genuinely liked the potential of the character, and we were upset to see all that cast out. It's less about what is, and more about what nearly and almost was. IMO, it didn't help that Leon wasn't a huge improvement in our eyes, so there was a real sense of "You traded her for this?!" at the time of Lament's release.
Hoo boy that's one hell of a wall of text I just posted.
Sorry for the long post.
Here's a wall meat for your trouble.
(https://castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thecooltshirt.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F09%2Fwall.jpg&hash=0d442f80f8c2ffddc879d74219e15609)
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I'll never understand how one could possibly prefer Legends as the starting point for the series rather than Lament. Legends actually never added anything to the storyline, and actually retconned Dracula Densetsu somehow, stating that it was not Trevor the first Belmont to fight Dracula but Sonia (while Lament made a perfect premise for it), and added nothing to Dracula's character which was already Dracula and already an evil being for the sake of evil. I know and I agree that Walter wasnt that deep character but i think that was the whole point, he was merely a piece on the chess board for Mathias. I was very satisfied with Lament both as a game and as a starting point for the series, which felt very coherent with all the games already enstablished. Elisabetha and Lisa's death isnt trivial to the series and to the development of Dracula's character, instead i feel it's the very core of the story itself in Iga's vision, and I would add Mina's possible death on Dawn as well, which would trigger Soma into becoming Dracula. The last line in the credits for Lament says "this exquisite play from which two souls will never escape" sums it up perfectly. Dracula eternally losing his loved one, in an endless circle of suffering and un-life of hate, and a clan fighting him to prevent other from suffer what actually both Mathias and Leon suffered, the loss of a most loved one. Can a gothic game get any more romantic and tragic? Bravo Iga
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Hoo boy that's one hell of a wall of text I just posted.
Sorry for the long post.
You never need to be. I live for those, and I always like to read your ideas, even if I disagree.
Now, for the rebuttal.
By striking it from canon, there was a very real perception (that has so far been proven right) that those doors have been slammed shut and locked forever.
Look, this perception wasn't proven right at all. And this is because IGA didn't have the power to slam any door shut pertaining to what gets produced or not. His only say -- storyline speaking -- was in matters of canon.
Legends was meant to receive a sequel, as we all know, that got cancelled in 2000. That's three years after Legends itself and one year before IGA did the "controversial move". By this time Legends had already trampled all over the previously established story simply by existing. It didn't attempt to "retcon" minor stuff, it outright crapped all over a lot of the storyline, much of it (almost all of it, in fact) having no IGA involvement. And IGA did nothing about it because he had no power to do it at all. The only thing holding Sonia from a sequel was Konami, not IGA, which proved to be true when a member of Resurrection's development team expressed miscommunication between Konami Japan and Konami US. This, in conjunction with the end of the Dreamcast, killed the sequel and "closed" the door, not IGA.
Non-canon games were produced during IGA's tenure (Order of Shadows, Circle of the Moon, The Arcade, to cite three). It's not like while he was there ONLY canon games were made. The door for Sonia remained open, people just didn't take her to a walk. There is no evidence that IGA's statement shut the door on Sonia when other non-canon stuff was being made. Order of Shadows, in fact, does a MUCH better attempt at being canon, and it still isn't.
we can never enjoy the version of Castlevania that could have been if it had remained a relevant and connected part of the story.
Had it remained a relevant and connected part of the story, there would be no "Castlevania that could have been" because it makes little to no effort to be a relevant and connected part of the story. Sparing you the long-winded details, it contradicts CVIII, CVII, Rondo and SotN, all in one strike.
It was produced to be the start of the storyline, but it still contradicted so much of the foundations that what you think is connected is in fact forcefully glued to the rest with dollar store-brand tape strips plastered one on top of the other, ready to burst at a moment's notice. It's a work that survives MUCH better on its own timeline than on the canonical one. It really is a case of "either Legends goes, or all the rest has to be rewritten". It's a domino effect.
Now, I'm not saying Leon is much better. He's bland and his game, although I like it, is not very good. But his story doesn't make stuff outright stop working like Legends does.
So, when you insist that it should remain canon because "it has more value that way than it being standalone", you're really saying "fuck this entire clockwork built over many years, let's jam this one irregular cog I love in there and see what happens". There is a chance to build a new clockwork for this cog, but it all depends on Konami, and depends on you to stop thinking that Sonia only has value if she has an entire previous timeline connected to her when her story makes no attempt to connect to it.
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So, when you insist that it should be canon because "it has more value that way than it being standalone", you're really saying "fuck this entire clockwork built over many years, let's jam this one irregular cog I love in there and see what happens". There is a chance to build a new clockwork for this cog, but it all depends on Konami, and depends on you to stop thinking that Sonia only has value if she has an entire previous timeline connected to her when her story makes no attempt to connect to it.
I didn't say that I wanted to screw up the timeline. I even admitted that Legends wasn't exactly superb writing and it gets in the way of the revisionist details Iga had in mind for CV3.
Also, on that note (mostly because I guess this is what the thread is about now, my original post be damned), Legends gums up the clockwork of Iga's canon, but Dracula's Curse is notably precious light on story, and it doesn't even name the year (in either the Japanese or English versions) in which it takes place; I actually just now booted up my Roms to make damn sure before I went off and claimed that. It doesn't even say that Dracula had any motive for wanting "to make a bad world filled with evil" other than he's the bad guy so go kill him, nor does it state that Trevor was the first Belmont to face him. It DOES say that the Belmonts "have a long history of fighting evil".
The only time frame it gives for certain is "15th century" which is... like... a lot of years. There was an unspoken implication that it took place around 1476 because that's the year the real Dracula died, but this wasn't actually outright stated as fact in the games themselves until Curse of Darkness in 2005. So at the time of its release, Legends wasn't expressly contradicting anything in the very little narrative CV3 actually brought to the table. What it does contradict a bit is Symphony of the Night, though SOTN wasn't precise in placing Lisa's death on a timeline either -- that it happened was more important than when, nor does it say precisely when Alucard began his rebellion against his father; these were all details that were elaborated on after 2001 and Iga began enforcing his timeline. Which again, I support the timeline.
I'll admit, Legends really does love living dangerously in the grey area of technicality, but I still feel, after all these years, that the amount of work it would have taken to shoehorn it into the canon comfortably is less than, or at most equal to, what it took to replace it altogether.
Otherwise, an excellently written rebuttal, sir. I largely agree with the rest of it.
And, just because you mentioned it: Order of Shadows is still the only game in the series for which Lament of Innocence's precise details are actually important -- it takes place in roughly the same location, Leon's magic gauntlet appears again, etc. And it was never canon at all. I'm torn on how much of a shame that is. Great officially licensed fanfic though. Also I still love how Dracula is supremely hospitable in that game when Desmond shows up.
"Oh! Hi.... Belmont person. Sorry, I just woke up. FFS look at the state of this place. My cultists DO leave a damn mess, don't they? Truly sorry about that. Normally it's not this messy. So, I guess we can do this fighty thing now or after I'm done enforcing some feng shui on this mess. Which would you prefer?"
"NOW ASSHOLE."
"Okaaaaay I'll kill you first, THEN clean up. I guess that makes sense. No point in cleaning up only to spill more blood and having to mop the floors twice amirite?"
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Perhaps Leon actually was Sonia all along?
Like a pre-cursor to Joan of Arc.
We should get Iga to elaborate on this.
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Also, on that note (mostly because I guess this is what the thread is about now, my original post be damned), Legends gums up the clockwork of Iga's canon, but Dracula's Curse is notably precious light on story, and it doesn't even name the year (in either the Japanese or English versions) in which it takes place; I actually just now booted up my Roms to make damn sure before I went off and claimed that. It doesn't even say that Dracula had any motive for wanting "to make a bad world filled with evil" other than he's the bad guy so go kill him, nor does it state that Trevor was the first Belmont to face him. It DOES say that the Belmonts "have a long history of fighting evil".
Well, now I'll have to respond exactly where the issue is. You know well we don't roll around in these parts depending only on what the game's intro says.
Legends: Dracula became Dark Lord in 1431, spread his dominion over Europe, and died in 1450 by Sonia's hand. He ruled as a vampire demon warlock commanding a demon army undisputed for 19 years. Then, Sonia has what is strongly implied to be Trevor Belmont sired by Alucard, whom she last met before Dracula was defeated. So, like, Trevor is born AT MOST in 1451.
CVIII: Dracula became Dark Lord, spread his dominion over Europe, was noticed by the Church who immediately dispached an army, then Sypha when the army didn't return, then contacted Trevor when Sypha didn't return. All the while Alucard fled to the underground hating his father for having been turned into a monster due to Dracula's greed, and he waited there for a warrior that would help him defeat his dad. Grant was defeated and made into a monster. No "previous Dracula defeat" is spoken about here before Dracula carries out his plans. No "Dracula reigned for 19 entire years before being defeated, then revived to do it all over again". The story is pretty straightforward: He became a demon, then began his conquest, then got defeated by Trevor and Co. No inbetween defeats, no "Dracula is at it again!". No "agains". No Church acting "again" against Dracula.
Also, Sypha's land of origin is Wallachia. She remembers her land as being "beautiful". If Dracula is at is ever since 1431 and was allowed to run wild for 19 years, no way in hell she would remember it as "beautiful".
Zero IGA on this.
but this wasn't actually outright stated as fact in the games themselves until Curse of Darkness in 2005
(https://i.imgur.com/2Dghpuw.png)
Zero IGA on this also. Couple this with the above: Unless you think the plot told on CVIII happened across the span of 45 years (like, Sypha stood there petrified for 45 years, or Alucard hid there for 45 years -- meeting Sonia in the meanwhile --, or the Church took YEARS to send reinforcements while Dracula rapidly spread his control), then it becomes pretty clear here that there is a problem. Also, again, Sypha remembering her beautiful land when Legends says that it was supposed to be a hellhole controlled by Dracula probably even from before she could plausibly be born. And that is not mentioning how Trevor managed to be sired by Alucard AFTER Alucard was corrupted by his father in 1431 or before (because remember: Alucard is already not human in Legends, and CVIII explains that Alucard was made into an inhuman creature due to Dracula's greed), when in fact he was born after 1451. Schrodinger's Trevor, born in two different years at the same time.
There. Actually removing IGA from the equation makes shit nearly unmanageable. If you imagine Legends retconning elements from CVIII (such as "Alucard was born half vampire from a human woman", this is something Legends actually says that is similar to SotN), then you have to imagine it retconning basically the entire sequence of events on CVIII to happen during an implausibly long period of time with a major Dracula defeat inserted in there that CVIII never speaks about or even implies (and let's not get started on the circunstances of Trevor's birth, an entire headache by itself that would still not get solved). When you actually PUT IGA in it, some holes are "fixed", but others appear making the mess even worse.
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(https://i.imgur.com/2Dghpuw.png)
I'm in the camp that sees the Simon's Quest gravestone as a fun little reference rather than conclusive fact, but, well done regardless. I'm not going to ignore it outright either. It may not have meant much when it went in, but it definitely means something now, so good spotting that where I failed.
You've probably made the best counterargument that can be made. I probably won't ever be fully convinced away from my opinions on this... mostly because it's a stubborn opinion that has held on since I first played Legends and it's not gonna be suddenly swayed by a sudden bout of logic that makes sense. But in any event, that's solid factchecking on your part, no matter what my stubborn opinions on the matter might be.
10/10 would discuss again.
I guess it's back to talking LoI guys.
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I'm in complete disagreement with this sentiment, something IGA has been shown to be through the years is VERY humble and the picture you paint about him has him in a selfish and stubborn light which just is not the case. IGA's attempt to create a timeline was from a standpoint of ATTEMPTING to salvage the series into 1 coherent storyline and he did his best to do that by retconing and adding new games into the mythos, none of this ever came from a giant rubber stamp of "this is mine learn to like it" type of mindset you apparently think he had, this all came from a guy who took over the series and wanted to tie in games that before where pretty much standalone for the most part into 1 canon storyline and while Lament if Innocene is by no means perfect there is no disputing its place in the official canon as the beginning of the Castlevania storyline. Fans can make their own headcannon and ignore that if they want but until Konami revives the series and has someone else take over and officially start a new canon or alter the current one THIS is the canon we have for those older games pre LOS saga.
In short I just think you have the complete wrong idea concerning IGA's motives behind creating the canon for this series, interviews through the years if you have been keeping up would let you know this is a guy who loved the series, has been humble and not big headed in the slightest, and only did what he did to try to give fans the most coherent lore he possibly could.
Being humble? Yeah right it's natural that they have to appear humble to the public but in reality they were A-hole, no different from politicians during campaign period to gain votes.
Just because IGA says so doesn't mean he's always right, and I'm completely disagree with his opinion why he shifted the gameplay style of Castlevania since SOTN.
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Being humble? Yeah right it's natural that they have to appear humble to the public but in reality they were A-hole, no different from politicians during campaign period to gain votes.
Just because IGA says so doesn't mean he's always right, and I'm completely disagree with his opinion why he shifted the gameplay style of Castlevania since SOTN.
Fine you have your opinion on it, Let me make this clear since there appears to be a misconception here, I am NOT saying IGA is NEVER wrong, obviously he makes mistakes just like everyone else and while his attempt to salvage the storlyine was admirable it also is not without its flaws.
HOWEVER.
What I am saying is the guy has been shown nothing but love for the series through the years and I've followed his work through interviews in magazines, videos and game shows, and even his work outside of gaming and the guy has been nothing but classy and humble and there is nothing that can change my mind on that short of him coming out and being a jerk to the public lol, If we just went around assuming everyone is a A$$hole based on the perception that they could be putting on a act for the public than we as gamers which just have to conlude that 100% of the developers we think give a crap about the series they are working on are just full of S$%t and refuse to see other wise, would just be a sad way to go about things In my opinion.
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Being humble? Yeah right it's natural that they have to appear humble to the public but in reality they were A-hole, no different from politicians during campaign period to gain votes.
Just because IGA says so doesn't mean he's always right, and I'm completely disagree with his opinion why he shifted the gameplay style of Castlevania since SOTN.
if we just went around assuming everyone is a A$$hole based on the perception that they could be putting on a act for the public than we as gamers which just have to conlude that 100% of the developers we think give a crap about the series they are working on are just full of S$%t and refuse to see other wise, would just be a sad way to go about things In my opinion.
I'm in 100% agreement with DPA.
Paranoia is no way to live. *nods*
Iga's demonstrated his love of the series time and time again -- trust us, it's no act. The man is probably the biggest fanboy of us all. He genuinely tried to save the series as best he could with the resources and methods available to him. As those dried up (#FuckKonami), there was less and less he could do to keep things going well.
But bear in mind that he never officially resigned from the job.
He was essentially, and for all intents and purposes, fired (though Konami will never actually fire anyone they have on payroll; they just reassign you to the worst job in the company if upper management takes umbrage with you for any reason whatsoever) after shepherding the series through thick and thin for nearly 13 years and made Castlevania stand up for a time alongside Metal Gear as the "other huge Konami franchise".
This is the man who loved the franchise so much, he was perfectly willing to go down with the ship, doing everything he could to save it until his head went underwater too, at the final moment. With Bloodstained, he's trying to salvage what he can from the shipwreck.
The man's fandom credentials are, to my mind, far more beyond reproach or contestation than anybody here on this board, and that's not something I say lightly. Koji Igarashi is the Ur-Fan. He honestly makes the rest of us look like a bunch of part timers.
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I'm in 100% agreement with DPA.
Paranoia is no way to live. *nods*
Iga's demonstrated his love of the series time and time again -- trust us, it's no act. The man is probably the biggest fanboy of us all. He genuinely tried to save the series as best he could with the resources and methods available to him. As those dried up (#FuckKonami), there was less and less he could do to keep things going well.
But bear in mind that he never officially resigned from the job.
He was essentially, and for all intents and purposes, fired (though Konami will never actually fire anyone they have on payroll; they just reassign you to the worst job in the company if upper management takes umbrage with you for any reason whatsoever) after shepherding the series through thick and thin for nearly 13 years and made Castlevania stand up for a time alongside Metal Gear as the "other huge Konami franchise".
This is the man who loved the franchise so much, he was perfectly willing to go down with the ship, doing everything he could to save it until his head went underwater too, at the final moment. With Bloodstained, he's trying to salvage what he can from the shipwreck.
The man's fandom credentials are, to my mind, far more beyond reproach or contestation than anybody here on this board, and that's not something I say lightly. Koji Igarashi is the Ur-Fan. He honestly makes the rest of us look like a bunch of part timers.
Whatever, I rather have to listen or follow my personal opinion than yours, you may think that he's the biggest CV fanboy than all of us but in my point of view he's far from that considering that his vision of Castlevania while good still strays from what it used to be before SOTN, I did played his games since GBA up to the DS ones including the PS2 ones as well but IMO non of them seems to exceed SOTN's level.
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I did played his games since GBA up to the DS ones including the PS2 ones as well but IMO non of them seems to exceed SOTN's level.
I think this here is a big part of the problem for you, based on everything you've said. You seem to think that it is somehow wrong that SOTN was never matched or exceeded by the artists behind it.
SOTN is definitely Igarashi and Co.'s magnum opus, their masterpiece. It is their pièce de résistance, chef-d'œuvre, a tour de force of games production. A sad thing about masterpieces: by definition, they will never be equaled. The Last Supper, The Creation of Adam, American Gothic, The Night Watch, The Wedding at Cana, Luncheon of the Boating Party, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, The Garden of Earthly Delights... these are all masterpieces. But we don't call everything made subsequent to these works crap. We don't denigrate Michaelangelo or Da Vinci for never matching or exceeding their finest work in later attempts. It's a factually incorrect argument that artists should improve on every work, or that when they peak, they maintain that level of quality. They're people, not machines. Improvement is definitely the ideal, and we do try to match our best works every time afterwards. But most of us fail in both.
Iga actually got pretty close with a couple games: Harmony of Dissonance, Aria of Sorrow, and Order of Ecclesia all come within spitting distance of standing where Symphony did, but were kept from it largely due to key practical limitations of development for each: money, time, less broadly powerful hardware, a corporate production structure that steadily became actively hostile to their own developers, etc.
Unfortunately for everyone, he was never again able to summon up that perfect storm of talent, resources, and time that allowed Symphony of the Night to be as perfect as it was. It was a one time deal, a moment of utter perfection. The cost was Koji Igarashi's Greatest Work came relatively early in his career, a fact which he admitted well before the series started declining. It stayed the ideal for him though, and even knowing he could never recreate it, he at least tried to take the best aspects that people liked and incorporate as much of those into the watered down versions Konami kept asking for.
Not everybody appreciated that. Reviewers definitely didn't. And by Portrait of Ruin, most of us fans were actually pretty done with it as well. If you dig up old forum posts from back then, a ton of us were not happy that the quality had sunk that low and become so paint by numbers. We thought it was developer laziness at the time -- the behind the scenes drama of working for Konami wasn't widely known then, and wouldn't be for almost a decade. And there definitely was a degree of tiredness, looking back. The team was worked hard, long, without much in the way of breaks or vacation time, and constantly berated by everyone, including us fans, as to why we weren't getting something so good as Symphony over and over again. Iga, in particular, looked like he wasn't getting a whole lot of sleep in press photos from the time.
His apology, and a lesser masterpiece, was Order of Ecclesia which was all the essentials we'd ever asked for. As the last game which he had majority creative control over, it's one hell of a final work. True, there was some... I'll be charitable and call it "mixed results" after like Harmony of Despair, but his sheer level of creative control (versus having his name slapped on a final product he had relatively little to do with, much like Hideo Kojima and the first Lords of Shadow) is still questioned, so we tend to consider Ecclesia his last "real" work.
The simple fact is that he peaked early due to exceedingly favorable conditions he had no real control over. That's how a lot of artists are.
I know I sound like an apologist, but I'm writing with the benefit of hindsight here. I used to be right where you are. And had the insider knowledge of how Konami operates not come to light, my opinion of the lesser entries in his run (Judgment, Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, etc. al) would still be largely negative. As it is, I have the perspective of a long term fan who's learned a lot about games production in that same span.
That's why I'm so quick to jump to his defense. That's why I'm asking that you reframe how you look at the series. It won't make the bad games any less bad, but context can change a lot, and make it easier to appreciate what they did do well, as opposed to fixating on what went wrong.
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There's a lot of reading to do here. I'll just say this about LoI. I think it's a great starting point in the series. Castlevania to me will always be about the struggle of the Belmont family vs Dracula. Everyone else is supporting characters. LoI showed where the Vampire Killer whip came from and showed that the Belmont clan will hunt the night. Those two things right there are really what you need to take out of the game. My only gripe (storywise) to LoI is I wish Mathias was more of a key character throughout the whole game. Maybe he could've been the shopkeeper or helped you in some battles.
In terms of Legends, I thought Iga got rid of it because it claimed Sonia fought Dracula before Trevor or something? Also, I thought he got rid of it because it hinted at Belmont's having vampire blood? I could be making stuff up though.
PS I only briefly skimmed this topic.
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...while Alucard fled to the underground hating his father for having been turned into a monster due to Dracula's greed, and he waited there for a warrior that would help him defeat his dad.
CVIII explains that Alucard was made into an inhuman creature due to Dracula's greed
I have missed where does this actually get stated.
Not that I'm doubting you, as you are the Timeline Historian with this, but I don't recall there being a source that outright says this, at the time the games came out.
Also, can't we just fuxx with some numbers in the Legends years and make it work? I recall successfully doing so a few years back when I had my Unified Timeline flowchart. It works, but you have to essentially rewrite a lot of the years the CVL developers threw in there, and make CVL's Dracula not actually be a reigning Vampire, but the "Dark Warlord" that CV3's intro states him to be.
Of course, then Lament came out and messed that up... but again, mess with a few numbers here and there and it works.
And I'm fine with Belmonts being part Alucardian. ;) It explains the obscene muscles and strength in a seemingly human dude.
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Having Trevor 1/4th vampire will not effect him negatively by any real stretch. He'd inherit certain qualities like, perhaps, unusual strength and much higher resistant to diseases. And that's on top of his family's supernatural abilities. But he wouldn't have the adverse effects of feeling the need to feed for blood, weakness to sunlight and other such vampire-like drawbacks. This is only speculation of course as I've never heard of any story referring to someone who's only 1/4th vampire. And in terms of Legends fitting into the canon, sure it could. Just mess around with the years like Jorge stated.
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Having Trevor 1/4th vampire will not effect him negatively by any real stretch. He'd inherit certain qualities like, perhaps, unusual strength and much higher resistant to diseases. And that's on top of his family's supernatural abilities. But he wouldn't have the adverse effects of feeling the need to feed for blood, weakness to sunlight and other such vampire-like drawbacks. This is only speculation of course as I've never heard of any story referring to someone who's only 1/4th vampire. And in terms of Legends fitting into the canon, sure it could. Just mess around with the years like Jorge stated.
Honestly my biggest problem with Alucard in Legends was the implied "oh fuck you beat me I think I'm in love with you" from him, which is just... wrong... but what do I know? He was young, and Sonia's might have been pretty fetching in that green 15th century leotard.
Chalk that up to an unreliable narrator by playing the "well, this is just a story passed down the family line, this is just the story as it was told to me" angle and all is well.
I personally have zero issues with interpreting the games as a series of folkloric tales about the Belmonts and their allies and therefore a certain degree of broad strokes is at play which can smooth over almost any discrepancies as it's not all coming from a singular, objective source. That means we get some embellishment here, some exaggeration there, and the details don't always match up perfectly because we have a bunch of storytellers putting their individual spin on things, which mirrors the production of the actual games. This could also be used to explain in-universe why there's so many versions of the Simon Belmont story: his is one of the most popular tales, and everyone who retells it tries to put their own stamp of contribution on it. Sometimes we get tales that could be considered more objective, like Symphony of the Night where either Alucard or Maria Renard is implied to be the storyteller by taking a certain read of the opening text and certain endings (and the DXC version actually goes out of its way to pretty explicitly state that the story is coming directly from Alucard by having him narrate the opening text).
I think it actually makes the lore stronger to read it that way because that's how history has typically been recorded (objective history is actually a pretty new thing in the scope of human history), though it probably gives PlotTwist some twitchy eyebrows. As an unnecessary bonus, it can also explain some of the gameplay aspects that seem goofy or out of place.
"A disembodied Horse's head attacked Simon? Really dad?"
"Look that's just the story your gramps told me. Just roll with it."
No word yet on whether this finally vindicates CV64's goddamn Motorcycle Skeletons though.
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I have missed where does this actually get stated.
Not that I'm doubting you, as you are the Timeline Historian with this, but I don't recall there being a source that outright says this, at the time the games came out.
CVIII's Japanese manual.
ドラキュラ公は自らの力を絶大なものにするため、その身を悪魔に売り渡すまでになっていたが、それだけでは満足せず、自分の息子にまで悪魔との契約を行うよう強要したのである。
Lord Dracula had to sell himself to the devil to increase his own power, but he was not satisfied by that alone and forced his son into the devil's contract.
彼の息子は、人間としての心を失っておらず悪魔に魂を売り払った父親に反発していたが、自分の体を人間で無くされるに至って、ついに父親に憎しみを覚えるようになったのであった。
His son was conflicted with his father who sold his soul to the devil but hadn't lost his human mind, but when he lost his human body, he finally came to hate his father.
Even if this were talking of Dracula losing his human body, it's obvious that making a pact of this nature turns you into a monster (something Adventure also confirms). So Alucard did become a vampire as a result. Not that any of this matters since IGA retconned it all with Lisa (for what I imagine an attempt to make Dracula more sympathetic).
Also, I respect you guys and this community has given me a lot. I'm not right 100% of the time too, so it's OK :) Even if you were doubting, I wouldn't take it badly.
Also, can't we just fuxx with some numbers in the Legends years and make it work?
Depends mostly on one thing: Do you want Symphony to still be canon along with Legends? Without SotN, and with a LOT of ingenuity and handwaving and sweat, you can force Legends in there. But it's either Legends or SotN. You can't have both and expect the Lisa plot to work. Now if we go the "we just have to retcon X and Y and Z" then anything goes. We could make Konami Krazy Racers canon.
And that's me saying it as a fan. There are probably more internal Konami reasons why Legends doesn't work with CVIII alone that we don't fully understand. What I know is that Igarashi implied via interview that the Legends team did not have the "guidance of the original team" to create Legends, so there's that. But I can tell you that Lisa throws a pretty big wrench on this plan.
I think it actually makes the lore stronger to read it that way because that's how history has typically been recorded (objective history is actually a pretty new thing in the scope of human history), though it probably gives PlotTwist some twitchy eyebrows. As an unnecessary bonus, it can also explain some of the gameplay aspects that seem goofy or out of place.
No word yet on whether this finally vindicates CV64's goddamn Motorcycle Skeletons though.
I have never had anything against the concept of making Castlevania a "collection of in-universe folktales about a family's struggle with Dracula that is told to us via a video game". If I became the Castlevania headmaster, my FIRST move after doing certain stuff would be this: Abolish timelines and make each game like a story told by someone who heard the Dracula legend. This would broad freedom of storytelling into infinity. I'm of the opinion that, if there's one move that not ONE fan (including me) would oppose and would praise, is this one. So I think your idea is nice if it were to be put in practice officially.
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I honestly disagree with the notion of just "messing around with the years" will make Legends fit since there is still the clear inconsistency of Sonia being the first to defeat Dracula which directly contradicts and takes away from the stated fact of Trevor being the first to take him on and beat him, not to mention any shoehorn would take AWAY from Trevor's role in the series as the original belmont to take down Dracula and as big trevor fan I would not be on board with a shoehorned game into the timeline that was never meant to be in the timeline in the first place and was apparently meant to start its own timeline separately.
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I honestly disagree with the notion of just "messing around with the years" will make Legends fit since there is still the clear inconsistency of Sonia being the first to defeat Dracula which directly contradicts and takes away from the stated fact of Trevor being the first to take him on and beat him, not to mention any shoehorn would take AWAY from Trevor's role in the series as the original belmont to take down Dracula and as big trevor fan I would not be on board with a shoehorned game into the timeline that was never meant to be in the timeline in the first place and was apparently meant to start its own timeline separately.
Again, Castlevania 3 doesn't confirm a lot in-game, but it does confirm that the Belmonts were very active in fighting evil before Trevor faced down Dracula. That's why when the shit hit the fan, the people pulled a "COME BACK SHANE!! SHANE, COME BACK!"
Castlevania 3 doesn't ever state Trevor was or wasn't the first Belmont to fight Dracula, and no game to my knowledge ever directly addressed the matter either (i.e; there's no in game dialogue or text that outright says "Trevor Belmont was the first Belmont to face Dracula and win" until Lament's epilogue came along and... strongly implied it without actually fully committing to it with actual names, which still could leave some room for reasonable doubt and speculation.
And so the story of the Belmont Clan's struggle against evil begins.
However, Mathias and the Belmonts will not meet again for hundreds of years. Mathias goes into hiding in foreign lands and continues to curse God for eternity. Eventually, he names himself Lord of the Vampires, King of the Night.
The years before their next meeting pass slowly and quietly, but with finality: the intermission in this exquisite play from which two souls will never escape.
This is just another reason I feel Lament doesn't actually add all that much. It could have unequivocally ended things once and for all by saying Trevor's name, just once, in the epilogue, in reference to being the very first Belmont to defeat Dracula, but flubs it at the finish line by not naming names. Again, the implication is there, and it's STRONG. But implication is not confirmation -- just ask any debate team or lawyer. The evidence on hand is only enough to feed a preexisting conclusion -- if you believe, truly believe, that Sonia was the first, Lament's epilogue could have equally referred to her. We only "know" it's referring to Trevor because we're told by an out-of-universe source that it does, i.e; Koji Igarashi. The game itself confirms nothing concrete on this actually pretty important matter when it had all the opportunity in the world to do so.
So, canon says Trevor was the first. He is definitely and definitively the first.
Just don't take the game's words on that, because they don't actually have any words on that themselves.
We had to ask the producer.
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Castlevania 3 doesn't ever state Trevor was or wasn't the first Belmont to fight Dracula, and no game to my knowledge ever directly addressed the matter either (i.e; there's no in game dialogue or text that outright says "Trevor Belmont was the first Belmont to face Dracula and win" until Lament's epilogue came along and... strongly implied it without actually fully committing to it with actual names, which still could leave some room for reasonable doubt and speculation.
(https://i.imgur.com/1Fkj9rJ.png)
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(https://i.imgur.com/1Fkj9rJ.png)
Please respond with evidence that is from a game that is not Judgment and actually indisputably canon because it's not fucking with every single timeline by merging them together and splitting them haphazardly.
The sheer level of timeline-based whatthefuckery in that game has led me long ago to strike out anything from it as valid evidence that I will not accept in structured debate.
But if you can dig up that same point from another game, I will definitely not contest it.
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"
(i.e; there's no in game dialogue or text that outright says "Trevor Belmont was the first Belmont to face Dracula and win"
There doesn't need to be really since games like SOTN make it clear from recollection towards past events that clearly paint Trevor as the first to defeat Dracula otherwise there would have been mention of Sonia's battle since obviously in Legends Alucard had a big role and was there during those events, and yet ingame the only Belmont that is pointed out as being past acquainted with Alucard is Trevor. As plottwist said you would have to retcon the narrative of SOTN to even hope to possibly fit Legends into the series and I highly doubt retconning a game like Symphony would be ideal or wise. So like I said the notion of just messing with the years does not solve the issue at hand.
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otherwise there would have been mention of Sonia's battle since obviously in Legends Alucard had a big role and was there during those events, and yet ingame the only Belmont that is pointed out as being past acquainted with Alucard is Trevor.
This point is solid. I definitely buy that with no counterargument.
I'm just making the side point that the games are pretty terrible at enforcing their own continuity -- the Castlevania canon is the only one I can think of where the vast majority of continuity is upheld from the outside by production staff rather than internal continuity. Think of all the times we were unclear on a subject even after playing all the games and had to get Iga's clarification on something.
So, by the game's scripts, as written, there's very little enforcement -- just a lot of implications that people generally agreed there was a certain logical flow to. And it works because we all agree on what that flow is, but someone with a dissenting opinion could come in with their own data, run that same intellectual gauntlet, and end up in a different place from us, doubly so if they aren't familiar with any of the non-video game material.
My major point here is not to convince you away from anything, but to establish the proposition that if you're just going by what each game actually directly says verbatim, 90% of what we say on this forum would seem out and out foreign and you'd be wondering where we stumbled onto such notions because the games do such a poor job of communicating their own legend.
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Please respond with evidence that is from a game that is not Judgment and actually indisputably canon because it's not fucking with every single timeline by merging them together and splitting them haphazardly.
The sheer level of timeline-based whatthefuckery in that game has led me long ago to strike out anything from it as valid evidence that I will not accept in structured debate.
But if you can dig up that same point from another game, I will definitely not contest it.
On the spirit of the good debate, I have one more. Dracula's Curse actually does tell you indirectly that Trevor was the first to destroy Dracula. I just picked an evidence that had the exact wording you needed and is far more accessible to everyone.
From CVIII's manual:
シモン・ベルモンドの時代を遡ること百余年、ドラキュラと人間との戦いは、ここから始まったのであった……。
Going back over a hundred years before Simon Belmont time, the fight between Dracula and humans starts here.
If the battle between Dracula and humans started here, then Trevor is the first person to kill Dracula by default.
This is one more against Legends, btw.
I'm just making the side point that the games are pretty terrible at enforcing their own continuity
Imagine if every single game had to keep reinforcing the history so far. Imagine the sheer size of the intros and dialogues lol
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Imagine if every single game had to keep reinforcing the history so far. Imagine the sheer size of the intros and dialogues lol
Honestly, they could easily look to comic books for inspiration as to how it's done. Stories across a given writing era are remarkably consistent with each other, and can reference each other with casual aplomb, not in a "hey look how conscious of the universe we are" way, but you can reliably expect Spider-Man to comment on something Captain America is doing much like we comment on local politics -- it's just a facet of our interconnected world.
Castlevania seldom feels that alive, if in fact it ever did to begin with. By comparison, it's more like... a series of plays all with the same framing narrative (but otherwise having little to do with each other) by a sequence of varied authors. Each is aware of and recognizes the prior author's works but the connection isn't fluid; it's wooden and stilted at best. References are made, not because they are a natural organic part of the world the story takes place in, but because it feels like some outside force deigned that the storyteller absolutely must make a reference or a connection.
The single greatest moment de vie in Castlevania was the bit where Maria is asking Alucard if he's seen Richter Belmont anywhere and, having not met Richter, he immediately recalls Trevor instead. It didn't feel forced. It was entirely natural and possibly the strongest enforcement of internal continuity by the games themselves in the series. Credit where it's due, Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin were also chock full of it (though less well executed), but this was more due to their status as direct sequels. Still, their internal continuity was impressive for a series more typically known for its external continuity.
As an example, consider the difference between hearing a story told by a Korean War vet and the hearing that same story told to you on the Military History channel. The Vet is going to mention Reggie from the 103rd, and how Reggie wrote to his girlfriend every day and how he hated the jello they served at the mess "hall". He'll talk about the fighting and the strategies of course, but in their due time as it's less important to his story. The Military History documentary flips the equation. It's not gonna consider Reggie from the 103rd. It's going to focus on Brigadier Whatshisname and his brilliant use of decoy operations and clever troop movements to outfox the enemy. The priorities are different.
As Castlevania has a very strong external continuity, it comes across more like that Military History documentary. But then you have those moments, with Alucard, Soma, Jonathan, etc., and you get stuff from the guys who were actually there, talking about past events organically like they're actually part of a living breathing world with its own history, like a really well developed comic book does. And then things shift, jarringly, back to the History Channel version of continuity.
And I find myself wishing that we had the more personal and interconnected living history side of Castlevania all the time.
That's why I hope the Netflix series continues past Trevor and covers AT LEAST Simon, Leon, and Richter as well. In most fandom circles, they are often considered "the most important" Belmonts, and the Netflix show has the potential to nail the living history angle that the games have usually flubbed on.
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There doesn't need to be really since games like SOTN make it clear from recollection towards past events that clearly paint Trevor as the first to defeat Dracula otherwise there would have been mention of Sonia's battle since obviously in Legends Alucard had a big role and was there during those events, and yet ingame the only Belmont that is pointed out as being past acquainted with Alucard is Trevor. As plottwist said you would have to retcon the narrative of SOTN to even hope to possibly fit Legends into the series and I highly doubt retconning a game like Symphony would be ideal or wise. So like I said the notion of just messing with the years does not solve the issue at hand.
Can't say how is it less different from Metal Gear series. MGS4 doesn't have any reference from MGS: Peace Walker or MGSV ground Zeroes/Phantom Pain which while the latter two came out after MGS4 they were set in the events before MGS4(nothing mentioned there about Militaires Sans Frontieres, Diamond Dogs, Skullface, etc. plus the Metal Gears before Metal Gear 1 & 2 looks way more advance) and yet they are still part of Metal Gear canon.
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Can't say how is it less different from Metal Gear series. MGS4 doesn't have any reference from MGS: Peace Walker or MGSV ground Zeroes/Phantom Pain which while the latter two came out after MGS4 they were set in the events before MGS4(nothing mentioned there about Militaires Sans Frontieres, Diamond Dogs, Skullface, etc. plus the Metal Gears before Metal Gear 1 & 2 looks way more advance) and yet they are still part of Metal Gear canon.
Well the difference there is while those games where made later after MGS4 there is the fact that those where made with the INTENTION of being part of the established MGS canon so that it why it would be more excusable there.
But with the CV series Legends was meant to be part of its own separate canon that would have continued on with the unreleased Dreamcast game and most likely purposely stepped on the toes of the mythos because the guys in charge had no intention of it being canon in the first place.
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I can't believe there are still people who defend Legends... I mean it wasn't even that good of a game. It screwed up the timeline of Alucard's birth and Lisa's death. It didn't give us any information about the origin of anything. It was literally just a quickly made cash in of SoTN's popularity. LoI might not be perfect but it is certainly a better game and much better origin story that is far more consistent with established canon and ties all the important elements of the mythos together quite nicely.
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Most of the ire aimed at Legends is because it doesn't fit with the rest of games very well. However, as DarkPrinceAlucard already alluded to, Legends might have been just doing its own thing. There's evidence its intial inclusion in the timeline was accidental and that this did not reflect the intention of the developers at all (at the very least it seems to ignore both CV3, the first two GB games, and SoTN). If you view it as its own story, it's just fine.
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I will always view Legends as a Gaiden (side story) since it was not made by the main team. Plus the inclusion of Alucard happened because the ladies who worked on the Legends team love him (I got this from a Japanese magazine interview somewhere out there, maybe Mr. P's site)
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Mr. P's site
Goddamn is that even still around?
It's been forever since I last looked -- I don't even remember the URL.
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Mr. P's Castlevania realm is still around. Pretty sure the guy updates it regularly as I've just visited the site.
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I will always view Legends as a Gaiden (side story) since it was not made by the main team. Plus the inclusion of Alucard happened because the ladies who worked on the Legends team love him (I got this from a Japanese magazine interview somewhere out there, maybe Mr. P's site)
Oh, that's really interesting because I've never read an interview from someone from the Legends team. I've checked Mr P's site but I couldn't find anything. Do you perhaps remember anything else that might be useful in tracking this interview down?
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I don't think there was an established "main team" at that time.
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I don't think there was an established "main team" at that time.
Yea there was no "main team" at the time, but out of those teams operating at the time such as IGA, KCEK, and whatever team it was that worked on Legends the only one that made a effort to actually connect their game directly into the previous canon was IGA with him tying SOTN's story directly into Rondo of Blood and CV3 respectfully and as such it can be assumed IGA's team especially after the critical acclaim of SOTN would be considered the defacto "main team" by the guys in charge at Konami and even the fans at large.
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Yea there was no "main team" at the time, but out of those teams operating at the time such as IGA, KCEK, and whatever team it was that worked on Legends the only one that made a effort to actually connect their game directly into the previous canon was IGA with him tying SOTN's story directly into Rondo of Blood and CV3 respectfully and as such it can be assumed IGA's team especially after the critical acclaim of SOTN would be considered the defacto "main team" by the guys in charge at Konami and even the fans at large.
I read that Rondo of Blood was actually considered to be a gaiden at the time which would mean the same for SOTN.
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I read that Rondo of Blood was actually considered to be a gaiden at the time which would mean the same for SOTN.
At the time it possibly was considered a gaiden UNTIL SOTN came and bridged that gap since it served as a sequel to Rondo AND CV3, my point is SOTN bringing in elements from both CV3 and Rondo within its story may have been IGAs first attempt at making a coherent storyline for the series that attempts to bridge the gaps between games.
Also where did you read that?
Can you post a source?
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Having Trevor 1/4th vampire will not effect him negatively by any real stretch. He'd inherit certain qualities like, perhaps, unusual strength and much higher resistant to diseases. And that's on top of his family's supernatural abilities. But he wouldn't have the adverse effects of feeling the need to feed for blood, weakness to sunlight and other such vampire-like drawbacks. This is only speculation of course as I've never heard of any story referring to someone who's only 1/4th vampire. And in terms of Legends fitting into the canon, sure it could. Just mess around with the years like Jorge stated.
Why does every assume the crossbreads automatically get (as Blade put it) all of the strengths and none of the weaknesses? Why couldn't a part vampire end up being weaker than a normal human with aversions to holy symbols and powers, a strong dislike of sunlight (they burn easily), and just generally poor health? You could say that their body simply can't process the blood they'd need to drink to actually gain any of their vampire abilities.
This could also be used to explain in-universe why there's so many versions of the Simon Belmont story: his is one of the most popular tales, and everyone who retells it tries to put their own stamp of contribution on it.
Personal headcannon here. All of Simon's adventures happened, but they didn't happen exactly like they were told. The guy fought a lot of vampires. They weren't all Dracula. He did fight Dracula multiple times, but he didn't always get the killing blow in.
Depends mostly on one thing: Do you want Symphony to still be canon along with Legends? Without SotN, and with a LOT of ingenuity and handwaving and sweat, you can force Legends in there. But it's either Legends or SotN. You can't have both and expect the Lisa plot to work. Now if we go the "we just have to retcon X and Y and Z" then anything goes. We could make Konami Krazy Racers canon.
... It's not?
Okay, but that time Simon teamed up with Konami man happened, right? And the time he went skateboarding in Dracula's castle?
I honestly disagree with the notion of just "messing around with the years" will make Legends fit since there is still the clear inconsistency of Sonia being the first to defeat Dracula which directly contradicts and takes away from the stated fact of Trevor being the first to take him on and beat him, not to mention any shoehorn would take AWAY from Trevor's role in the series as the original belmont to take down Dracula and as big trevor fan I would not be on board with a shoehorned game into the timeline that was never meant to be in the timeline in the first place and was apparently meant to start its own timeline separately.
I think you could give them each the role of being the first to defeat Dracula and it would still work.
Sonia was the first to defeat Dracula. Up until that point he was some supernatural juggernaut that steamrolled over everybody. Sonia showed he was beatable... but she didn't KILL him. She just hurt him bad enough to put him down for a while.
Trevor was the first to defeat Dracula as in, he went out after Dracula and came back carrying the vampires' head on a pike. Dracula was gone. He was defeated. For good. (not really)
And as far as the IGA was a huge fan of Castlevania... I'm not sure I can fully agree with that. he was a huge fan of what he made Castlevania into, but what it was before he started and what it was after are two wildly different things. I'll give him the fact that he had a vision for the series, but that vision turned it into something it hasn't before. I won't argue that it was better or worse than it used to be. (I might do that later) but it was hardly the same. It's easy to see how people who started with the tributes to Universal monsters and Hammer Horror could dislike the more flowerly Anne Rice style vampires or the more anime inspired stylings of the series.
Also most of IGA's attempts to give things origins have really sucked.
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LoI is important in that it introduces Sara, who becomes Mildew Charlotte in that one fanfic I wrote.
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The only "main team" back then are the ones who made the first trilogy on NES/famicom, so other than that it was indeed made by separate teams. Castlevania Legends was made by Nagoya branch who later made the Sega Saturn port of SOTN.
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The only "main team" back then are the ones who made the first trilogy on NES/famicom, so other than that it was indeed made by separate teams. Castlevania Legends was made by Nagoya branch who later made the Sega Saturn port of SOTN.
Konami Computer Entertainment Nagoya: Literally "We tried." personified as a production studio.
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The only "main team" back then are the ones who made the first trilogy on NES/famicom, so other than that it was indeed made by separate teams. Castlevania Legends was made by Nagoya branch who later made the Sega Saturn port of SOTN.
We've already established there was no official main team, read the posts above, I however do believe that IGA's team was the "de facto main team" for reasons I listed above, not officially the main team but still most likely regarded higher than the others teams that where operating at the time especially after SOTN's release and critical acclaim.
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Considering the NES trilogy was all directed by Hitoshi Akamatsu, needless to say that it was the only "main team" back then, and just like what I said the following games afterwards(even if there's already CV games made by a separate teams between the releases of NES trilogy which is quite minor) are no longer made by one and only team.
"Not officially the main team" you said, so regardless of whatever reason like IGA team was regarded higher because of their one time success which is SOTN, calling them as "de facto main team" is still an opinion and not fact.
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Considering the NES trilogy was all directed by Hitoshi Akamatsu, needless to say that it was the only "main team" back then, and just like what I said the following games afterwards(even if there's already CV games made by a separate teams between the releases of NES trilogy which is quite minor) are no longer made by one and only team.
"Not officially the main team" you said, so regardless of whatever reason like IGA team was regarded higher because of their one time success which is SOTN, calling them as "de facto main team" is still an opinion and not fact.
First of all settle down lol, I NEVER claimed any of what I said was a fact, and secondly we are not talking about the NES days we where referring during the years SOTN and Legends where released which was 1997, games around that time include Legends, SOTN, CV64 etc, we where talking about which team AT THAT TIME, was the main team and we concluded there was no main team but I gave my OPINION that IGA's team may have had more importance in the eyes Konami given how his entry attempted to tie into previous entries in the series unlike the other games at the time and also how well received SOTN was, and it does help lend credibility to that opinion with the fact that he was put in charge of the series not to long after that.
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Why does every assume the crossbreads automatically get (as Blade put it) all of the strengths and none of the weaknesses?
Alucard is the crossbreed, not Trevor. Trevor would be 1/4th vampire if Legends were official canon. There are times when I question whether or not Alucard can wield holy objects due to his vampiric side. But with Trevor -whom has even less vampiric DNA in him- would have even far less problems because the vampiric side is even more watered down. The more watered down something is (yes genetics included) the less potent it is going to be. Alucard has both vampire/human DNA equally so we should be expecting something of a trade-off with him. But for Trevor it would be far more minimal, almost nil.
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Why does every assume the crossbreeds automatically get (as Blade put it) all of the strengths and none of the weaknesses?
Well, not to put too fine a point on it, that's literally how the myths surrounding Dhampirs work.
That is the entire point of them in the real world Slavic folklores where they appear: they are, to a one, fatal mistakes by vampires because they invariably hunt down their vampire parents and destroy them (at least in the stories where they are presented as something other than a jello-like mound of sentient flesh because folklore is weird like that). They have many of the strengths of their vampire sire, but few, if any, of the weaknesses.
If a vampire ever has a son with a human woman (tellingly, you don't often find folk tales about the mother being the vampire due to how reproduction was understood when these legends emerged, among other reasons), they are doomed. The Dhampir will grow up to resent their vampire father. They will hunt them down. And unless the vampire is very, very good at what they do and very very lucky, the Dhampir will destroy them.
Or they'll grow up to be a short lived boneless fleshy abomination.
One or the other. Man, Slavic folklore is fucking weird.
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Time to do 23 and me to find out what percentage vampire I am.
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Time to do 23 and me to find out what percentage vampire I am.
Well, we know you're not boneless, so that might be a start.
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Oh, that's really interesting because I've never read an interview from someone from the Legends team. I've checked Mr P's site but I couldn't find anything. Do you perhaps remember anything else that might be useful in tracking this interview down?
I tried finding the japanese magazine scan but i can't locate it. :'(
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The Story of Lament of Innocence couldn't have ever been fully realized because Konami didn't give a fuck about anything that wasn't Metal Gear Solid even at that time.
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Really? Thread Necromancy just for an unoriginal and unfunny dig at Konami and Metal Gear?
Kay-Z, please set your sights a little higher for the sake of quality posting.
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He does kinda have a point. Metal Gear was the big money-maker (before it went zombie-survival :P), while CV was the niche series.
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Really? Thread Necromancy just for an unoriginal and unfunny dig at Konami and Metal Gear?
Kay-Z, please set your sights a little higher for the sake of quality posting.
How old IS this thread? This one popped up in top 3 on GD, above Bloodstained even. (Even dated Aug 1 2018, I suspect something something revived backup.)
It's more of an analysis, Konami ensured safe bets with Metal Gear and Silent Hill, and they've slowly have taken less and less risks to the detriment of the potential of other IP's. I could Argue that LoI isn't that good overall, but let's face it the quality and polish being vastly uneven is something rather blatant now as if it were given chance, but faced with considerably less resources to actually turn out something with time and polish into it. Sure there was experimentation but it was done cheaply and it really shows with something like Contra.
Long story short, I researched LoI, and realized this was the time that Konami was becoming a shell of it's former self.
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It was a fair enough story, decent music, fun to play...Joachim was cool, Pumpkin was kinda hilarious, and Leon's cloak thing was pretty nice too (plus he gave me a cool name to use for my son!)
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Leon had on him what would akin to a tailcoat. Alucard had the cloak ;)
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The reason fans don't like it is because we liked the character of Sonia and it meant that there would be no more CV games with her in it.
@DarkPrinceAlucard I don't think Lumi is attacking Iga or accusing him of an inflated ego. She's simply stating that LOI marks a point where he made decisions with the story that she didn't care for.
I still hope that the classic timeline will be revived so Sonia and other excluded characters will be retconed sequels or prequels. I don't like the idea of the Belmont matriarch being Dracula, Alucard or other vampires lover making her descendants part vampires , but some aspects of her character can be kept like her being Trevor's mother -maybe a game following how Belmont's clan was almost decimated - or she can be a badass Belmont that starts her own clan, or retcon her in the future in which she can have a happy ending with Alucard.
As for Leon's story, I'm alright with it, I consider it a prequel to the classic timeline. Considering the time period it takes place I understand it can feel out of place but it was an interesting addition to the lore. I'm pretty sure if this game were never released there would be fans wondering of Dracula's origins even today.
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I'm pretty sure if this game were never released there would be fans wondering of Dracula's origins even today.
I've never had this issue.
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I've never had this issue.
Maybe not for Dracula, as we could always assumed he was Vlad. But I for one was very curious as to the origin of the Belmonts and the vampire killer whip. I was very satisfied with Lament's version of events, and love that they tied into Dracula's creation as well.
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Haven't been around in awhile, but lurk on these forums every now and then. The only reason why Sonia was removed as a main character in IGA-verse, is because of the love feud between her and Alucard. It wouldn't of made sense that Trevor was the son of Alucard, and that is why it was removed. I'm not bias with the Sonia installment, I enjoyed Legends (as with many, many titles of the franchise), but people need to let it rest until the developers decide to resurrect the current Timeline or revamp it.
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Well, uh, I like Lament of Innocence, so... *shrug*
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Well, uh, I like Lament of Innocence, so... *shrug*
Yes, me too. But of course, to each his own.
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Yes, me too. But of course, to each his own.
The thing about Lament of Innocence is how it really recontextualized the entire series. Up until LoI, the entirety of the franchise with its conflict against Dracula was really just a hunter clan trying to take down a supernatural threat. With LoI suddenly it become a thousand years blood feud instead. It's personal as Mathias was Leon's friend who manipulated him in order to become a vampire just so he could spite God. It makes it clear why Dracula is the Belmont Clan's sworn enemy.
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The thing about Lament of Innocence is how it really recontextualized the entire series. Up until LoI, the entirety of the franchise with its conflict against Dracula was really just a hunter clan trying to take down a supernatural threat. With LoI suddenly it become a thousand years blood feud instead. It's personal as Mathias was Leon's friend who manipulated him in order to become a vampire just so he could spite God. It makes it clear why Dracula is the Belmont Clan's sworn enemy.
This. As well, it explains the genesis of the Vampire Killer.
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I really love LoI on numerous levels. I find it interesting as well how it tries to address Dracula’s history in the games itself - is he Vlad III, is he a sorcerer who made a deal, why is it he comes back every 100 years? Why do the Belmonts in particular keep fighting him. I also love Lament for its general aesthetics, as well as story.
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I really love LoI on numerous levels. I find it interesting as well how it tries to address Dracula’s history in the games itself - is he Vlad III, is he a sorcerer who made a deal, why is it he comes back every 100 years? Why do the Belmonts in particular keep fighting him. I also love Lament for its general aesthetics, as well as story.
Same. It's only shortfall imo is that the in game character models looks nowhere near as beautiful and ornate as the artwork. Mathias in particular suffers from this. His artwork portrait looks so beautiful and his character model looks clumsy in comparison. In fact, LOI deserves a proper and complete remake, not just an overhaul.
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As with SotN’s clunky original dub, I see the slightly clunky models as part of LoI’s charm. Also remember how old it is now. The complaint about repeatative gloomy corridors is to me part of the aesthetic, and makes me feel more like I’m running about an old castle.
I’d actually prefer a sequel to LoI than a remake. A new story involving Leon and Mathias. Joachim is another great character who I think was under utilised, and deserved a return.
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I thought the game looked quite good for its time.
A lot of the Castlevanias could use updated releases. If Konami was smart (lol) they'd make a set of standardized reasonably high-end graphical assets and then remake most, if not all, of the games, and release them at monthly intervals, and then release a boxed set.
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The character models for LoI are fine to me (Castlevania don't need to be inundated with pretty boys) and Isaac's look in CoD was taking things way too far :P. The only character model that I feel needs to be revisited is Sara. She needs a revision badly. She's way too Japanese-looking for a European woman (or whatever European country she supposedly comes from). Another aspect of the game I'd want to see fixed is the ability to pause the game and use the potions from within the menu--NOT being forced to use potions during fight moments. This was an big issue for me, although it was fixed in CoD.
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The character models for LoI are fine to me (Castlevania don't need to be inundated with pretty boys)
Seriously? Mathias' 3d model looks really removed from his artwork though. His 3d model's face looks like Testament from Guilty Gear. Obviously it was a limitation and budget constraint, but it really doesn't fit. At least Rinaldo's and Leon's look somewhat similar, although not 100% accurate. Sara's 3d model at least looks closer to her initial artwork.
Oh yeah, the potions. I never worked out what those gems you can buy from Rinaldo did either. I remember using one and thinking wtf was that.
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Oh yeah, the potions. I never worked out what those gems you can buy from Rinaldo did either. I remember using one and thinking wtf was that.
They're used with the Jewel Crush accessory.
http://castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Jewel_Crush (http://castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Jewel_Crush)
Ruby and Diamond are the most useful ones. You can use the hidden duplication cheat to give yourself multiple Diamonds, which is cool.
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They're used with the Jewel Crush accessory.
http://castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Jewel_Crush (http://castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Jewel_Crush)
Ruby and Diamond are the most useful ones. You can use the hidden duplication cheat to give yourself multiple Diamonds, which is cool.
Ruby - The energy hidden within the Ruby damages all enemies in the area
No wonder, I tried it in a quiet place, with no enemies :-X