Topic: Some observations from the JP Curse of Darkness guide

[PFG9000]

Recently I picked up the Japanese official guide for Curse of Darkness.  Looking through it, I noticed several of the area names were either changed or poorly translated for the western version.  (Most of the guide is in Japanese, but the area names appear in Engrish.)  I have no idea what the reasoning is for this, but I thought it was interesting.

Abolition Castle --------------> Abandoned Castle
Balget Mountains -------------> Baljhet Mountains
Cathedral of Garibaldi ---------> Garibaldi Temple
Mortavia Ruins ---------------> Mortvia Aqueduct
Forest of Geclmunt -----------> Forest of Jigramunt
Town of Cordoba -------------> Cordova Town
Clock Tower of Eneomaios -----> Eneomaos Machine Tower
Iororn Ruins ------------------> Aiolon Ruins
Corridor of the Inferno --------> Infinite Corridor
The Castle of Dracula ---------> Dracula's Castle

The biggest impact this has is that the first area of the game might not have been intended to be the ruins of Castlevania at all.  I know parts of it look like the classic entry hall motif, but I always thought it was weird that the castle would appear twice in the same game, in different locations with different layouts.

Also, there's about eight pages at the back of the guide that appear to contain interviews with different staff members, like Iga and Michiru Yamane.  I don't know Japanese, so I can't translate them, but I'd be happy to post them here if anyone is interested.

[zangetsu468]

True that abolition may not sound like abandoned castle but isn't ther a chance if the translation was 100% it would've read "Abolished Castle" which would basically mean destroyed castle.

The title itself "Abolition castle" doesn't make a ton of sense regarding the tense. Unless it's referring to the place where things go to be abolished?

I think it still has to be taken in context: CV3 happens a few years before COD and we've traversed Castle ruins before for eg both in CVII and in Bloodlines, both games where there were previously Castles where Dracula was destroyed.

I also find it strange they've changed Clock tower to machine tower. Not for any other reason that the clock tower has always been an icon in castlevania.

[theplottwist]

The biggest impact this has is that the first area of the game might not have been intended to be the ruins of Castlevania at all.  I know parts of it look like the classic entry hall motif, but I always thought it was weird that the castle would appear twice in the same game, in different locations with different layouts.

I risk falling into headcanon here, but I think this is explained (implicitly) in the series.

Not only the castle has manifested in different places along the series, but I think it's safe to assume that the ruins of the previous manifestation stay where the castle last appeared. This can be seen in Simon's Quest, where the ruins are at one place (where Simon last defeated Dracula), and in Rondo the castle manifests in another seemingly completelly different place, but still in the same region. Though this doesn't confirm that the ruins of the previous incarnation still exist, it does show that the castle appeared in a different place in relation to Aljiba.

In Aria, Graham Jones confirms that Dracula's Castle exists in Europe but his true castle exists somewhere else. Genya later reveals that the true castle is a spiritual plane. Couple that with Alucard's explanation of the castle taking "many different incarnations", and I think we could say the castle works by assembling itself from natural matter (stones, earth) so it can exist in the physical plane, but once Dracula is defeated, the true castle returns to the spiritual plane, and the assembled physical manifestation crumbles (like a soul leaving a body, the body dies) causing these ruins to still exist even if the castle appears somewhere else.

In Curse of Darkness, the seal Trevor placed on Dracula's Castle is at the Abandoned Castle. Would not make much sense for him to seal Dracula's Castle in another castle altogether. At least I think it wouldn't.

Also, there's about eight pages at the back of the guide that appear to contain interviews with different staff members, like Iga and Michiru Yamane.  I don't know Japanese, so I can't translate them, but I'd be happy to post them here if anyone is interested.

I'm *really* interested. I'm also interested on knowing the japanese name of the areas, mostly because of the Infinite Corridor. You said it's called "Corridor of the Inferno" on the guide, yet I only found the japanese name "無間回廊" for it, which translated to "Infinite Corridor" in one translator, and "Corridor Between Nothing" in another. I want to see how it's written on your guide.

[Inccubus]

Is it possible the names in the guide are from an earlier build of the game before the final release?

Also, I wonder if the Eneomous tower is supposed to be the same tower as the Clock Tower from CV3? They are both separate from the traditional Clock Tower area of Dracula's Castle after all. You even traverse part of the "regular" Clock Tower in CV3.

[PFG9000]

Lots of pics coming, thus the spoiler tags.

(click to show/hide)

Interviews:

I'd be happy to provide higher quality photos of the interviews if these are too hard to read.

[Nagumo]

This is what I got:

廃城: Abandoned Castle
バルジッド山脈: Barujiddo (Barujid?) Mountains 
ガリバルディ大聖堂: Garibaldi Cathedral
モータヴィア水道橋: Mortavia Aqueduct
ジグルムントの森: Forest of Jigurumunto (Jigurumunt?)
コルドバの街: The City of Cordoba
エネオマイオスの機械塔: Eneomaios Machine Tower
アイオローン遺跡: Aioloan Ruins
無間回廊: Infernal Corridor*
ドラキュラ城: Dracula's Castle

* The first two kanji appear to be an abbreviation for "無間地獄", the "eighth and most painful of the eight hells in Buddhism". It's also known as the "Buddhist hell of uninterrupted suffering". So maybe that's why it was decided to translate it as "Eternal Corridor". I choose "infernal" instead since it's impossible to find a proper equivelent for it in English.