Topic: Some random ideas that will never see the light of day or dark of night

[Belmont Stakes]

I had a thought about Dracula's Curse as a possible remake. Seeing as how it has so much support behind its remake being done consider this. Doing a version where Trevor has all three comrades at his disposal. I.E. where there are climbable walls Grant would be used. If there is a magical obstacle that can be bypassed or destroyed by fire, ice or lightning then employ Sypha. If you have to fly as a bat then Alucard is at the forefront. As for Trevor he can swing on hooks with the whip and attack other enemies while swinging. These would be scenarios where there are no walls to climb or they can't be climbed there are no problems requiring magic and where flying just isn't practical. Maybe you could have up and downdrafts of wind aside from normal weather occurrences as vampires can control weather. So basically a Gradius type of game play for Alucard in his bat form you know a little more high stakes mechanic as opposed to his bat controls in SOTN. Also maybe you could have it so that the three non vampire heroes go through a castle more akin to the level stylings of CV with spike/pitfall and other traps with classic CV enemy placement. But when Alucard shows up he can operate a blood switch that removes those hazards but brings more tougher tank enemies a'la SOTN.  Some of this reminds me of the home brew Dracula's Shadow and the Lost Vikings games. I figure as long as the switching between characters is fluid it would work really well.


Another thing I was considering was having a Castlevania game where Simon on another Belmont/character has succumbed to the curse fighting Dracula. A few years pass evil starts to get the runs again and they seek relief in the form of Pepto and also killing people, yadda yadda we all know the story. So a group of apostates who deal in forbidden practices take upon themselves to exhume the
remains of the Count's slayer and resurrect them using a vial dark plasma via archane ritual. As it goes on something goes of course
horribly awry and instead of a fully revived being they get a bloody skeleton. The hero is wracked with pain and anguish and starts to
zero in on those who called him back into the world. All of the yo-yos flee accept for some young knave who's shitting himself. So he begs the monster to spare his life in return for his servitude to return him to his human form or end his life if need be. So in a nut shell the hero will fight and assume the form and talents of skeletons, zombies, werewolves, knights, revenants,  specters, etc. until he gets to the more powerful forms akin to higher bosses, necromancers and vampires and at last human form. You can obviously see where the story goes but I don't want to focus hard on storyline and especially not through dialogue as a main point of interest. The game should reflect
the storyline's main conflict but not have to be narrated all too much, I just think Castlevania is more about walk the walk not talk the talk and having at you without saying have at you.

[TheouAegis]

Or CV3 as a Lost Vikings clone! 

[DragonSlayr81]

Storywise, I still want my "GameofThrones-vania", a focus on various important families, with the mains being the House Belmont and House Draculesti. Work in a bit of fictional take on history, like Mircea and Radu taking Dracula's side, while Vlad the Monk aides the Belmonts(as well as the tension within House Basarab between rival Draculesti and Danesti/Denasty clans), as does Alucard(later). Set up the family dynamic and go forward from that. For as long as I remember, I always wanted to see that whole "Belmont Family" thing, and thought that it might be cool to see Dracula bring his family into the mix(we already know Elizabeth Bartley). To me, that would rock.

How it could "go on" with that formula in Konami's hands is up to them. How I would handle it would be like this:

- Leon Belmont and Vlad Dracul are close comrades. Their sons, Gabriel and Vlad Dracula become close as children, but then Dracula is sent away to school and Gabriel is raised and taught the ways of being a holy knight.
- Now men, Dracula returns and is set to rule in his father's place and appoints his trusted friend, Gabriel, as captain of a special unit that accompanies him in battle. The unit is made up of the greatest of the neighboring lands(one is also Graf Orlok/Olrox). Vlad, Gabriel and the unit venture off into battle against the Turks and many victories are won. Vlad's young wife, Elisabetha, becomes pregnant with Adrien(Alucard)
- Vlad soon shows contempt towards the lowly, the gypsies and Turks, and his appetite for blood troubles Gabriel and the other knights of the unit. He orders his unit to attack an Ottoman settlement, but Gabriel and the others soon halt when the discover it's a settlement of women and children. They abandon Dracula, who is captured by the Turks and imprisoned in the darkest dungeon at a fortress.
- A weak link is spotted by the Denasty clan once news of Dracula's horrific crimes have been made known, and they try to overthrow House Draculesti, but are stopped by Gabriel and the unit.
- Dracula, however, meets an old man chained in the darkest part of the dungeon who claims to be immortal(the Turks fear him, for each time they've tried to kill him, he's come back and healed himself completely) and knows the ways of the dark arts. He sees a great destiny in the eyes of the young prince and tells him that he knows of a place where power is granted to those who seek the darkness. He bestows a blood sigil onto Dracula, not only granting him the power to escape, but entrance to this place, Scholomance. Sometime while Dracula is imprisoned, Gabriel has a son, named Trevor.
- Years pass, Dracula is gone(presumed dead), his brothers(Mircea and Radu) fight over control while Adrien is sent away schooling, the war with the Turks still wages, but the Belmonts thrive and Trevor is being trained as a knight at the Vatican.
- The back gate of Scholomance opens and the Dark Lord emerges, ready to reclaim his kingdom. He returns to Walachia and offers his brothers a bit of his own "power", as well as his son(yeah, going back to the ORIGINAL origin of Alucard not being a Dhampir), then plans revenge on those who "left him to die". Many of them are killed, but Orlox is made a vampiric servent to Dracula. Gabriel and his children(sans Trevor) are killed by Dracula himself. Alucard sees the horrors commited by his father and decides to hide himself away, knowing he has become a monster, himself.
- Trevor returns just in time to witness his father's dying breath. He vows revenge, but is stopped by Vlad the Monk(who fears the end of the Belmont family line), and houses Trevor in an old abbey where the newly formed rebellion(lead by Grant Denasty)is gathered. Being on holy ground, the new demonic forces that traverse the countryside cannot enter. All the while Dracula's waging war on his countryside, villages are being destroyed and masses of people impaled. Dracula plans on consuming all of Europe in his black shroud.
- Grant leads a team against Dracula's army, but the attack ends in failure, the soldiers are slaughtered and Grant is cursed. Vlad tells Trevor that Dracula commands great dark magic, and to fight such a force, you need to wield a weapon of holy magic. The only one capable of creating such a weapon is Rinaldo Gandolfi, who was exiled years ago from the church of wielding Alchemy. Trevor ventures off to find Rinaldo while the Vatican, concerned the growing evil, dispatches Sypha Belnades to Romania. Demons and monsters from around the world are drawn to Walachia to serve the Dark Lord.
- Trevor finds Gandolfi and acquires the Vampire Killer whip(which Trevor's blood is used as one of the catalysts to create it, hence is tied to the family of the Belmont bloodline to be descended from him). Note: there could be more to this, I just skimmed over the whole task and trials to obtain the whip.
- Trevor returns to Walachia, sees the countryside in ruins, his hometown overrun by monsters, and with his Vampire Killer in hand, knees before the cross altar in the ruins of the main cathedral, and ventures off to "kill the night".
- Now a retelling, of CV3's events, just more elaborate.

[Shiroi Koumori]

@DragonSlayr81: I really like what you wrote. If you have time, can you still add more?

[DragonSlayr81]

@DragonSlayr81: I really like what you wrote. If you have time, can you still add more?

I don't have much more than that, actually. I just attempted to start a connection between the clans and their families. Not all of the families started off as friends. Belmonts and Draculesti started off as friends but became enemies, while Belmonts and Denasty started off as enemies, then became allies. There's likely turncoats in all the families, perhaps some of Belmont blood that are seduced by the darkness, and like Vlad the Monk and Alucard, those of the Draculesti that joining the fight against their evil family by siding with the Belmonts. I think that would make things interesting. You also have the two main families represent a eternal struggle with each side representing immortality and mortality. Dracula and his vampiric kin don't die off so easily, and can resurrect on occassion, so throughout the centuries, they are still leading the fight against the Belmonts, who are mortal, and can only match Dracula's clan with the bravery of each generation that follows(and not only the Belmonts, but all the additional families that join the fight with each generation). Work in the Morris clan, the Renard clan, and such over the years. Hell, I'd even work in Sonia.

I liked the concept of basically trimming the fat and getting to the point. I've always said, I grow tired of the origin tales and mystery of "who" becomes Dracula. Leave Dracula(Vlad III) as Dracula. Eliminate the mystery and focus on other aspects of the character. A bulk of my story is based on the original idea of CV3's backstory, and I attempted to use both LoI and LoS as inspiration, making Leon the first Belmont to have ties to the Draculesti family, Gabriel as Leon's son and best friend of Dracula himself(Hehehe), and Trevor being Gabriel's son(more hehehe) and peer to Alucard(and even more hehehe).  It's kinda a "What If" story that attempts to take different aspects of different CV canon and merge them into one world.

[TatteredSeraph]

@DragonSlayr81: I really like what you wrote. If you have time, can you still add more?

Seconding this.  I've always found the history of the real Draculesti fascinating.  It would be also interesting to tie in the relationship between Vlad III and Mattias Corvinus, and how Vlad married Mattias's cousin Ilona Szilagyi.  As a potential alternative to making Elisabeta Adrian's mother, what about saying Ilona is?  That way, it can be kept that Dracula has two sides, as that part in the games is based on the real history. 
  Joachim Armster could be tied in as a vampire originally of German nobility, sired by Walter Bernhard during the Crusades, could be a wildcard vampire, who's gained some power following the destruction of Walter at the hands of the Belmont clan, after being manipulated into it by Dracula, as he wished more power for himself by stealing Walter's, getting two enemies to fight amongst each other.

[chainsawmidget]

Well, as long as we're all tossing out ideas …

The game starts and *BAM!* you're right in the middle of a huge battle and you've just took a major hit from some demonic knight and now your face is covered in blood. 

This isn't a cutscene, this isn't a tutorial.  We throw you right into the thick of the battle.  Of course (hopefully) you eventually survive the fight and are rescued by an old woman using a modified automatic crossbow and a sword decorated with crosses. 

She saves you because, well, those were Dracula's forces hunting you down and if Count Dracula wants you dead then she wants you alive. 

Meet Sonia Belmont everyone.  She's somewhere in her late 60s (or older), old angry, and the vampire hunter equivalent of the old lady that threats you with a  shotgun if you get on her lawn. 

You are …  actually you don't know who you are.  Through out the game you get flashes of memory that hint, but you don't even known your own name.  Nor can you be identified by your looks due to how bad your face got messed up.  (You'll either have a bandaged face or wear a full helmet though out the game. 

Sonia tells you what's going on.  Dracula has won.  He's conquered the world and sit upon his thrown in the Demon Castle known as Castlevania.  His lands are being controlled by his 13 Generals.  They're the types you usually expect.  Frankenstein, The Mummy, Grim Reaper, yada yada.  A person would have to get the keys from each of them to be able to enter Dracula's lair.  Sonia is too old to storm the gates of Castlevania and destroy the vampire lord  herself, so she continued to wage a guerrilla war against Drac's minions, but you, injuries not withstanding, still have the power and strength to fight.  That and you want to know why Dracula hates you so much and who you really are. 

Oddly enough as you travel, you keep running across the same young woman.  Her name is Lisa and although she looks familiar, she doesn't claim to know you.  Nor does she claim to know you the next time you meet her, or the time after that.  She also has an unusual tendency to get killed and then show up somewhere else claiming she's lived their her whole life. 

Then there's “Belmont”.  Belmont first shows up as little more than a walking skeleton with a  few scraps of meat hanging from him.  As you continue on your quest, he continues on his own.  Each time you meet him he looks a little more human and acts a little less.  You see, “Belmont” is Sonia's lost son.  His father was the son of Dracula, and it was due to this cursed bloodline that Dracula was able to take control of him and used him as his own weapon against the other vampire hunters.  He was one of those “all of their strengths non of their weaknesses” type vampires, except Dracula was able to take supplant his will with Dracula's own.  When his purpose was served, Dracula had him ripped to pieces and those pieces scatted through out the lands. 

And yhour character?  What you eventually discover is that YOU are Vlad … or rather, you're what's left of Dracula's humanity, given form when Dracula obtained ultimate power and cast what goodness was left in him out.  … That's right.  You're not even a real person. 

Lisa is of course Dracula's former love, cursed to die again and again and always remain out of Dracula's reach. 

And to make matters worse, at this point, the world is so corrupted and infested with pure darkness that killing Dracula really isn't going to help.  Now, you're going to have to storm Dracula's castle, take his power as your own, and use it to cast yourself back in time to kill your only real ally, Sonia, before she can even have a son. 



Yeah, this is why Sonia isn't part of the time line.  Because she had to be taken out of it. 

[TatteredSeraph]

That's an awesome idea!  Like LOS but, but keeping with the usual timeline style more.  I like it!

[Chernabogue]

I always thought DC could be remade as a KH-styled game, with you controlling one of the four heroes, and the three other being IA allies (like DOnald and Goofy).