Topic: The official "Finding Castlevania in Lords of Shadow" thread....

[Flame]

that added with the start of SoTN where Maria/ Richter ride a horse.

That's far more of a stretch...

Its also part of the "Castle crumbles when it's master dies" thing which vania is famous for. Gabriel Kills Malphas, tower crumbles.

Surprisingly, the vampire castle didnt. But that was more plot central. And technically wasnt Carmilla's to begin with.

[Munchy]

Decided to revive this with a close look at LoS' bestiary:
- Lesser/Greater Lycanthrope: Werewolves exist in several CV games. Not a surprise.
- Warg/Great Warg: First enemy seen in SotN, nice reference to make it the first miniboss in LoS.
- Small Trolls/Swamp Troll/Cave Troll: Different from the agile and deadly Cave Troll in SotN/DS games, but seems to be a little reference.
- Giant Spider: May be taken from fantasy stories like LotR, but may be a reference to the recurring enemy Arachne.
- Gremlin: Appeared in various games, most notable in AoS' Clock Tower (as far as I can remember)
- Black Knight Golem: A clear reference to most knights found in Dracula's Castle (Final Guards, Armors, etc.)
- Cornell/Lycan Dark Lords: No need to talk about him (LoD, etc.) Second form is a tribute to the Werewolf bosses.
- Chupacabras: May be a reference to little Thieves (CoD for example) as they seek magical relics. It's also the Cave Troll's Japanese name.
- Swordmaster: Reference to 3D IGAvania's flying ghosts.
- Malphas: Recurring boss/enemy.
- Ghoul: Powerful zombie, appeared in various games (PoR for example)
- Vampire Warrior: May be a reference to CV64/LoD's vampires. Plus Vampires are one of the main things of the CV series.
- Animated Armor: Clear reference to all living armors found in several games.
- Brauner: PoR's main villain.
- Skeleton Warrior: Appeared in a lot of games.
- Mandragora: Appeared in lots of IGAvanias.
- Evil Butcher: Famous enemy from AoS/OoE.
- Olrox: Famous SotN boss.
- Carmilla/Vampire Queen: No need to deal with her. Her second form is a tribute to Dracula's transformations.
- Headless Burrower/Zombie/Creeping Corpse: Classic Zombie.
- Scarecrow: Enemy in various games (HoD, OoE, etc.)
- Gravedigger: Enemy appearing in several IGA games.
- Reapers/Necromancers: Reference to Death.
- Dracolich Titan: Reference to Zombie Dragons, but bigger (SotN, PoR, etc.)
- Flaming Skeletons: Skeletons warriors (various games).
- The Forgotten One: LoI's super boss.

So, 35/48 enemies are directly taken from or a clear reference to original CV games enemies. That's a good point to LoS.

Just to comment on this list, Gremlins are also in the X68k game, and spiders are in Simon's Quest, Dracula's Curse, Belmont's Revenge, and CV4, off the top of my head.

What else... there was a Necromancer boss in both CotM and SNES Dracula X (also guy in X68k but he's an ice wizard or some shit), not to mention his LoS wardrobe sort of brings Shaft to mind. The summoning of Dracolich might also be a reference to Shaft's Ghost, who attacked in a similar way.

It'd be fun to send a list of these to Cox and see how many were intentional.

[Flame]

I say go for it. Would be neat, and it would be SOME kind of CV related news to munch on.

[Chernabogue]

You can complete my list and send it if you want to.

[Flame]

How do we contact him, via twitter I suppose?

[jestercolony]

I'm still sticking to the "Power of Dominance" thing in which Gabriel absorbs things with his gauntlet, which is a reference to AoS/DoS. ;o

[Munchy]

You can complete my list and send it if you want to.

I was thinking maybe stapling it onto Ahasversus's because he had a number that I didn't even think of.

Did anyone mention the Holy Water being completely OP? I think that's a CV1/3 reference, lulz.

[crisis]

wow aewsome idea guys!!

[Flame]

Someone's gonna have to reach out to Cox and ask him if he would be ok with answering to these. To see which were intentional and which were coincidence.

Someone with a Twitter. I dont have a Twitter, Or I would do it.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Too many characters for putting on 'a Twitter'. lawlz.

[Flame]

well duh, but someone should ask him if he would agree to it, and then set up some kind of communication.

[C Belmont]

Wouldn't a link to this page be enough, I'm sure he could figure out the rest just by reading everyones posts

[Flame]

Wouldn't a link to this page be enough, I'm sure he could figure out the rest just by reading everyones posts

Because more official

[Neobelmont]

Maybe someone from the Chapel could help. Did Cox not reply to them I am sure, if not make a group on facebook maybe have someone be a representative on behalf of the dungeon. Thats all I got right now.

[TheouAegis]

Simple fact of the matter is some references were just name drops. Brauner and Olrox are name drops. Their characters resemble Van Helsing's Dracula and Blood: The Last Vampire's chiropterans. SOTN's Olrox and POR's Brauner were both knockoffs of Nosferatu's Count Orlok.

Werewolves and vampires have been around together before Castlevania. Both werewolves and vampires share the shape-shifter lore (Dracula was either a full-fledged werewolf or a more generalized lycanthrope) and was a popular belief in Hungary. Both werewolves and vampires are cannibalistic. Both have been accused by the Catholic Church of abhorring God and cured/defeated by religion (ha! Catholics always try to steal ancient lore for themselves). At one point it was believed that a werewolf would become a vampire if its corpse wasn't cremated. H.P. Lovecraft's "The Hound" was basically an 18th century European vampiric lycanthrope. And heroic werewolves (now referring to N64 Cornell and Van Helsing) were a feature of the Turks, who revered lycanthropic shamans.

What irks me though is, why does Satan always have to appear where there are demons? Let's not get into the fact that "satan" is a common noun, not a proper noun. And bringing Cthulhu (and whatever that thing was Brauner summoned from his painting) into the series, that kinda chucks God and Satan and all that out the window (you can argue Cthulhu was God's creation, but you are only kidding yourself). So instead, for LoS we get this Christianized D&D mish-mash. Satan never appeared in Castlevania, so why now?

By the way, I haven't played LoS so I gotta leave this post on an interrupted thought and leave this sentence unfinished because my girl wants to play a game and I forgot what I was going to ...