Topic: When was Dracula at his full power?

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

I thought that the Crimson Stone only made him into a vampire (this is literally the only description given to it), but no such connection had been established yet.

I thought the Crimson Stone was a way to make a pact with Chaos... but that's just my Headcanon.

Then, in CVIII he goes batshit insane and actually connects with Chaos (explaining how he's suddenly gaining power to wage his war, feeding from the chaos he's causing himself).

Oh well.

Sometime after LoI but before Legends (in my headcanon they're all canon ), when Lisa, Drac's 2nd wife dies (the first being Elisabetha... it's possible that he sees something in Lisa that reminds him of her not unlike how in the Dracula novel/movie, he sees something in Mina Harker that reminds him of his first wife), that's when he loses it.  At first he was just defying God because his first wife took ill.  Now he's gone mad with rage seeing as his 2nd was taken from him from filthy ignorant Humans.  Alucard's rage is severely supressed, by contrast, since it seems he was there when she was about to be executed, but did not go and save her since she told him not to hate humans.

I imagine he could've just shredded through them with his Half-Vamp abilities, but didn't because Lisa taught him not to act with the Rage his father had.

Right now I agree that Simon, Richter and Julius fought a fully powered Dracula (even though I can also find nothing on the matter relating to Julius, but the scale of the event makes it look like it). But Dracula's line on Judgment is really the only answer there is about his power in CVIII, and here I'll agree with Nagumo. Judgment does contain reliable information pertaining the canon (it's where the whole blood-ties connection of the Lecardes with the Belmonts came from).

If you notice, the way Drac is resurrected by people in the 100 year cycle seems to involve a blood sacrifice.  This sacrifice is seen in-game in three games:
-Castlevania 1's "Castlevania Chronicles"/X68000 remake
-Rondo of Blood
-Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness.

In all of these three games, a person is sacrificed upon a font, the blood ritual brings Dracula to life.
It is possible that the so-called "100-year cycle" is just people-created... people get fed up with things and, by pure happenstance, 100 years is when they just say "Tired of this shit, let's wipe the world Clean with the searing flames of Chaos" or something.

As for Trevor needing three more allies to do it, I thought up the following possibilities:

-Trevor is the weakest Belmont to fight Dracula if we consider that each Belmont is stronger than the last. This would explain how he wasn't able to do it alone and how the others after him were.

Can we stop with this already?  This was just some stupid line in the SotN Instruction booklet.  It's silly and makes no real sense from any sort of way.

-Maybe he WAS able to do it alone, but the allies decided to help anyway to ensure victory, as they also had their beef with the Count.

Now this I agree with.  It's possible that it's an "Avengers" kind of situation... maybe he's strong, but there are other things other than strength that would help.

-Maybe Dracula was not fully powered BUT was strong as hell anyway, and rising to fully powered status, requiring four people to put him down. Almost fully powered, perhaps?

Perhaps?  I don't see why this wouldn't work.

[Nagumo]

I thought about it myself and I agree with Jorge. That line from the SotN manual might not be in the original Japanese text at all. This was still back when the localizations were a bit shoddy. I will try and check if I can find a readable scan of the manual. I'm going to say something bold here and say that Trevor is possibly stronger than Richter as Richter could theoretically be defeated by Alucard in SotN, and Trevor could defeat Alucard in that test battle.

[theplottwist]

I thought about it myself and I agree with Jorge. That line from the SotN manual might not be in the original Japanese text at all. This was still back when the localizations were a bit shoddy. I will try and check if I can find a readable scan of the manual. I'm going to say something bold here and say that Trevor is possibly stronger than Richter as Richter could theoretically be defeated by Alucard in SotN, and Trevor could defeat Alucard in that test battle.

True, as it explicitly says that Maria is not blood-related to the Belmonts, when we know she is.

Would this be the one?
http://www.castlevaniacrypt.com/games/sotn/images/manual/jap/4.jpg

If it is, could you please tell us what all three bios here say?

Here are all the pages:
http://www.castlevaniacrypt.com/games/sotn/manual-jap.htm

But If I'm not mistaken this is mentioned in yet another manual that escapes my memory right now. I'll post it if I remember it.

I'm going to say something bold here and say that Trevor is possibly stronger than Richter as Richter could theoretically be defeated by Alucard in SotN, and Trevor could defeat Alucard in that test battle.

I don't agree with this. If we go by what actually happened, Alucard didn't have to lay a single finger on Richter, only evade him time enough to destroy the apparition controlling his mind. He says in the end that "Belmont's power is supreme among vampire hunters. None could defeat him." Sure, he may have referred to other vampire hunters facing Richter, and not precisely anyone else. But even so, he did not fight Richter head-on.

(Note: In Japanese Alucard says that "the power of the Belmonts can possibly be matched, but can never be surpassed", if the SotN retranslation can be trusted. I tested it myself with japanese text from this site and all the tests have shown that the translation can be trusted)

EDIT: If this scan is a better translation from japanese to french, then indeed, it says nothing about Belmonts being stronget than the last. It even confirms Maria's ties with the Belmonts.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Indeed, when I play Symphony of the Night, I play that battle such that Richter never gets attacked, and Alucard takes minimal damage.
I aim straight for that stupid Shaft-Orb.  It doesn't take long for it to shatter...

It seems that Belmonts are very strong of body and mind, but I don't think they get stronger of mind/body as they go down the descendants.  Perhaps they just learn new skills and have a more expansive pool of information/techniques with time?

[beingthehero]

Can we stop with this already?  This was just some stupid line in the SotN Instruction booklet.  It's silly and makes no real sense from any sort of way.

To be fair, it was mentioned again in Julius's bestiary description in AoS, which described him the strongest of all Belmonts.

[Nagumo]

Well, it's all a bit hard to make out but the first sentence mentions "vampire hunters", "Count Dracula", the verb "tsuzukeru" (continue) and "Belmont". The second sentence says he defeated Count Dracula 5 years ago but disappeared one year ago.  The third sentence mentions something about the whip (muchi). The last sentence has the words "seigikangatsuyoku blabla", it says he has a strong sense of justice and something else. I don't think it mentions anything about him being the strongest Belmont ever.   

I don't agree with this. If we go by what actually happened, Alucard didn't have to lay a single finger on Richter, only evade him time enough to destroy the apparition controlling his mind. He says in the end that "Belmont's power is supreme among vampire hunters. None could defeat him." Sure, he may have referred to other vampire hunters facing Richter, and not precisely anyone else. But even so, he did not fight Richter head-on.

(Note: In Japanese Alucard says that "the power of the Belmonts can possibly be matched, but can never be surpassed", if the SotN retranslation can be trusted. I tested it myself with japanese text from this site and all the tests have shown that the translation can be trusted)

EDIT: If this scan is a better translation from japanese to french, then indeed, it says nothing about Belmonts being stronget than the last. It even confirms Maria's ties with the Belmonts.

Alucard does just avoid Richter if the path to the good ending is being followed, but in the bad ending Alucard just straight up defeats him. Of course, this is not "what actually happend", but I do consider the bad ending something that theoretically could have occured. It's not like the dog ending from Silent Hill 2 or something like that.   

Something else which contributes to why I believe this to be the case is that IGA mentioned that idea he had about Alucard actually being the one who defeated Dracula in 1897 instead of Quincy Morris. If it's true that Dracula would be at his full power at that time, it means Alucard is a very strong character. And of course, in Judgment he demonstrates he can handle a full powered Dracula as well.

Lastly, he also hold his own pretty well against Maria, and it has been confirmed (in Judgment lol) that her power exceeds that of the Belmont family (although she is still technically a Belmont). So this evidence has led me to believe some people underestimate how powerful Alucard actually is. I'm not a particular fan of him by the way, so I'm not saying this because I'm biased.   

[X]

Something else which contributes to why I believe this to be the case is that IGA mentioned that idea he had about Alucard actually being the one who defeated Dracula in 1897 instead of Quincy Morris. If it's true that Dracula would be at his full power at that time, it means Alucard is a very strong character. And of course, in Judgment he demonstrates he can handle a full powered Dracula as well.

This is one of IGA's ideas that I can never get behind. It just doesn't work. Quincy delivered the fatal blow whilst being fatally wounded in the process. And since Quincy was made into a Belmont descendant in the CV Bloodlines backstory it stands to reason that he was the one to put Dracula back into the grave because only he could. Alucard was never there which is were IGA's idea fails to work. And I'm glad that it was was never officially implemented.

In terms of which Belmont is stronger I'd have to argue that all Belmonts are strong in their respective times. Trevor was the strongest in his time that no other person could match. Followed by the next Belmont whom is yet stronger, so-on and so-fourth. Think of it as like Olympic athletes. Many decades ago they set the records for their achievements in sports and they were the best of their time that no-other could match. Yet now we have athletes who're breaking those records and if anyone from the past were to see that they would think our athletes were super human on some level. As generations go people get stronger with each generation. This is a genetic fact. Do the Belmonts get stronger with each passing generation? Yes, I believe so. And since Dracula becomes ever stronger with each reincarnation it would make sense to have a counterbalance to this. Dracula gets stronger and therefore an equally strong Belmont comes along to face him.

[Shiroi Koumori]

Here's my translation of Richter's bio from the Japanese SOTN manual:
A descendant of the Belmont clan whose been battling Dracula continuously for generations. 5 years ago, he defeated Dracula in a battle but since a year ago, he has gone missing . His weapon is the ancestral holy whip. His sense of justice is strong and he is a hot blooded man that hates getting corrupted.

Nope nothing here says anything about being the strongest.

Should I still need to translate Alucard and Maria's description?

[theplottwist]

Here's my translation of Richter's bio from the Japanese SOTN manual:
A descendant of the Belmont clan whose been battling Dracula continuously for generations. 5 years ago, he defeated Dracula in a battle but since a year ago, he has gone missing . His weapon is the ancestral holy whip. His sense of justice is strong and he is a hot blooded man that hates getting corrupted.

Nope nothing here says anything about being the strongest.

Should I still need to translate Alucard and Maria's description?

Comparing it to the european (french) version, it says the exact same thing, so BY ME there is no need as the french version is trustworthy.

Thank you Shiroi Koumori and Nagumo chan for confirming these things \(^0^)/

[Nagumo]

Interesting how that "each generation of Belmonts gets stronger" bit turned out to be false since it's something that has been brought up quite a lot in discussions here if I recall correctly. I'm not sure why they felt the need to add that unless the translator really liked Richter or something. Oh well.

This is one of IGA's ideas that I can never get behind. It just doesn't work. Quincy delivered the fatal blow whilst being fatally wounded in the process. And since Quincy was made into a Belmont descendant in the CV Bloodlines backstory it stands to reason that he was the one to put Dracula back into the grave because only he could. Alucard was never there which is were IGA's idea fails to work. And I'm glad that it was was never officially implemented.

That part about Quincy delivering the fatal blow and dying is something the American manual added, though. I'm not even sure when exactly he died. Jonathan does mention in PoR that he died before he was born, though. It's still a straight up retcon of course, but I suppose it was meant to go against the expectations of the player. It makes me wonder if that cancelled PS3/Xbox with Alucard was supposed to be set in 1897. 
   

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Thing is, Quincy does help deliver the final blow if one reads the Dracula novel.
He uses a dagger.

[X]

That part about Quincy delivering the fatal blow and dying is something the American manual added, though. I'm not even sure when exactly he died.

It was probably a correction since both the novel and the movie has Quincy dying after stabbing the count with his bowie knife. Granted it was an attack caused by Dracula's Gypsies the fatally wounded Quincy, but he still got in close and sealed the Count's fate.

Dammit Jorge you beat me to the post by mere-seconds! 

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

But your usage of "Bowie Knife" is more accurate than my "Dagger"!
So you get accuracy whilst I get speed.

[Nagumo]

It stands to reason the events that transpired in the CV universe deviates from the ones in the book or movie, though.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Hmm... not so sure about that.

Remember, unless an event outright states that something happened a certain way, it cannot be assumed that it happened a different way.
So, since the Bloodlines manual (and Iga?) state that Quincy Morris is a Belmont and helped deliver the final blow, we have to take that as canon.

Since nothing else says otherwise, it cannot be assumed that there was too much of a difference between the Dracula novel and the Bloodlines events.  IGA and others have tried to wrangle and entwine these two storylines, so we have to accept that some events are either similar enough to be the same event, or linked close enough that they can work together, and create your own headcanon by filling in the blanks.