Well, you did call it. And they even managed to make it more questionable than what the Japanese had actually happen by making her look, sound, act, and actually be younger.
I am making a snide reference to the radio drama in which Maria had turned into an adult before they shacked up. Japanese Alucard gets to just barely beat the allegations.
As for Sonia, it was IGA who tossed her out of canon.
Presumably he didn't like the circular idea of Dracula being constantly beaten by his descendants, plus if anything the idea that Alucard would risk propagating his bloodline goes against his established character. Not to mention being a deadbeat father, which is something you absolutely can't pin on even Dracula himself.
Is it true that Symphony of the night was originally meant to be the end of the original continuity and the N64 games were going to be a rebooted timeline and further sequels would pick up from there? I heard some talking about it but I couldnt find any sources confirming that to be true.
It could be possible that after the N64 games werent the hits Konami wanted, that they decided to return to the original continuity after the Castlevania game on the PSX was a huge hit. Getting to the point that the N64 entries are very likely not canon anymore (there are some conflicting info if they are or not, it really seems to be a "depends on the source" but the latest confirmation of a timeline didnt include them, Circle of the Moon, Legends and other spins offs).
Its just an interesting thought and, if true, Im kind of glad we at least kept the OG timeline going for enough time to get a def. ending.
I am making a snide reference to the radio drama in which Maria had turned into an adult before they shacked up. Japanese Alucard gets to just barely beat the allegations.
As for Sonia, it was IGA who tossed her out of canon.
Presumably he didn't like the circular idea of Dracula being constantly beaten by his descendants, plus if anything the idea that Alucard would risk propagating his bloodline goes against his established character. Not to mention being a deadbeat father, which is something you absolutely can't pin on even Dracula himself.
It was a double edged sword concept, I dont dislike it but clearly this is an idea that could have used a remake. The latter idea could have worked but given the GB's restrictions, the plot was barely able to be developted.
I guess IGA prefered Castlevania to be the tale of a bloodlines's eternal war against an ever returning evil instead of being dracula's distant grand children killing him over and over again.
I really don't like how the new animated media like the Netflix series tries to make the Church the bad guys. Especially with the corrupt priest being targeted by demons; don't you think that demons would prefer allying with the corrupt clergy, since corruption in the Church drives people away from God? Hell, in SOTN, the demons DID have a corrupt priest named Shaft on their payroll; so that makes perfect sense.
The church being portrayed as gray would have been preferable but we are dealing with modern writing, you never see any other religion on the show portrayed as negatively if at all.
Still, even with the Japanese text, it seemed like Dracula realized the error of his ways. Then Bloodlines comes around and he's still an asshole, so I suppose the realization wasn't genuine.
As for that "agent of chaos" thing, it feels an awful lot like what the Zelda series did ti Ganondorf. He's always fated to be evil, from generation to generation, so forget everything else and just whoop his ass.
The Matthew 16:26 quote is not in the original Japanese text, he says something more generic like "how ironic, seeking power turned out to be my undoing". Though he does still end with "Lisa, I was wrong..." before he dies.
A slight spoiler for the later games perhaps, but basically Dracula is an agent of Chaos (in a more literal sense than say, the Joker). That's why he's always reborn and needs to be defeated once again.
Dracula cant stop being evil even if he wants to. I already mentioned in this very thread how Dracula has basically made a deal with demonic powers to give him control over death and access to dark abilities so he can forever wage his crusade against humanity and God, it only getting reinforced after he lost another wife to the ignorance of the former.
Problem is that SOTN's incarnation of Dracula comes to understand that his second wife's dying words to her son (and to Dracula indirectly) was to not bring harm upon humanity and to keep their distance if he cant co-exist with them , even adding that mankind already has it pretty rough themselves. He legit sounds heart broken upon hearing it and apologizes to Lisa because he knows he cant keep her final wishes, whats done is done and his next incarnation shall return with the same desire for revenge and hatred but none of the positive memories of the previous one.
Really feels like Dracula's existence become that of perpertual spiteful agony towards himself and the rest of the world. Getting killed for good at 1999 was a mercy kill at that point.
I want to believe that God gave dracula a merciful break and allowed him to get a clean slate as Soma Cruz and get reunited with the soul of his beloved in the form of Mina, while also becoming a force of good despite the dark powers.
Who's your preferred character to be the one to take down Dracula canonically in Bloodlines? Mine is Eric Lecarde, because Elizabeth Bathory turned his girl into a vampire, making it a personal matter for him, but I guess fans of the Bram Stoker novel would get a kick out of having John Morris give the Count an ass-whooping.
Morris feels more tragic if we consider the aftermath with him continuing to use the whip's power even tho he isnt a full Belmont, resulting in his life force slowly being drained over the years until he just died from using it. He was a good man and continued to do good with the best weapon for the job but it came at a heavy cost.
Either way, John and Erik get the short end of the stick, at least the latter appears as a ghost to try to guide the new leads towards saving his daughters.
Is it true that Symphony of the night was originally meant to be the end of the original continuity and the N64 games were going to be a rebooted timeline and further sequels would pick up from there?
According to Igarashi, SOTN was originally developed as a game outside the main continuity. On the other hand, he says there wasn't really an overarching plan for the whole franchise, and different teams had liberties in how they approach development, which would explain why Legends had the plot it had. This of course isn't the case anymore, and when IGA basically took over direction of the whole franchise, he established an actual canon that threw out both Legends, 64/LoD and CotM which looks like a petty move to an outsider
Resurrecting the ‘Tragic Prince’ proved to be an inspired move, but IGA reveals that at the time he was concerned that such a decision would anger the fans. “Personally, I liked Alucard very much and it was totally fine with me, but I presumed that those who had been fans for a long time would be angry since it was the first time for the series to have a non-whip using character as a hero.” He needn’t have worried. “The Japanese title was “Akumajo Dracula X”. I used “X” to show that it would be apart from the main stream of the series. But, surprisingly, it has become the mainstream,” he comments with a degree of satisfaction. [S/A]
its not taking inspiration from the netflix series, its just hyper stylized.
for whatever reason, Vampire Killer now looks like the Lords of Shadow variant, even though this is likely set in the "regular" timeline.
The Netflix series is likely why it's Trevor and Sypha's child. I would put money on Alucard showing up.
Here's my bet: they're setting up a girlbossy story in the vein of Netflixvania. My evidence is the "last of House Belmont" thing, meaning this kid is not considered a Belmont because she's female.
Even tho that would absolutely wreck the continuity of Symphony of the Night unless they pull some bullshit where Alucard just goes back to the same slumber at the end of the game and FOR SOME REASON never brought up the events of this game (maybe amnesia), typical retcon fanfiction-y bullshit.
Here's my bet: they're setting up a girlbossy story in the vein of Netflixvania. My evidence is the "last of House Belmont" thing, meaning this kid is not considered a Belmont because she's female.
There never was an issue with female Belmonts, hell, originally the first one was female (but she also apparently had a relationship with Alucard which, uhh, made the Belmonts' relationship with Dracula kind of awkward so she was retconned) and we had female leads in the series before.
It just will feel so painfully forced and nonsensical because if this is Trevor and Sypha's daughter, it wont make sense to say she isnt a true Belmont since both her parents were social outcasts, with her mother having to pretend to be a man so it wouldnt make sense for them to allow their kid to go through that.
Hopefully it is just a bad impression and concerns brought by years of girlboss subversion.
According to the Bloodlines Electronic Gaming Monthly fax, Ann Belmont (アン・ベルモンド An Berumondo?, Ann Belmondo) was the daughter or descendant of Trevor Belmont and Sypha Belnades. She married Lloyd Morris and was the ancestor of Quincy Morris.
According to the Bloodlines Electronic Gaming Monthly fax, Mary Belmont was the daughter or descendant of Trevor Belmont and Sypha Belnades. She married Leo Helsing and was the ancestor of Van Helsing.
They showed a Jap after the trailer, so I think it's made by them. Even though the game looks very Western. The art style has that manga inspired comic book look that the Netflix cartoon used and what so many western artists use nowadays. Same with the gameplay, it looks closer to a western style metroidvania with the movement techniques and the overuse of screenshake for everything. IGAvania's are more combat focused than movement focused. I don't have high hopes for this. It looks like a modern Western metroidvania with Castlevania inspired elements. If the game is shit, it doesn't matter that much, the sequal for bloodstained was announced, so it's not like a real Castlevania game isn't around the corner.
It's interesting that Motion Twin and Evil Empire are credited for this game, considering they had a bit of a fallout. This either means they made up, or (more likely) the game has been in development for quite some time, probably after the success of the Return to Castlevania DLC for Dead Cells, and the credits are due to legal reasons. The tweets from both studios seem to prove the latter option to be true. [O/A][O/A]
As for the game itself I don't really like how it's set 20 years after Curse of Darkness. It kinda ignores how Dracula getting revived was suppossed to be this grand event. You could at least argue that in COD or SOTN him getting ressurected so fast meant he was weaker so you didn't need the Vampire Killer (ergo: a Belmont) to kill him, which helped establish other characters. So if it's a Belmont, the narrative of the series is ignored, and if the "House of Belmont" hints at this being a yet another "other family close to Belmonts" then that's lame too, because it adds nothing interesting, and it'll probably be treated as just one of the "alternative timelines" (read: we didn't bother to make it make sense in the timeline). Gameplay looks fine though, and I'll just wait for more info to better judge this.
Also, I'm interested in this, because this line implies more games (or at least announcements) coming this year.
I don't get why people feel compelled to treat this show this nicely when it was written by someone who explicitly mocked the games and didn't even try to be charitable to the source material. No, the show was never good, from the very first scene it was an awful, disgusting bastardization of the source material meant to stroke Ellis' ego. You can spend hours sighing "oh but the animation was so nice" or "oh but there are some nods to the games" but it doesn't matter when the core of the whole series is writing done by a big city shitlib who doesn't care about the source material and just wants to do his own GoT. I'd say it's a shame that the few honest fans who worked on this series had to deal with a writer like this, but they're more than happy to boast about how they made their own Castlevania where everyone is a morally gray, snarky magician, so I won't weep for them.
I'm not that knowledgable about the animation industry but the fact they still didn't announce season 3 after a year leads me to believe that Let's Completely Rewrite Pre-established Characters From a Not So Best-selling Japanese Game Series and Make Them Praise the French Revolution: The Show is done. They've already released an art book for it, which they only did for the original after it ended, so that also seems to add up. It's just a shame they ever had the chance to touch Castlevania to begin with.
Wouldn't surprise me that a 3D games (which plays like a Souls-like) happened.
I think a games with the Phantasy Star3/Dragon Valor/Romancing SaGa 2 gimmick of starting with one character and when the character died you plays with the descendant could work.
I have almost 400 hours in Dead Cells and it's combat may be my favourite out of any 2d game I've played. Great bosses and tons of enemy and weapon variety. Evil Empire and Motion Twin have proven they can make an amazing 2d action game, its just the more "traditional" aspects of a metroidvania that they've haven't proven themselves to be good with. It'll definitely be something I'll be checking out because I have full cofidence the aspects of the game like the combat will be fun at least. I suspect this game will be recieved like many other legacy sequels where its liked by general audiences but disliked by a portion of older fans for being too different from what came before.
Playing through Castlevania 4. It's got a bit of that classic game crunch, but for 1991 it is quite impressive. What surprised me was the music, and especially the track Waterfall. It's so atmospheric... and kindov sounded familiar to me...
Turns out Lords of Shadow (the only Castlevania I've played) paid tribute to it with Waterfalls of Agartha. I loved that OST, but it seems some of its magic was owed to SC4.
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