Castlevania General

Considering Mirium is taking up the gauntlet Shanoa had design-wise, and a conscious decision to have another female hero, I think another female Belmont wouldn't have been out of the cards. She can do a lot of the iconic things Alucard can on top of what's basically the Soul system.

I just want future games to bring the whip back and make it front and center again. The whip is a weapon you almost never see in video games or media in general but Castlevania is a shining example of how awesome they can be. Especially the anime.

If we did get another Crisis Crossover I wonder how they'd differentiate the protagonists. None of them are exceptionally different personality-wise, aside from Shanoa. Trevor's colorful now that the Netflix Series is out, but they still had to create his personality out of whole cloth for the most part.

So, after 100% (more or less) Aria, I decided to play Circle of the Moon. I know I had played it once before but I couldn't remember if I had beaten it or not.

Holy balls, this game is hard. I knew it was hard going in but I didn't expect it to be this hard. You aren't locked in one direction when you attack in the air, there seems to be back dash, enemies attack and move very quickly, you don't have a lot of health, HP Max Ups seem to quite rare while the worthless MP Max Ups are everywhere, and there's no After Boss Recovery which is the biggest dick move ever. It took me several tries just to beat the first boss since one of his attacks is unavoidable unless you're directly under him and he can very easily cross the entire room in an instant leaving you not enough time to dash over to him.

Richter and Leon both fill the Hot-Blooded youths with righteous hearts quota. Soma and Alucard already have established personalities. Trevor did have rather different portrayals prior to Netflixvania, though the gruff "been around the block" sort of Big Brother Mentor characterization he had in Judgement is the closest one compatible to Netflix!Trevor. Simon has even less to draw from with Judgement literally being the only time he's ever had something even close to resembling a personality. Juste would be a bit more mellow version of his son/grandson Richter. Sonia is an easy "tough, confident, and cocky dominatrix" type, and yes I'm saying this solely because she has a whip.

Edited by Rynnec on Nov 12th 2018 at 3:53:11 AM

I think we can disregard some of those. Pretty sure none of the other games imply Sypha's a coldhearted fundamentalist who asks later, kills first. And the cutscenes where Maria saves the women have a distinct lack of breast lust in Rondo.

Also Eric's a bratty kid, for some reason.

To be fair, Judgement Sypha is from before her adventure with Trevor (maybe that mellowed her out), and we don't know what Eric was like as a kid.

The Maria thing is very much justified though.

I dunno. I may be one of the few that believed this, but Sypha's Judgment self seems to have been dismissed. The third Pachinko Castlevania had Sypha, and she's already amiable from the get-go. IMO, Judgment messed up when a Pachinko got Sypha better. Though at this point, 'having little personality' seems to be more blessing than that.

Edited by ChrisX on Nov 12th 2018 at 10:51:54 PM

True. It may be that Judgement went too far with their portrayal (since she had little character before hand beyond Mage and Simon's wife, they probably felt free to take some liberties).

Now they are dialing that back, though the Pachinko games are also an Alternate Universe to some extent.

Between these two and now the Netflix series, Sypha arguably has three different portrayals.

For all the love he gets from classic fans, simon's easily one of the dullest Belmonts.

You mean Trevor

Netflix Sypha is probably the best as she seems nice enough with her only issue being her lack of patience for Trevor. Granted that version of Trevor is a drunken lout tho

I dunno, maybe if we base the next interpretation of Simon on...Captain N's Simon?

Yes. Yes I did mean Trevor.

...you know, Captain N Simon in hindsight might not be so crazy. He was the bastard cocky enough to try and solo Dracula. Perhaps, with the context of knowing Christopher did the same, he wanted to prove his awesomeness by pulling off the same feat of defeating Dracula on his own.

It ain't cocky if you say it and then back it up. Plus, there's the arrogance of youth and all that. This also adds to his character development for Simon's Quest, since he now knows that arrogance resulted in the curse in his body. So his second bout with Dracula sees him being much more careful, and he manages to defeat him quickly and cure himself.

If by "much more careful" you mean "stun lock him into oblivion using Holy Water" then yes.

Careful decimation. As in he made damn sure Drac wasn't getting back up in his lifetime.

Sypha's a joy to watch in the Netflix series, she's by far the nicest person of the cast. Also just good to see a non-stereotypical hispanic character.

Managed to find my copy of Dawn Of Sorrow so I've been replaying that. Man, this sumbitch is grindy to get the souls.

Kinda reminds me how much I liked POR's subweapon grinding; at least you can grind while progressing, whereas in DOS you're just entering one room and heading back out to get the FUCKING Valkyrie soul, that isn't even the awesome attack it was in AOS. And then there's souls you need nine of to maximize them.

Also, Persephone is bae. I said it.

You know, while I initially had problems with Sypha's connection to the church being removed, I kinda like the speakers.

Across the different continuities, we have the Speakers, the Order of Ecclesia and the Brotherhood of Light. It's interesting having different groups that deal with magic and evil forces in their own way (well ok, the Speakers just record knowledge, but still).

And it also occurs to me that if Sypha's opinions on why God destroyed the Tower of Babel are commonly stated opinions, then it's no wonder the church has beef with them(beyond that one Bishop from Season One just being a prick that is).

Edited by HandsomeRob on Nov 12th 2018 at 12:35:41 PM

I just don’t want all the Belmont’s to be the usual British comic book “sarcastic as hell” snark machine. It would get boring really quickly if everyone was like Trevor.

That and I admittedly always pictured Richter as a bumbling idiot trying to court someone...until vampires show up. There was a reason Dracula sent Death after Richter immediately, and it didn’t work.

Edited by Beatman1 on Nov 12th 2018 at 3:18:14 PM

There's a reason Richter was the strongest Belmont until Julius.

Richter as a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass who's bad at everything but the one thing he's supposed to do so no one realizes how fearsome he is until the whooping begins would be funny.

Only Dracula would suspect the truth (hence sending Death to MDK him early) and even he would be like Oh shit! This guys more than for real!

As long as he's not a moron, just kinda clumsy at other stuff and seen as a good natured bumbler at best.

I always liked one of Richter's character select quotes in the remake. "I'm a Belmont, that's my job."

He's always struck me as the most humble and straightforward fighters.

Is that reason HYDRO STORM! HYDRO STORM!?

More or less.

Our boy Richter was possibly the epitome of Belmont and Belnades awesomeness. Only Juste was able to pull the same thing.

Odd that Simon never showed that ability, since he should have also inherited Belnades magical power. Maybe he just never trained for it.

I'd differentiate Leon and Richter quite a bit myself, play up Leon's 11th century aristocrat vibe. In Dynasty Warriors terms I'd make him the Yuan Shao. As awesome as his design is, I still feel like he should be a bit of a Butt-Monkey compared to the other Belmonts. Everyone's absolutely right about Richter being the dumbass shonen protagonist. Normally I hate that archetype thanks to decades of overuse but throwing people like that into Castlevania's world is what makes the franchise so entertaining.

Sonia I feel gives us her entire character with her portrait artwork, and "No-nonsense monster slaughterer with a dash of dominatrix" definitely is what that says. Of course, she'd be genuinely sweet to those she cared about as we have seen from her game.

There's practically nothing separating Simon and Christopher. Maybe play up the fact that Chris is an Action Dad and give Simon, like, a Raised by Wolves backstory to justify his Barbarian Hero chops?

Make Juste gay.

I could deal with making Richter a typical shounen protag as long as he's less Naruto and more Vash the Stampede like Mighty suggested. Given Portrait of Ruin though, I'd make John Morris the hot blooded idiot hero to contrast with his son.

One of Judgement's better characterization decisions was making Simon a somewhat insecure hero unsure of whether it was the whip or the man that makes him a legend. That's something I'd like to see incorporated into future portrayals to give him some Hidden Depths and an actual arc to go through.

So would that make Richter a product of Homosexual Reproduction or...?

Edited by Rynnec on Nov 12th 2018 at 11:31:46 AM

Oh, that's interesting. Especially since it would add context to his decision to go out and fight Dracula on his own. He wanted to prove that it's the man that makes the weapon and not the other way around. And as a result, even though he wins, he makes a lot of stupid mistakes that results in him getting cursed.