Castlevania General

Sure, Why Not?.

I haven't actually played HOD myself, mind.

I tend to completely ignore Judgement's character decisions for obvious reasons so I guess I didn't pay attention to anything they did right. I really only remember Trevor and Simon being characterized as "Older, more experienced Belmont." and "Younger, eager to fight Belmont." but thanks to time travel being invoked either could be one to the other depending on "when" they meet.

"I'll show you Dracula! I'll beat you WITHOUT using my eight-way whip strike!"

Edited by ShirowShirow on Nov 12th 2018 at 1:05:50 PM

He succeeded.

Yes, but then, as you said, he gets cursed.

What a horrible night to have a curse.

Whatever else you might wanna say about Simon, he's got one heck of a theme, especially the Sharp X version.

The original Chronicles soundtrack is amazing for how 16 bit grungy it sounds.

Was actually humming that to myself at work today.

I nominate Simon "Belmont most likely to defeat Dracula with a Suplex Finisher."

Still watching an LP of Order of Ecclesia.

There's still something I'm unclear on: are all Glyphs derived from Dracula's powers...or just Dominus?

Mostly because if it's the former, it might explain why such powerful magic disappeared from the world: maybe even the more minor glyphs were seen as too dangerous by Shanoa, who likely became the leader of the organization by default.

Hell, the mystery of what happened to Ecclesia is a big one to be honest. Did they fall into some kind of civil war and wipe themselves out? Had Barlowe slain the rest of them before his encounter with Shanoa? Did they all somehow get killed when Dracula was released? Perhaps they moved into Wygol village with the Belmont descendants and helped with getting them back into shape before the Vampire Killer was returned?

There's still a lot of the LP to watch (the player got the bad ending first, then rescued the last few villagers, fought Barlowe and is now in Dracula's castle), but I got so many questions.

All we really know about the Glyphs is what the intro provides. Ecclesia was one of many groups made to develop a way to fight Dracula without the Belmonts, in their research, Ecclesia developed Glyphs, and they need to use Dominus, the power of Dracula to defeat him.

The other Glyphs seem to be spells they figured out on their own.

Yeah. It's a shame they were lost to history like that, though I suppose since they pulled off killing Dracula in 1999 without them, it's not too big a loss.

Though I wonder if there was something to using Dominus to stop him (even if it's kills the user). Maybe with enough time (and a lot of bodies sadly enough) and someone who could resist being taken over, they might have truly found a way to use it to stop him.

Or considering they were all about reviving Dracula, maybe not.

Suddenly a thought comes to me:

The Fridge Brilliance page for Castlevania theorizes that the events of POR may have inspired the idea to seal Dracula away from his castle. And while it's stated that the Hakuba clan's magic played a role in that, what if some of the remnants of Ecclesia put some work in as well.

The exact details of how they did it are still unknown. Maybe those glyphs got put to good use after all.

Edited by HandsomeRob on Nov 14th 2018 at 12:20:06 PM

i'm kinda nostalgic of the plot of POR, now that you bring it up. The whole eric/brauner/sisters dynamic is pretty good. On one hand, brauner sired eric's daughter and it's pretty disturbing to me even though the game doesn't try to push that (in which case it would get downright creepy and exponentially memorable to me), and at the same time he can still somehow come off as fairly sympathetic because of his backstory and the fact he truly cares for the twins. And then there's Death, who's affably evil to you for most of the game but still comes off as the true bastard for finishing off brauner.

I dunno, I kinda wish I could get a story that explored that more. I certainly didn't cared as much for shanoa or for soma (although soma's story has some good parts too).

Also the first fight against stella is still my favorite fight in the whole series for the sheer aesthetic idea. It looks straight out of bleach back when bleach was good.

One idea i'd have for the Netflix show to make John Morris and his son have more detailed personalities while standing out against the other heroes, is that John would be more of a gruff cowboy type (He is from Texas after all) in the vein of Mc Cree from Overwatch. Johnathan meanwhile is more of a cocky Indiana Jones type.

Oh right, that's a thing. I still haven't watched the netflix series because lazy, but if they ever get to adapt portait of freakin ruin and actually do something about that plot i'm jumping in the bandwagon faster than jonathan can say "no problem".

BTW I'd nominate "Tower of Gears" and "Etude for the Killer" as underrated CV tracks because wow.

Also I really hope if POR is adapted then that bullshit plot point about the Vampir eKiller fucking over any non-Belmont wielder is sorted out in some way.

COTM's version of The Sinking Old Sanctuary is probably my favorite CV track.

Finished the LP of Order of Ecclesia.

So...Shanoa did not get back her memories at the end? I'm a little unclear as to whether what she got were her own memories or Albus'.

Eh. Whatever. Gotta say, looking at what she can do, Shanoa might be the strongest protagonist in the series, with only Soma bitch! I'm actually Dracula! Cruz surpassing her.

The sheer number of abilities she has (weapon creation, numerous forms of magic, summoning, transformation, and this is all without Dominus, which she can't really use anymore even if it was still around) at her disposal makes me continue to think that the Glyph magic would have been damned useful if Ecclesia hadn't disappeared off the face of the Earth.

Pretty sure the strongest protagonists in the series are Alucard w/ Crissaegrim and Maria w/ Birds. Everyone else can fight for third place.

I'd say Shanoa beats out Soma Cruz on most points, actually, but I haven't played Dawn of Sorrow so I can't say for sure. At least Soma is less fragile which is funny considering Shanoa actually wears practical half-plate armor.

Shanoa is definitely the logical conclusion of all the insane attacks people have gotten out of the series that started with HYDRO STORM though. She just pulls out all the stops because she can.

Well, I was talking in universe as opposed to gameplay wise.

Though I guess Alucard or Soma would be at #1.

Is Maria really that strong? I know she's pretty broken in her home game (and apparently makes it trivially easy), but I never got the impression she was some huge powerhouse in universe...and not just because she starts off as a twelve year old girl.

My headcanon for Maria was always that the power granted by her guardian spirits weakened as she aged but her own power grew so she stayed roughly even with Richter across their partnership instead of eventually growing strong enough to blow up Castlevania the location. But then they took her adult form's unique moves from the Saturn port away so now there's less justification for why she isn't completely carrying the entire demon-hunting community on her back in her time.

The strongest protagonist is Soma, without question. Julius would be a close second, or possibly even stronger if you count him as a protagonist, if not then Alucard and Richter are a lock for second place. Third place is a toss up, but Maria and possibly even Charlotte are serious contenders, the latter due to presumably taking part in the Demon Castle War of '99...according to the manual anyway.

Seriously? Well I guess she'd still be alive by that time. It does kinda make sense. She'd be old by then. What was she? 17-18 at the time of Portrait Of Ruin? Maybe 16?

And it's in 1944, meaning she'd be in her early 70's. That's a Bad Ass Grandma if I ever heard one.

So really? Shanoa isn't up there at all? I mean, I can buy Soma and Alucard being at the top ( did forget Soma) but I'd figure she'd rank high.

And note I said Protagonists. If we went by more powerful characters period, Julius probably would be high up too as the Belmont who straight up kill Drac for good, even with help.

Wait, what? Wouldn't she be in her 70s by that point?

I do question it, though. I mean from what I've seen of both his games he's still growing into his power. And "Being as strong as Dracula" is both not necessarily something he is (Although certainly he has the potential to be.) and not necessarily too impressive considering Dracula has been beaten by a multitude of heroes across the franchise. But, again, I have not played Dawn of Sorrow myself.

Julius, too, seems outstripped by guys like Richter IMHO. It's not like he fought the war of 1999 on his own. He definitely got help taking down Dracula from at least Alucard, Charlotte, the Hakubas and the entirety of the united states military.

If she was 16 in 1944 she'd be 71 in 1999 yes. Considering the franchise and her character class it still makes tons of sense for her to still be kicking ass.

Edited by ShirowShirow on Nov 14th 2018 at 11:27:52 AM

Julius probably gets up there in the Belmont rankings on the fact that his boss battle is hard as hell.

Hey, he's a vampire hunter and you're a vampire. Sorta. Winning that is an example of Scissors Cuts Rock.

Edited by ShirowShirow on Nov 14th 2018 at 11:32:29 AM

Also, Dracula was supposed to be at his full power during the Demon Castle War.

In quite a few cases with his previous revivals, he hadn't really had time to properly put his legs up before some asshole showed up looking to kill him. This time, he was supposedly at full power for the first time in a long time.

Julius himself is supposed to be the most powerful Belmont since Richter (which makes sense, as no other Belmont's besides Reinhart Schneider ever held the whip after Richter, and while his game is in the timeline, I'm not sure if he 100% counts), and as I understand, while all the other dudes either fought against the big D's forces or helped in the sealing, Julius himself engaged Drac one on one, as most Belmont's end up doing (barring Trevor), so he's gotta be a heavy hitter.