Castlevania General

I wonder what Castlevania: Resurrection would've done with Sonia Belmont.

Edited by lalalei2001 on Nov 23rd 2019 at 5:54:08 AM

We can only guess I suppose.

Outside of the fact that she wears white instead of green, nothing about her in that game is known.

Then again, as much as I like Sonia, and as much as I think there was room for her in the timeline, I admit that she doesn't really do a good job of explaining the origin of the Belmonts. She essentially comes out of nowhere with special powers and beats up Dracula (who similarly emerges from the ether).

Leon does a better job of explaining the deal with the Belmont family, why they all fight with a whip, and why they set about murdering a time of day.

Sonia lived 300+ years after Leon. There's plenty of room for both of them.

Never said there isn't. In fact, I've pointed out the same.

Her original story was rough, so I can kinda see why it was tossed out. The mistake was not simply doing it better. But I guess IGA just had no interest in the character, since he just came up with his own female lead in Shanoa.

A prominent theory as to why Sonia was thrown out is that it was heavily implied she had Trevor with Alucard, which meant the Belmonts had Dracula's bloodline too.

They could have thrown that out as well in a hypothetical new origin for her.

There's was nothing about her that wasn't fixable. They just didn't want to try.

Mhmm. And shes hardly the only thing in the franchise that needed a little polish.

Resurrection would have had Sonia as the "Traditional" Belmont while the other guy from more modern times (What was his name? Vincent? Victor?) Was close to committing The Refusal of the Call.

That much I've gleaned from descriptions. Presumably meeting his ancestor and taking part in the events of the game would have set Jean Reno there on the right path to resurrect the bloodline's quest, hence the name, but the game was canceled so early in development we can only speculate.

One thing I was really disappointed in regard Lament of Innocence was that it DOES NOT in fact explain why they use whips. At no point does it say why Rinaldo made a magic whip instead of a magic sword or lance or whatever. Always found that lame.

Edited by ShirowShirow on Nov 24th 2019 at 10:02:27 AM

Castlevania Season 3 Could Appear on Netflix on December 1, 2019

False alarm. Date is still pending.

I feel like a dunce. I went through like 50% of the castle in Cot M before I realized (see: looked up) how the card system actually worked. Would have had a much easier time if I knew that from the beginning.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Nov 26th 2019 at 7:52:14 AM

Did you find out about the glitch related to it, too?

There's a couple of obnoxiously difficult to farm cards you're better off just using that to mess with.

No, I didn't read about the glitch but I'll look into it.

Also this is now two bosses (Adrammalech and the dragon zombies) who are really awkward to actually hit and I hope there aren't any more of them. The dragon zombies were worse in my opinion because at least Adrammalech stays in one place and has a very predictable pattern. I had to use the card combination (Salamander and something else) that makes the two flames circle you around and use my four potions before I was able to beat him, and I had like one health left. Fortunately I was able to reach the save point without getting hit by those obnoxious infinitely spawning ghost things.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Nov 26th 2019 at 7:59:03 AM

Alright. The latest video in Gamerthumb Tv's Perfect Castlevania Timeline is up:

He seems to primarily use Dracula X Chronicles for the first Richter segment instead of the original Rondo of Blood, and the idea of Richter as ladies man is certainly different.

It also sounds like he's going to say Reinhardt Schneider didn't actually use the Vampire Killer when he fought Dracula. Considering his use of the Hunter's Whip, this makes sense.

I'm really liking this. He's managed to make everything fit together in a surprising way. From little stuff like Sonia just coming after Leon and the idea of Circle of the Moon and the Nintendo 64 games fitting in perfectly well after Order of Ecclesia (which has no exact date in the timeline besides being some time in the 1800's]] to actually fitting in stuff like Kid Dracula, Order of Shadows, and even remakes of Simon's original adventure. Hell, even Haunted Castle made it in.

I'm curious to see what else he's got in store. I mean, is he going to include that one post SOTN Novel? Will Judgment make it in? How insane will things get here?

Edited by HandsomeRob on Dec 1st 2019 at 9:05:24 AM

Picked Cot M back up after taking a break to study for finals.

I think I'm approaching the endgame. Both Death and Carmilla are dead; took a few tries for each but in the end it wasn't as bad as I was expecting, both Adrammalech and the Dragon Zombies were far more tedious. With the Roc's Feather I'm just trying to clean up the last of the areas I missed and then go fight Dracula to beat the game.

I wish this game were just a little more lenient with the healing items. It isn't even just the scarcity of them, but that all the ones I've found so far heal paltry amounts of HP to the point where they're only just barely useful.

And after you beat the game you get to start unlocking different modes too!

I'm up to Dracula's second form.

The first form was pretty easy but this...all of his attacks do so much damage lol. I can get through his first phase fine, but in the second he starts dashing everywhere and it does like 500+ damage every time he connects.

I could probably have an easier time if I went to the Battle Arena and got the armor and the unicorn card, but the card has a miserly drop rate and the battle arena is probably way too hard for me to beat anyway thus defeating the point.

If you don't mind fighting dirty, there's a bug that allows you access to any card set of your choosing ^note Right when you activate DSS but before Nathan completes his animation, pause the game and go to the DSS menu and highlight where the cards you want to use would be, trial and error is likely here. That's how I was able to beat Drac's second phase.

Yeah, using that glitch for the arena exclusive cards is fair game as far as I'm concerned, considering the drop rates are still random and it's extremely unfair otherwise.

If you ever replay it, try to use the Item Crash combo with no subweapon and at least 100 Hearts. It's nuts.

Said "fuck it" and decided to use the card glitch. Even with the glitch I died quite a lot until I figured out that if you go to the corner and time your jumps properly, you can dodge Dracula's dashes without getting hit. With that I had enough mana left over to use the thunderbird summon and finally beat Dracula.

Overall, Cot M was pretty fun. I've said it a few times already, but it's definitely much better than Harmony of Dissonance in every way besides the controls and visuals. And even then it isn't like Cot M is bad in those areas either, though the controls admittedly took a bit to get used to. While the lack of healing items felt a bit stingy (both in their rarity and also how much they actually heal you), it also had the benefit of making the trek through and defeat of the bosses a lot more satisfying since it meant I had to actually play well and learn the bosses' patterns instead of being sloppy and just topping off with healing items without a care. The music was also a lot better, both in terms of compositions and the actual sound quality. To be fair a lot of the songs were remixes from past games, but at the end of the day it was still a better experience than the miserable soundfont Ho D used. I also really liked the DSS system, and it was a shame I only found out how to use it about halfway or more into the game since it would have made my life a lot easier if I'd known how it worked from the start.

As far as downsides go, I don't really like how there's no shop in the game. Not just since it means healing items are much harder to come by, but also because you have a bunch of useless outclassed equipment on you at all times and no way to be rid of it. Also, the drop rates for the cards are not only miserable, but two of the best are locked away in the Battle Arena and only drop from tough enemies where you have no guarantee of getting the card anyway. This means that if not for the glitch Dracula would have been a royal pain in the ass, since his eyeball form is very annoying to hit if you don't use a summon or maybe the axe.

I'd put this in the "mid-tier" of Castlevania games overall. Not the best, but still pretty decent and there are multiple games that would rank below it.

The only problem with the DSS card thing is that the card drop rates just plain suck.

But ideally if you ever go back you'll want to use the combination that turns you into a fragile skeleton, then find the ring that when used with said combo, turns you into Beartank

Edited by MightyKombat on Dec 15th 2019 at 7:00:34 PM

I'll pick up Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin at some point, too, although I'll need to buy a new charger for my DS. Maybe I'll just buy a 3DS or something...

One reason I like Cotm Fighter Mode is that you do not bother with the cards. It gets down to basics, just you and your whip.

Alright. Lets start the new year with Part 6 of the Gamethumbtv's Perfect Castlevania Timeline:

So I think I mentioned earlier that the Hunter Whip might come into play for Nathan or Reinhardt's story and (if I actually did have that theory) it seems I was right. I did not expect Gamer to theorize the two met however.

I also like how he directly likened Reinhardt and Carrie to Richter and Maria (though that's an easy comparison to make).

Nothing much more to say. It was a long wait.

I personally think that the Hunter Whip was simply another Whip of Alchemy Rinaldo made at some point after Lament of Innocence which he then passed on to another vampire hunter (possibly an ancestor of the Baldwins). Except this time he never told them about the method of completing it, presumably because you'd only need the completed Whip to face a vampire who was empowered by the Stones.

Unfortunately, Morris and Nathan's parents ended up going against Dracula, who did have the Ebony and Crimson Stones. They still managed to seal Dracula somehow, but lacking a true Vampire Killer may have been the reason the battle was so difficult that Nathan's parents didn't survive.

Edited by M84 on Jan 7th 2020 at 10:39:14 PM

I was just thinking the other day about how Alucard kind of looks like a Disney Prince. And now I'm wondering what Castlevania would look like if it were owned by Disney.