7:20 We always get this presented as IGA removing games from the timeline as a whim, but the official statement even back in the early 2000s on EGM was that Legends, Circle and the N64 were removed since the directors' of those games original intent being stories apart from the main timeline (much like Mega Man X: Command Mission, for the sake of comparison, being presented as a standalone story by the director of that game, separatr from any canon, claiming that detail to be the marketing team's problem and not his), Circle being the most clear one since it takes place in a world without the Belmont family and thus a vampire guild has to take care of Dracula and his forces whenever they return. However, Legends methinks is a bigger issue: The game outright contradicts both Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse and Symphony of the Night by having Alucard present 100 years before he was even born and by forgetting Dracula's Curse was supposed to be Dracula's first big-scale war on mankind as a whole, despite Legends being made after those games. Also, Alucard hooking up with Sonia and thus becoming Trevor's grandfather I feel always was a bad idea, mingling both Dracula's bloodline with the Belmonts'. I concede the most ambiguous one being Castlevania 64 which feels was removed moreso due to the game's reception upon look back just 2 years after its release, plus it being called "Apocalypse" in Japan as if it was some sort of finale, forgetting about the "Satan of the 20th century" plotline established by the Bloodlines team that ended up becoming Portrait of Ruin. I'm way too invested in this franchise, help.
I absolutely LOVE a high-effort comment. So thank you! Personally, I take everything which comes out of either Konami or Capcom with a big pinch of salt. They are both _really_ fond of retroactively changing their company history. Your point about Sonia holds - I talked about this briefly when I covered the Game Boy Castlevania games. I actually kinda like the implication that Alucard is Trevor's ancestor, I think that's an interesting idea. But as for 64 (and Legacy of Darkness), I've heard that these were definitely supposed to be canon games. In the Japanese release, the player characters were explicitly intended to be a Belmont and a Belnades. And in my headcanon, the '64 games definitely deserve to be in the franchise.
@@MattyStoked Ah you're right, Belnades is actually a mistranslation of the katakana, Fernandez should be the correct translation, hence Carrie. Apparently IGA did intend those games to remain canon (hence Judgment having Cornell as part of the time-displaced cast) but corporate did not like the idea of a game that would "harm the value of the series" canon. Reminds me of SEGA delisting Sonic games they deemed as "harmful" to the brand... As for Circle being its own world, if Konami wanted they could make future Castlevanias in that world and even refine the card system, but I guess Konami don't make games anymore without outsourcing. Capcom is it's own circus and the suits are the clowns when it comes to Mega Man. There's a lot of lingering resentment torwards Aizu and Tsuda of Inti Creates back in the early 00s and mid 00s they released two books called Rockman Perfect Memories and Compendium of Rockman X. In the former they called MMZ a "probably future" but ended the book with "please look forward the REAL future of Rockman X when Rockman X7 launches, Zero will return as a player character" and in the latter outright calling MMZ a non-canon future describing Command Mission as "the real future" whilst the director on a 1up.com interview took the stance of "don't drag me into this". This is in spite of Inti Creates having a complete timeline with leeway for the ongoing X sequels because their subseries was supposed to be the future of the Mega Man timeline pre-Legends. They relented with Rockman 11 Production Book adding Zero and ZX to the timeline but removing all mentions to Inti Creates as possible from the collections. This type of pettiness amuses me to no end.
Yeah they're incredible. I just finished recording the voiceover for a longer in-depth look at Curse of Darkness. I'll be editing this week. So if you're interested, hit subscribe and you can catch it when it comes out :D
I actually loved both laments of innocence and curse of darkness. Infact I see both the foreboding atmosphere of lV and the multi weapon system of cures of darkness in a lot of fromsoft games. Heck when I played darksouls 3, which is my first fromsoft game. I kept feeling the same vibe of mystery that I had in playing castlevania IV. So idk why Konami abandoned lVs vibe or never tried to expand on it. I firmly believe someone got fired and all those who stayed, decided to spite that person who quit by deliberately going in a transparent cheesy anime vibe instead of the more dark western atmospheric vibe💯
I think this is honestly why I've heard the phrase "Dark Souls was the 3D Castlevania we deserved." It does make me wonder if we ever will return to that kind of vibe again in a future Castlevania game. Heck I've seen it argued that 64/Legend of Darkness was one of the urfathers/erfathers (I don't know how it's spelled, but basically a forefather) of the modern Souls/Metroidvania-like formula. Part of me also kind of wants to see them attempt to try to make a game that reflects the journey of the series in terms of its gameplay progression. Like you start out as a new Belmont not used to being a Belmont yet, so their journey starts out similar to Simon's where it's a linear hard as can be frighting quest due to feeling so weak. But as you progress through the game and the story, you slowly get stronger until eventually you're traversing a SotN-like "open world" game where you're jumping, leaning, and whipping like an anime protag or Leon in Lament. Honestly I also like the idea of the new Belmont being a reveal of Julius' son that at first didn't think he either deserved it or wanted it (sort of explaining why Julius was still active at the time we meet him at the age he is and why he took on other pupils in the radio play that's set after Dawn of Sorrow), but he's Leon reincarnated. Sort of give the old friends from Lament a second chance at their friendship.
Good lord. Draculas demon form is metal as hell here. I love it! This series of Castlevania games has been top tier, man. Love the whole set up here with the pink lighting. You’re inspiring me to incorporate a comfy chair into my set haha!
Yeah man he's a beast! Thank you for being here for the whole series, man. There is always more to talk about, but it's been a blast to talk about every console game. And the comfy armchair was a great addition!
Another banger. Your whole Castlevania series are some of my fave vids on RU-vid. Also, I dunno if it's just the shirt or the shirt/hair/beard combo, but it's giving 90s De Niro and you are rocking it.
Great stuff. Really glad I finished up the Castlevania Anime series, and really enjoyed your coverage over the years. Wild to see Lament of Innocence do so well as it's not one of the "household names" of the series. Definitely makes me want to give it a go
Glad you enjoyed it, bud. I was actually surprised myself. When you put it against other games from 2003 it really wasn't a hit. But when you put in context against other games in the Castlevania series, it was a smash! I think there's an interesting bias there. In that Castlevania wasn't ever really a chart-topping franchise. It's got its fans and it's a known name, but really I think that's a legacy of the older 2D games. You can get Lament running in PCSX2 at UHD, 60fps with widescreen hacks, texture packs and so on. It's a game I would genuinely recommend to anyone wanting a relatively short, relatively shallow PS2-style experience.
Enjoyed this video as I just beat both Lament and Curse again this week. The video title is odd though since it doesn't actually cover any of the last Castlevania titles.
Thanks for the video. First castlevania I played was the SOTN and I loved it, is still one of my top games. I didn't play the 3d ones like the n64 and I back when curse of darkness came out, I bought and also lament of innocence but never played. I didn't like the 3d at all. I started playing again on the DS when Aria of sorrow and down of sorrow came out then portrait of ruin and order of ecclesia. I liked these a lot but not even near SOTN level. Do you like these as well? The one that come out on portables? Thanks.
Yeah I really like the DS games specifically. I missed the GBA games first time around but I've played them since. I like that they're essentially SotN scaled down to work on the GBA, but also feel it's a shame that SotN's influence was so strong that they didn't seem to escape its influence. Very good games, nonetheless!
I've not been massively attracted to the Castlevania franchise, but I've long been an advocate for more chairs in games, so I might give it a shot. Never seen the point of a game where you can't collect and unlock a final secret chair.
Fantastic video mate, I've always loved listening to your takes on the franchise and how it has developed. I think I appreciate this particular era of CV much more in retrospect - at the time, I was too caught up in comparing them to the Devil May Cry's and Ninja Gaiden's rather than looking at the unique things they brought to the table. I will be extremely curious to see what happens over the next few years with the games now that the original lore has been made popular again by the show. My money is on a CVIII remake personally, but time will tell!
Thank you so much, mate. There's always things I wish I put in the video after the fact. Just this morning, I was thinking about how Lament of Innocence's camera uses static camera angles like DmC, but it rotates and tracks your character through full 3D environments. Which is better than DmC! The thing with looking back with context, it's clear to see that Konami were not investing in their teams to the same level as Capcom or Tecmo. But who was doing that at the time? Certainly not me! I would love to see Konami try again with a bigger release. They have actually been consistently releasing games exclusively on Asian mobile platforms, set in the same continuity. And things like pachinko and pachislot machines, too. So it is still kinda going. With the anime doing well, it would be a great time to give us a new game. There's still gaps in that timeline!
I totally thought that Super Castlevania IV would’ve sold more than Castlevania 3. I feel like no one talks about Castlevania 3 except for series fans. I always hear people talk about Castlevania 1, 2, and 4 especially 1 and 4. Maybe it’s that most retro gamers come from the SNES era than the NES era so are more familiar with Super Castlevania IV. But I’m happy that it sold better, because it’s the better game.
That's interesting. When I was getting into retro gaming, I found that Castlevania 3 was the one that was most spoken about. I guess that's the difference a few years makes 👴
16:00 A bit wild that a very similar situatio happened again around a decade later. Lords of Shadow comes out and smashes franchise sales records, Konami greenlights two rushed sequels developed by the same team and released very close together, they sell far less, and coinciding with Konami's mid 2010s era of "actually we're not much interested in making new games for consoles anymore", the series is put on ice. I think a revival isn't far off now, with Konami getting back into full time game development, the Netflix shows being a hit, decently selling compilations of a lot of the classics, and the successful collaborations in Smash Bros and Dead Cells, the stage is set for a comeback. The current market is more accepting of smaller sized titles too, with plenty of indie hits, so they don't need to make a massive $200 million AAAA open world game.
@StokedTube I do think it's underrated, but I think you can feel the effects of a team working crunch time a bit more compared to 1. Being able to play as Dracula himself in a near future time makes it very distinct and memorable.
@@MattyStoked I was so excited for LoS2 after loving the first and seeing the amazing teaser at the end, Dracula in modern times? What the fuuu, but then for some reason they just... didn't do that. Still a good game but it missed its potential and didn't have as much variety as the first, which i will always praise for forcing Patrick Stewart into a recording booth for what must have been days.
As a kid that was "into Halo" I can confirm that we were, in fact, into Halo. The first time I heard about Castlevania, I was being judged by an 8th grader when I asked him (as a 7th grader) what he was playing on his Nintendo DS. He was offended I'd never heard of it before. As of today, I've still only played the first one. And I love it. I have fun every time I play it. I think looking forward, the one's I'm jonesing to play the most are II and Bloodlines. I never really see anyone talking about the 3D Castlevania games, and before this I had never even heard of Lament of Innocence or Curse of Darkness. Pretty cool you get to use what is essentially Summoned Skull from Yugioh as a sidekick demon should you choose to in the latter. Really polished and excellent video.
It's the truth. Those Halo boys just want to Halo! The first CV is still in the top three, it's an all-time great. I also love Castlevania 2, I think you'll get a kick out of that. And yeah! Corpsey *IS* Summoned Skull! NGL, I thought of you when I was writing out the sentence about Yu Gi Oh 😆 as I thought you'd have something to say about it.
Did you ever try the games Eternal Darkness, Hunter the Reckoning, or Nightmare Creatures? I wonder if you think those are good companion titles for Castlevania fans looking to get a 3D Castlevania feel that would have strayed from the other formulas? It’s weird how many people don’t like Lords of Shadow enough to call it a Castlevania game or put it on a tier list, you’re not the only one to do it I can kind of see how it doesn’t really feel like castlevania too tho honestly. People seem to either love that one or they just don’t remember it 🤷♀️
I've played Eternal Darkness and (I think) a bit of Nightmare Creatures. A "Games for Castlevania Fans" video is actually a great idea, I might do that! Oh and I definitely have a video on Lords of Shadow coming. Spoiler alert: I really dig those games.
Did you ever play the 1987 konami arcade game, haunted castle? Not sure if it's an official castlevania game, but it basically is. You play as Simon Belmont.
God, yes! Long overdue. IGA is/was kind of misogynistic, unfortunately. He retconned the games with playable females out of continuity, and made a few pretty grim jokes about girls being "too weak" to be protags in Castlevania.
I absolutely loved Lament of Innocence! Played through it 3 times back to back to back with Leon and all the unlockable characters (Baby Yoda has nothing on Pumpkin!). Curse of Darkness was far too overwhelming with far too much stuff to do and keep track of that I lost interest pretty early with it (although I still love the story. But I think we all need to take a moment and cast glares at the game we all know killed Castlevania on consles: Castlevania: Judgement
The day will come where I talk about Judgment. But honestly I think the damage had already been done. Judgment sold even less than Curse, but I feel like it was a case of "this game is near enough done, let's get it out and try to make some money". Another classic Konami move.
Simons quest will always be my fav Castlevania, it was my first Castlevania, but LOI is soooo good, but why doesnt konami remaster the original 4 Castlevanias not remake, but remaster just a simple 1 to 1 graphic update with optional knock back setting? I know I would buy it, but thats just my thoughts
I hope the Netflix series bringing attention to Castlevania will be used to promote another game, I feel like it'd be Konami's last chance to redeem the franchise atp. at the very least it'd be nice to have official ports of games such as SOTN, LoI, and CoD on PC.
Yes and no. Yes in that they're clearly Castlevania games but no because they're a new continuity by a new developer. They are categorically _not_ main Castlevania games. I will be covering them one day though, because I love them!
Absolutely unappreciated! Compared to other games the same year, they fall into a sort of mid-rated black hole. Not "good" enough to be remembered as classics, but not janky enough to attract that comedy factor. I'm working on a longer CoD video right now, so stay tuned!
