/vr/ - Retro Games

>>9981382
The original Castlevania lore is quite interesting. CV 1 and 2 being Simon's story, and 3 being a prequel with a lot of characters and lore expansion that even served for all the subsequent Castlevanias like SOTN.
A very interesting aspect of this is the whole "Curse of Man" concept that we only know through an interview from a guy who worked with Akamatsu (the CV creator, who only worked on 1, 2 and 3), which means the final boss in CV1 is not Dracula, but the embodiment of human misery or something like that, kinda like how Dracula always says it's human's evil intentions that bring him back to live every 100 years. It all makes sense that this monster is not Dracula: Drac's body actually gets shattered, and the Curse of Man monster appears, effectively cursing Simon (which is the whole plot of Simon's Quest, finding all the body parts of Dracula's body, that flew off at the end of 1, to lift his curse).
Thinking about this, it makes sense that the final boss in Castlevania IV is not the cookie monster, but just Dracula. The way I interpret it, IV is like an alternate timeline where Simon effectively kills Dracula without getting cursed. This would also make sense because the IV team was, in fact, in direct contact with the Akamatsu team (III and IV were developed at the same time, and both teams were consulting each other). So most likely the IV guys were aware of the Curse of Man, and avoided the cookie monster, I guess to make a different ending, as I said, I guess they were going for an alternate, "good ending" for Simon's story.
Apparently, Akamatsu's team dissolved shortly after CV III (I think they did Snake's Revenge, not sure if something else), so it's safe to say all the subsequent CV teams weren't fully aware of the lore, which is why the cookie monster became just a form of Dracula, instead of a different entity.

>>8846640
>didn't really take itself seriously
I don't think I can agree with that in full.

>1
If that compilation of twitter posts that smhuplations did back in 2019 is anything to go by, 1 actually has quite a bit put into its story even if it doesn't tell what it is. The cookie monster isn't even Dracula, apparently, and is straight up an embodiment of man's sinful nature and is actually the curse that Simon is suffering from in 2. There's also stuff like the clock tower actually playing a part in keeping Dracula alive.

Also, just saying, but stage 5 with lab stuff and prison cells is kind of dark. X68000/Chronicles emphasizes the hell out of it.

>2
Simon is basically dying of evil mankind cancer and almost nobody wants to help him, some even talking shit to his face. There's even at least one ending where he actually does die, even if he did end Dracula before then.

>3
Europe is getting its shit kicked in by a guy who wants to turn the world into a living hell with him ruling it and everyone in it, which is pretty horrific when you consider it, especially looking at ruins of stage 1. Dude also tried to kill his own son for standing up to him, and in the Jp version, that's after having tried to sell both of their souls for more power. To say nothing about Grant & Sypha's fates had Trevor not shown up, the former being forced to serve the man who killed his family (DaNasty = Denesti?) and the latter having to hide her identity as a woman just to not be burned as a witch.

I'd say the older games didn't start getting corny until maybe X68000 and especially Rondo, and even then, they still had some stuff going for them. Not that it's lost on me how you can say otherwise, but still.