In which Dracula dies off-camera
Feb. 14th, 2010 01:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
foxinthestarsThe Castlevania Timeline via Playthroughs now brings us to the Twentieth Century... The one in which I spent the first twenty years of my life. Ooh, it's too close to home, it's getting creepy... ^.~
Turns out vampires just love World Wars, so we begin in 1917, during World War I, with Bloodlines and its two heroes. John Morris (aka Whip Dude) is a relative of Quincey Morris from Stoker's novel, and it turns out the Morrises are related to the Belmonts, or babysitting Vampire Killer for the Belmonts, or something; now, supposedly John is Quincey's son, but since John was born in 1895 and Quincey died in 1890 (see yesterday re: "the epilogue, dammit!"), I've had to finesse the whole thing quite a bit... Also chasing Dracula is John's friend Eric Lecarde from Spain (aka Spear Dude), who wields the Alucard Spear (the Genesis spelled it wrong, and yes, there is a connection, but AFAIK it is at present unexplained); the instruction manual says Eric's motivation is a dead girlfriend, but the game itself doesn't think this worth mentioning. ::eyeroll:: Bloodlines is also I believe the only appearance of Dracula's "niece," Elizabeth Bartley, as his second-banana villain.
Cutting to the chase, kingarthurpendragon posts the intro, and syxx573 brings more absurdly-proficient playthroughs, complete with endings, as John and as Eric (whose hair changes color for the cutscenes and who I choose to believe is wearing suntan-colored pants).
However, things didn't turn out so well for those two, as we learned in 1944 with Portrait of Ruin, starring Jonathan Morris and Charlotte Aulin. Now, I actually haven't played this one and plan to soon (Christmas present from my sister and all), so I'm handling it gingerly trying not to spoil myself. Here's the intro via VideoGameOpenings (interesting username ^_~), and here once again is RodriguezJr with the playthrough---it includes both main endings at least; I'm told there's something else you can do that changes the ending a little bit, but I'm not going to fuss over it...
ADDENDUM: After playing Portrait myself, the story endeared itself to me as I rather thought it would. There are things about it I don't care so much for and that conflict with my own ideas, but overall I see a lot of potential, and am ending up with a take on it where almost all of the same things happened, just not for the given reasons.
And that's it for games this time! I told you we were into the home stretch now.
Before the century is over, however... Dracula dies. Really actually dies. Off-camera. In 1999 he was finally utterly defeated by the first actual Belmont since 1792 (where Richter went and where Julius came from are, AFAIK, not currently explained). They haven't made a game about it, we've only heard about it because even that didn't end the story! Indeed Dracula's death is only backstory for what is to come, as tomorrow we forge ahead into the future!
Turns out vampires just love World Wars, so we begin in 1917, during World War I, with Bloodlines and its two heroes. John Morris (aka Whip Dude) is a relative of Quincey Morris from Stoker's novel, and it turns out the Morrises are related to the Belmonts, or babysitting Vampire Killer for the Belmonts, or something; now, supposedly John is Quincey's son, but since John was born in 1895 and Quincey died in 1890 (see yesterday re: "the epilogue, dammit!"), I've had to finesse the whole thing quite a bit... Also chasing Dracula is John's friend Eric Lecarde from Spain (aka Spear Dude), who wields the Alucard Spear (the Genesis spelled it wrong, and yes, there is a connection, but AFAIK it is at present unexplained); the instruction manual says Eric's motivation is a dead girlfriend, but the game itself doesn't think this worth mentioning. ::eyeroll:: Bloodlines is also I believe the only appearance of Dracula's "niece," Elizabeth Bartley, as his second-banana villain.
Cutting to the chase, kingarthurpendragon posts the intro, and syxx573 brings more absurdly-proficient playthroughs, complete with endings, as John and as Eric (whose hair changes color for the cutscenes and who I choose to believe is wearing suntan-colored pants).
However, things didn't turn out so well for those two, as we learned in 1944 with Portrait of Ruin, starring Jonathan Morris and Charlotte Aulin. Now, I actually haven't played this one and plan to soon (Christmas present from my sister and all), so I'm handling it gingerly trying not to spoil myself. Here's the intro via VideoGameOpenings (interesting username ^_~), and here once again is RodriguezJr with the playthrough---it includes both main endings at least; I'm told there's something else you can do that changes the ending a little bit, but I'm not going to fuss over it...
ADDENDUM: After playing Portrait myself, the story endeared itself to me as I rather thought it would. There are things about it I don't care so much for and that conflict with my own ideas, but overall I see a lot of potential, and am ending up with a take on it where almost all of the same things happened, just not for the given reasons.
And that's it for games this time! I told you we were into the home stretch now.
Before the century is over, however... Dracula dies. Really actually dies. Off-camera. In 1999 he was finally utterly defeated by the first actual Belmont since 1792 (where Richter went and where Julius came from are, AFAIK, not currently explained). They haven't made a game about it, we've only heard about it because even that didn't end the story! Indeed Dracula's death is only backstory for what is to come, as tomorrow we forge ahead into the future!
