Predicting the Next Castlevania Remastered Collection!

 

 Castlevania : The 3D Collection

     Hello there, this is Alucard’s YouTube Channel, or Adrian Fahrenheit Tepes, and here is another episode of Castlevania Lore.  Now there is a potential revival of Castlevania in this year, the 40th Anniversary Year of the franchise, with the original game in the series being released on September 26, 1986 for the Nintendo Famicom.  There has been the announcement of a new Castlevania game known as Belmont’s Curse, developed by Evil Empire, who also previously developed Dead Cells.  The art style being recognizable, and it being great that this game is released, there is yet another aspect of the franchise to consider : What about the games that have not been remastered yet?  Those games are primarily the 3D games in the series, hence we will be taking a look at what we could expect or hope for with an upcoming remastered collection?  This is what we will speculate on here.  To begin, let’s go over the 3D Castlevania  games in order of release.  

Castlevania 64

      While this game is actually titled, “Castlevania” the game is nicknamed Castlevania 64 to note that it is actually the game released on the Nintendo 64.  While in the Castlevania timeline, it is acknowledged that a massive event known as the Demon Castle War occurred in 1999, that is not what we got for Castlevania games in 1999.  In spite of numerous roadblocks in development, however, Castlevania 64 was a landmark in getting a Konami IP into the third dimension.  Metal Gear Solid had been released in late 1998, and in early 1999, Castlevania got its release on the Nintendo 64.  I will make a more detailed look into Castlevania 64 later, but the game did a great job of incorporating the mechanics of earlier side scrolling Castlevania games into 3D.  The numerous monsters from Earlier Castlevania games are present in this game to give the player trouble in 3D, whether the player chooses to play the game as the whip wielding Belmont heir known as Reinhardt Schneider, or the spellcaster known as Carrie Fernandez.  The game holds a special place as the first Castlevania game with 3D gameplay.  The big question, however, comes with how it should be released when it has overlapping elements including characters and plot with the other Castlevania game on the Nintendo 64, known as Legacy of Darkness?  Let’s take a look at the next game!

Castlevania Legacy of Darkness

    Now after Castlevania 64 was released, there were a number of elements which they did not include in the original release for Nintendo 64, on January 26, 1999.  The development initially was set to include as many as four different playable characters and a longer campaign to play through in the main game.  And so, on December 8, 1999, Legacy of Darkness had its release in North America, followed by Japan and Europe in 2000.  Now Legacy of Darkness begins as a prequel to Castlevania 64 with the player assuming the role of a werewolf named Cornell, however, as Cornell’s initial campaign is completed, you can also unlock the campaigns of Henry Oldrey, which occurs parallel to Cornell raiding Dracula’s Castle, along with the unlocking of the campaigns for Reinhardt and Carrie from Castlevania 64.  However, the campaigns for Reinhardt and Carrie are expanded and longer than they were in the original Castlevania 64, with extra boss battles and levels in Dracula’s Castle.  And so, Legacy of Darkness sits in an odd spot as it is both a prequel to Castlevania 64 and with some overlap, it’s a special edition of Castlevania 64 at the same time.  I feel that since Legacy of Darkness isn’t a 1:1 overlap of Castlevania 64 in the new expanded campaigns and also contains the prequel campaigns of Henry and Cornell, that this game could be included as a separate game in the remastered collection.  In it’s unique position, IMO, it deserves to be included as a separate game from Castlevania 64 altogether.

Castlevania Lament of Innocence

    How did the story of Castlevania begin?  Well initially, Castlevania 3 and Castlevania Legends were made as prequels and origin stories to how the Belmont Clan began their crusade against the vile monsters that lurk in the night, especially Count Dracula, until late 2003 where a whole new official origin story was released by Konami in the form of Lament of Innocence with the Belmont ancestor known as Leon Belmont beginning the crusade after leaving the Crusades in the Middle East in the 11th Century.  Lament of Innocence has so far been released on the Sony Playstation 2, or downloadable from the Playstation Network, Sony’s online store for their playstation consoles.  It would be great to be able to play this game on PC, Xbox, or Switch, with it’s open exploration comparable to metroidvania titles in 3D along with the great dialogue.  In addition to the game itself, there is a rare, hard to find manga telling backstories for Lament of Innocence.  And when I say hard to find, it’s harder to find than the accompanying mangas for Symphony of the Night or Curse of Darkness.  The manga was released digitally from 2007 until 2008.  Why care about a rare manga to go with a game re-release?  Well, such a supplemental item would set the re-release apart from the original or even the Playstation Network release by containing what the previous releases did not have, and give reasons for collectors to take a look at the new release.  Speaking of Mangas, the next game which we are going to have a look at as part of the 3D Castlevania games is that of Castlevania : Curse of Darkness!

Castlevania : Curse of Darkness

    Unlike the other 3D Castlevania games mentioned so far this game had a release on both the Sony Playstation 2 and the first generation of the Microsoft Xbox in late 2005.  This is one case of the Xbox living up to the advertised slogan of showing shadows being cast by characters and assets in game and the Xbox version shows this in comparisons between both versions.  This game lacked a lot of the mechanical traps or even Bats from other Castlevania games, but it did have an incredible plot twist for the series and a summoning system with the “Innocent Devils” a bit more complex from previous Castlevania games such as Symphony of the Night, and an interesting equipment crafting system for making the weapons and armor of the player character.  As mentioned earlier, Castlevania Curse of Darkness has a supplemental manga, which is not as difficult to find as the manga for Lament of Innocence, given that it had a physical printed release unlike the former which was digitally released only.  Nonetheless, it would be great if the Remastered version of this game used the Xbox graphics, and perhaps some digital manga to come along with the remaster as well, and yes, a physical print of manga would be great.

What Remains?

Now that we have covered the 4 3D Castlevania Games, what could be left?  Well, let’s take a look at some of the other games which have not been part of a remastered collection yet!

 

Castlevania Legends

This was the last of the classic Nintendo Gameboy games ever released and it has not been released as a remaster yet.  It was a prequel and an origin story for the Castlevania series prior to the release of Castlevania : Lament of Innocence.  It has the controversial plot twist about how the Belmont family is partially the “Cursed Bloodline” which is implied to be partially Dracula’s Bloodline.  Now, they did do something similar in the Lords of Shadow universe, but this became non canon.  Regardless of the story, the gameplay isn’t much better than the other Gameboy Castlevania Games released in the Anniversary Collection.  However, there is a slight possibility that this game could be included as an alternate version of Sonia is presumed to be included in the newest announced Castlevania game known as Belmont’s Curse.
 

Castlevania Judgement

    Now, this game, the one with the aesthetic of Death Note, well actually, it had Takeshi Obata, who was the artist of Death Note, also doing the concept art, hence the designs of the game. The game with Castlevania characters in a tournament fighting game similar to Soul Calibur.  It’s not very well liked and the game was for the remote and nunchuck configuration exclusive to the Nintendo Wii.  Now while I liked the Nintendo Wii and still play both Wii and Gamecube Games on the Nintendo Wii, not everyone shares my taste.  The game was heavily criticized for the controls interface, character designs, and not feeling that a fighting game fit the game series very well.  The game is part of the franchise, but not necessarily a priority of a remaster for today’s systems, given how the game doesn’t play into the main storyline with it’s time travel crossover plot, but with the game being playable with a gamecube controller, there wouldn't be too much difficulty converting the controls over to a PC Keyboard or another console controller.
 

Castlevania Arcade 2009

    This game was an Arcade Console like Haunted Castle back from 1987.  However, it was controlled as a rail shooting arcade game using motions of a remote similar to a Nintendo Wii, in which the player controls either a magic wand or a whip while waving the remote pointed at the screen to perform spell casting or whip strikes in the game.  The game is comparable in play style to the House of the Dead or Maximum Force Arcade Games, the controls wouldn’t translate well to PC Keyboards or controllers, so it wouldn’t work well for a console and PC re-release in a larger set.
 

Requiem

    While Castlevania Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night have been re-released as the requiem collection on the PS4, and released together with the latter being embedded as a hidden game in The Dracula X Chronicles remake of Rondo of Blood, there is one thing that would really drive a re-release of the two games, or at least Symphony of the Night, and that is popularity.  Symphony of the Night as of now is the third highest selling game in the Castlevania series, and one of a few Castlevania games which sold over one million copies including the original Castlevania from 1986 and the number one seller being the original Lords of Shadow.  But the sales have proven a driving force in the iconography from Symphony of the Night including Alucard’s appearance in the animated Netflix Castlevania series rather than his original Bela Lugosi inspired appearance along with Symphony of the Night being officially released on various platforms except for the PC, even including mobile phones.  The sales of Symphony of the Night would speak loud to it being included in another remastered collection, and it’s why the visuals are borrowed from the game along with the game being re-released numerous times on different platforms.  Money and sales speak loud to companies, and I don’t expect Konami to be much different when it comes to a collection of remastered games, even Castlevania. 

Conclusion

    At the end of the day, the priority elements of a re-release of the 3D Castlevania games would include most likely, the Nintendo 64 and PS2 games, but other games not yet re-released are questionable.  Most likely, games such as Symphony of the Night which have had high past sales in the series will be likely to be included, if at all, along with the 3D games if the next remastered collection will cover most, if not all, of the remaining games which have not had a remaster with sales of the prior games, followed by iconography, being an inspiration for newer games such as Belmont’s Curse.  Other items would be useful in selling the next collection of remastered Castlevania games, such as the manga accompanying Curse of Darkness, Lament of Innocence, or Symphony of the Night, as these mangas would set aside the new releases from previous ones given their unique access in the collection.  This I leave this with you, my dear audience.  And, as I say in conclusion, “Until we meet again, farewell.”