
Greylurker |

Two episodes into season 2 and loving it.
Party right now = Fighter, Magus and Mage. Love how they are getting along in a Frenemy sort of way.
but Dracula's court is the real cool addition. The speech he gives his two chosen generals about why they are the ones. "You can't hate livestock"
damn that was a good speech
and Carmillia is awesome.
and her reaction to knowing there is even 1 Belmont out there tells me she has been on the receiving end of his family's efforts at least once....possibly more. Seems to have been the only thing to cause her to loose her cool.
plus some really cool necromancy stuff

Zhangar |

Season 2 felt... cheap? ... in some odd ways. (Like introducing an entire court of exotic vampires, and only giving two of them - Carmilla and Godbrand - names and voice actors.)
Yeah, the Leon Belmont stuff is from the 1st PS2 game, Lament of Innocence (which is chronologically the first adventure in the canon storyline), and the Forgemasters are from the 2nd PS2 game, Curse of Darkness. Hector's actually the player character in that game, IIRC. (I never played either. I liked Isaac so much more as a character in the show, though. Isaac's embrace of evil with no actual moral quandary was kind of refreshing.)
And Carmilla's the main villain of Castlevania: Bloodlines, again IIRC.
Looks like Godbrand was all-new for the show.
I thought season 2 was kind of dragging until we get to Ep. 7.
Combined with an orchestral version of Bloody Tears playing during the big brawl and the actual fight with Dracula, I felt Ep. 7 pretty much justified the entire season.
But I generally came out of season 2 feeling like it was mostly spent setting up a season 3.

phantom1592 |

Season 2 felt... cheap? ... in some odd ways. (Like introducing an entire court of exotic vampires, and only giving two of them - Carmilla and Godbrand - names and voice actors.)
I thought season 2 was kind of dragging until we get to Ep. 7.
** spoiler omitted **
But I generally came out of season 2 feeling like it was mostly spent setting up a season 3.
YES!!!
I was annoyed at season 1 for being 4 measly episodes that went nowhere... and then Season 2 gave us 8 episodes that were drawn out padding. What was it? 3 episodes of sitting in a library? Feels like at least one of the episodes was Dracula walking down a hallway slowly...
Typical Anime slow movement and sitting there thinking to themselves... Then when the action started... AWESOME. I love me some castlevania, but man... this would have been a better 2-3 hour movie then it did 6 hour series.
As for season 3? Dracula's toast, and I couldn't care less about Camilla.

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Zhangar wrote:Season 2 felt... cheap? ... in some odd ways. (Like introducing an entire court of exotic vampires, and only giving two of them - Carmilla and Godbrand - names and voice actors.)
I thought season 2 was kind of dragging until we get to Ep. 7.
** spoiler omitted **
But I generally came out of season 2 feeling like it was mostly spent setting up a season 3.
YES!!!
I was annoyed at season 1 for being 4 measly episodes that went nowhere... and then Season 2 gave us 8 episodes that were drawn out padding. What was it? 3 episodes of sitting in a library? Feels like at least one of the episodes was Dracula walking down a hallway slowly...
Typical Anime slow movement and sitting there thinking to themselves... Then when the action started... AWESOME. I love me some castlevania, but man... this would have been a better 2-3 hour movie then it did 6 hour series.
As for season 3? Dracula's toast, and I couldn't care less about Camilla.
Yeah, if only there would be a way to reintroduce him to the series. Wow, wouldn't that be cool, having a villain that could keep coming back...

phantom1592 |

Yeah, if only there would be a way to reintroduce him to the series. Wow, wouldn't that be cool, having a villain that could keep coming back...
That seems pretty unlikely. I don't see season 2 building up to this massively epic boss battle only to bring him back in season 3. I can't think of any way to do that without making that whole season feel cheap and meaningless.
UNLESS.... They go the video game route and skip ahead 100 years. Have Alucard track down Trevor's Grandson Simon Belmont because some prophecy says Dracula is returning. 100 years of peace would make the first fight feel like it meant something while still bringing back Drac. Still feels unlikely with the Carmilla subplot/buildup.

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Rysky wrote:Yeah, if only there would be a way to reintroduce him to the series. Wow, wouldn't that be cool, having a villain that could keep coming back...That seems pretty unlikely. I don't see season 2 building up to this massively epic boss battle only to bring him back in season 3. I can't think of any way to do that without making that whole season feel cheap and meaningless.
UNLESS.... They go the video game route and skip ahead 100 years. Have Alucard track down Trevor's Grandson Simon Belmont because some prophecy says Dracula is returning. 100 years of peace would make the first fight feel like it meant something while still bringing back Drac. Still feels unlikely with the Carmilla subplot/buildup.
Or he gets resurrected somehow and it goes wrong and we get one of his Second Boss Forms :3
Isaac is still around after all...

Zhangar |
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Traditionally, Dracula resurrecting coincides with a generation skip. I think the interval is supposed to be every 100 years naturally, though an outside force can speed up the process (like in Symphony of the Night or Portrait of Ruin).
Dracula having to be confronted by the same Belmont or his close allies twice only seems to be happen under special circumstances (like in Simon's Quest and in Symphony of the Night).
Though the Soma Cruz games, Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow, got into Dracula being infected by an outside force (named Chaos in Aria of Sorrow), which is at least partly responsible for why he "resets" and goes back into "kill all humans" mode every time he comes back, even if he had an epiphany after a defeat (like in Symphony of the Night).

Zhangar |

I didn't like Lords of Shadow at all, and never made it through the first game. It felt like a half-baked mash-up of God of War, Uncharted, Shadow of the Colossus, and other games that were popular at the time.
As I never made it through the first game, I pretty much ignored the second game. My general impression is I didn't miss much.
The 2D bridge game, Mirror of Fate, is a near miss - the first two stretches (Simon's and Alucard's sections) of the game actually feel like a proper Castlevania game (up to and including what was actually a really fun confrontation with Dracula), and then the third part (Teevor's section) was enough like Lords of Shadow (right down to QTE boss fights, including Dracula) that it soured the whole game for me. I completed it, but that killed its replay value for me. Which was a damn shame, because the first two parts were actually fun.
I think I bought Mirror of Fate for like $5 on a Steam sale, which felt about right after I was done.

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I'm enjoying season four so far.
I enjoy the banter between Simon and Sypha. Seeing them back in Târgoviște, and going up against Varney (voiced by the awesome Malcolm McDowell!).
I'm glad to see Alucard getting out and about, so to speak. He was way too depressing last season.
Looking forward to seeing a resurrected Dracula.
I was actually sad to see Carmilla die. She was kind of cool. That last battle of hers was pretty f*$$ing epic, though.

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What can I say? I had a lot of time on my hands. Over the course of Thursday and Friday I watched all 10 episodes of Castlevania, all eight episodes of Love, Death & Robots (which, admittedly, took around an hour), and the new episode of Bad Batch.
In addition, I played a session of Rime of the Frostmaiden, created two temple maps for my FB page, read a few short stories, and did all the other dad stuff I normally do.

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So, if I never played a single game in the series after renting 1 one of them for NES back in the 90's and I don't know any of the lore other than there's a guy with a whip that fights Dracula, is this a series I can get into or do I need to study up to enjoy it?
I only briefly played any of the games back in the day (the original, I think, and maybe one other). So I knew (or remembered) very little of the franchise going into it. The showrunners, I thought, did a decent enough job setting the story and carrying it forward. I don't think you need to do any research in order to watch it. Whether you enjoy it or not...that's on you.

Ionela Morescu |

A-zombie is correct. Very good show. This is strictly NSFK and NSFW though, and may not be safe for your girlfriend either, if she isn't cool... THOU HAST BEEN WARNED! :)
My only regret is that they didn't use the cool old tune from the NES (Castlevania II Music (NES) - Monster Dance (Night Theme)) and re-jammed it into a rock and roll / metal version...