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baejax-the-great · 3 years

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Hey I realise you’re getting hate for this and I genuinely understand if you don’t want to explain, but if you were willing I’d like your input as to why you thought the finale was terrible. I personally loved it, but I acknowledge that there’s a lot of room for discussion and I’d love to hear yours! If you don’t want to post it publicly where you could receive tons of hate you can always message me, or ignore me entirely that’s absolutely fine!

Hoo boy. I really did not expect my 4 note post to get noticed by more than just like two mutuals, so this is all a little confusing.

I don't generally like to spell out my dislikes, because like I said, I think it's good that people enjoy things. I don't want to ruin things for other people. If you liked the finale and don't want to see someone's negativity, by all means, ignore this post.

But since you asked, I'll put it all under the cut for my negative feelings about a beloved show (and what is apparently a beloved season) and massive spoilers.

First, for what it's worth, I enjoyed the first 8.66 episodes and probably would have overlooked most of this had I not hated the ending as much as I did. It was pretty and fun!

I think my two main issues with this season come down to two major writing issues. The first was a lack of planning, the second was the Marvelization of the series.

1. Castlevania is a 10 episode show with 20 minute episodes. Given this, having two big arcs was a mistake. They simply could not wrap everything up in one season in a way that made any sense, so they chose not to. Everyone in Carmilla's arc acted wildly out of character, including Carmilla herself, who went from being shrewd, cunning, and a planner, to suddenly completely deranged. Lenore had also previously been cunning, and was now demoted to uselessly hanging out with Hector. Hector, who previously was easily manipulated and not cunning, now had secret plans that master manipulator Lenore had no inklings of. And three minutes after the four women agreed on their plan, they all suddenly had issues with it. Add in Hector having no real motivation for wanting Dracula back (he never agreed with his agenda in the first place?) and it was just a messy arc and the writers took the easy way out by literally bombing it before it went anywhere.

2. The Marvelization: Sypha, Trevor, and Alucard all looked fantastic in this season, had incredible fight scenes, and dropped witty one-liners. Fun! But beyond that, there was no character growth, no moments of love or tenderness between any of them and just no depth.

Alucard-- Alucard was traumatized by season 3, opens season 4 drunk, alone, miserable, and with bodies on spikes outside his house. Turns out two minutes with the FOURTH "Woman-who-can-kick-my-ass-and-is-slightly-unhinged-but-super-clever" cured him of all his issues. Haha, isn't it funny I killed my ex boyfriend and girlfriend after they tried to murder me while we were fucking teehee? I'm so glad Julia Sypha Saint-Germain's non-verbal GF Greta was there to give him a nice, heteronormative ending or whatever.

I would have been MUCH happier if they didn't throw a random romance his way and if they had, you know, dealt with ANY of the trauma both in S3 AND S4. I mean the man just watched his parents get brought back from the dead and then die AGAIN IN HIS CHILDHOOD BEDROOM, but, you know, a quirky woman held his hand so it's fine.

Belmont-- The ENTIRE point of Trevor's character growth was that he made friends and that made him better. He starts the show alone, miserable, drunk, and over time he finds friendship (not just romantic love but friendship, come ON). But he ends the show facing off death alone while his friends do nothing to try to help him (they are both capable of flying?? Oh well, you got this, Trevor). This battle added no new info about Trevor and added no emotional depth to him. We know he does shit alone and doesn't care enough about his own survival. That's been true since ep 1. Trevor getting the shit kicked out of him while he fights is just an average day, so I don't know why they dragged this fight out.

Sypha-- This is where my qualms with S4 became fury. Honestly, I was willing to overlook a lot of the bad writing until the writers leaned hard on the "man dies but leaves woman pregnant so part of him kind of lives on and it's not a total tragedy because she got a baby out of it." This was the trope and the part of the ending that personally offended me deeply (and it's my own issues with this trope so I don't expect everyone else to hate it as much as I do!). But blah blah man of the old world dies but brings in a new world and also his spawn will live in it or some shit. Even if Trevor ended up surviving, it was garbage, and like I said above, did nothing for Trevor's personal character arc. Being a father? That would be a much more meaningful arc for Trevor than anything that happened this season.

Sypha, I guess, grew this season in that she swears now. That's fun. Oh, and she's better at Greta's job than Greta is, so... cool, I guess.

Like Marvel, S4 basically didn't show a deep connection between any of the characters, not even Sypha and Trevor, tbh. But the fact that S3 showed how deeply Alucard missed Sypha and Trevor, and the two of them never once even thought about him? That also stung. I loved seeing the reunion, don't get me wrong, but it was still weird. It wouldn't have taken much for Trevor and Sypha to learn about the plan taking place in Dracula's castle and then express some sort of concern about Alucard. Instead, they reunited with him without even knowing they were going to. It was just emotionally very flat, and I found this a missed opportunity given how much their friendship made the show fun.

Oh, but hey, Dracula got a happy ending? Because I was really, truly, worried about that. ?????????

So yeah. Everyone in the Carmilla arc acted out of character with the previous season, and everyone in the Dracula arc was very hot, very shallow, and in the case of Alucard, very out of character.

#castlevania spoilers #castlevania critical #I look forward to blowing up my blog after this post #it was fun knowing all of you but this is probably for the best

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renatogpadilla · 3 years

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Things I hope to see in "Castlevania" Season 4:

Game (and potentially Show) Spoilers ahead! #TakeBackTheNight

-Pregnant Sypha by the end. It's the last season, so this is the PERFECT way to have Christopher Belmont show up and then end the show and skip straight to Simon.

-G R A N T. In any way shape or form. Just... I want my wallclimbing hunchback back!

-Hector destroying Styria while Isaac makes his appearance there. If we're going full "Curse of Darkness", then Hector has to become a badass by the fifth episode...

-HECTOR'S BIG ASS HAMMER.

-DEATH. Dracula's right hand! Probably Isaac if they kill him off here...

-Whoever it is Saint Germain was looking for (Shanoa?).

-Trephacard reunion ends in a fight (like an actual fight with Trepha [and Grant?] vs Adrian) and Alucard goes to sleep to heal for 300 years.

-Alucard promising to look after the Belmonts after he wakes up. (THE POWER this scene could have!)

-Literally any mention of Julia or Rosaly... Maybe end the show here and set up for a single-season "Curse of Darkness" 3 years from now in-canon?

-Carmilla getting "forged" into the Mask. Ya'll know the one. I imagine Hector would rather enjoy that revenge...

-Trevor wearing his "Curse of Darkness" thot boots. That's it. Maybe the coat, too but the thigh highs have to show up!

-Saint Germain with his top hat.

-Hector vs Trevor? Hector vs Isaac would have to be later. Finale style or some shit if they're gonna kill him now... Don't think it will happen though. But the whole "You're a Forgemaster!" thing happening now would make it so Trevor and Hector start off on the right foot in "Curse of Darkness".

-ALL of Alucards transformations! Mist, Bat... EVERYTHING!

-The Vampire Killer Whip. We've seen the Morningstar, but we still have to see the definitive Belmont Clan Weapon. And with Rinaldo Gandolfi getting skippped since Season 1, I get the feeling Hector might want to oblige...

I know almost for a fact we're getting another Dracula fight, so I don't really have to put that here. What do you guys want to see?

#Castlevania s4 #Spoilers #Castlevania spoilers #Curse of Darkness #Castlevania Season 4 #I'm so fucking hyped you guys!#Take Back The Night!

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skylights422 · 5 years

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Castlevania: Curse of Darkness Review

[Cross posted on pillowfort and dreamwidth]

A little while back I finally purchased Castlevania: Curse of Darkness. I had been wanting it for some time since it was another castlevania game on the PS2, and because I was very interested in the different playstle (various weapons, the innocent devils you summon and evolve to help you fight, the diverse landscapes), and I must say I wasn't disappointed! So let's go through and analyze it section by section. PLOT/CHARACTERS While the castlevania series tends to have simplistic plots, and in certain ways curse of darkness does as well, I found myself really enjoying the cutscenes for this one. The subplot with Saint Germaine and Zed gave an interesting air of mystery, and the main plot had characters that were charismatic enough to keep you invested despite the fact they don't really bother to explain much of anything in regards to backstory or lore. Plus, even with the lacking explanations it still felt like it had more going on than in LoI, which I appreciated. For those unfamiliar with the plot of the game, it follows a man named Hector who used to be one of Dracula's generals before betraying him once Dracula started killing humans indiscriminately. Hector was one of two 'Devil Forgemasters' in the world, humans who could summon creatures known as Innocent Devils to do their bidding. We're told they are also more easily swayed by Dracula's curse, and that it is considered dark magic, but that's all we ever learn about them. The other devil forgemaster, Isaac, remained loyal to Dracula and had Hector's wife killed in return for Hector betraying him. So the game starts out with Hector charging into an abandoned castle and demanding to fight Isaac to the death, even though at this point it is unclear if Hector has any weapons on hand and has not returned to devil forging. I gotta say, I really loved Hector as a protagonist. He was bold but courteous and had a righteous fury and determination that was a ton of fun. He also just had a very cool design, and I liked that he could use so many weapons (I think in nearly all the cutscenes he only fights hand to hand though, and I really love the mental image of him taking down Isaac with his beam sword and devils, Dracula, and Death with his bare fists xD)and he overall just worked as a lead character for this type of game. Isaac was a wonderfully over the top villain, and while none of it was elaborated on there was enough hinted at backstory/depth that he still felt interesting even if the main appeal was how deranged and sort of flamboyant he was. Isaac also apparently had a younger sister who looked exactly the same as Hector's dead wife, named Julia. Both of these facts are never explained (how did Hector never learn Isaac had a sister before? Why do the two totally unrelated women look identical? Who knows), but I really liked her as a character anyways. She was the shopkeeper of the game and the support character and she did all that with a lot of grace I thought. Oh right Trevor Blemont was there too. I'm sure he's great in Castlevania 3 when you play him, and I did enjoy his character in this game, but he was also very much a walking plot device. He was against you when the game wanted tension and supported you when the game needed you to use his Belmont magic, but then he sends you off to fight all the final bosses alone despite his entire reason for being there was to fight the final bosses and spent most of the game insisting he would beat them first. He was like a weird rival character who dropped out of the rivaling business for no apparent reason. I mean the reason was Gameplay, but a better in-story reason would have been appreciated. The end of the game was pretty decent, it wrapped everything up more or less, though I thought Hector deciding to move in with Julia in the middle of the mountains was a little weird. I love them as a brotp but I did not appreciate the romantic nod they were trying to include, she looks just like his dead wife for crying out loud! Overall though I thought the plot and characters for the game were Good and got the job done, so good job game. GAMEPLAY I LOVED the gameplay for Curse of Darkness. I liked getting to run around and fight the monsters, I liked leveling up my Innocent Devils and watching them learn new moves to help me destroy stuff, and the Chair Side Quest was the greatest thing the game gave to me. Honestly, it only added to my love of Hector, because you could interpret the whole thing as him having some kind of mind-room thingie where he collects chairs/benches/other things you can sit on (I laughed more than I should at some of them I'm not gonna lie). Like he just poses dramatically on all these chairs and its amazing. And the weapon crafting and combos were a lot of fun (he can apparently use the electric guitar very enthusiastically lol). The only downside to the gameplay was there was no sprinting feature (you do a lot of backtracking through confusingly designed areas, it got a little headache inducing at times), and I wished there was some kind of projectile weapon or something to make the fighting more varied than just the combos (which I admittedly took forever to discover) since you do so much excess fighting to level up in this game. But overall I really enjoyed the gameplay even with its flaws. The levels, I might add, while confusing and a bit ridiculous in layout at times, looked fantastic and all felt pleasantly different from each other, even the ones that were thematically similar. So if the maps had just been designed better the levels/areas would have been perfect. MUSIC/AESTHETIC The music was absolutely fantastic in this game! Castlevania usually has great soundtracks and this one is no exception. It was all very energetic and catchy and fit the mood of the game really well. Could have maybe had more stylistic variety, but that's a very minor complaint given how well composed all of it was. And i really liked how all of the levels looked! The graphics were pretty good, maybe not as shiny as LoI? But it captured the vibe of the game perfectly and still had some great visuals so it worked out. CONCLUSION To sum up, I really only have a few critiques of this game. Mostly it was an awesome experience to play, I had fun watching the cutscenes in both languages and seeing where the plot was going, and the chair side quest, as mentioned, gave me unparalleled joy. It was appropriately paced and about as long as it needed to be (unless it wanted to explain more, which would have been nice, but also would have made it a much bigger game potentially). The maps were fun to go through when you hadn't explored much of it yet but eventually became a nightmare to maneuver, but the jamming music sort of made up for that. The characters really spoke to me despite all the unanswered questions about them. Actually its prime fanfic material, I may have to get on that sometime. But basically I would definitely recommend this game to anyone who likes popcorn gothic vampire slaying games (which is pretty much the Castlevania series in a nutshell, there's a reason I want to buy all games released during or before the PS2 era). 8.5/10

#castlevania #castlevania curse of darkness #video games #review

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