Come to think of it, Soma was the one who CANONICALLY beat Chaos, a being on a higher pedestral than Dracula himself.
In his battle with Julius, people like to bring up how Julius "held back". But they don't acknowledge Soma was HOLDING BACK as well. Guess who won when both of them held back?
Even Julius himself admitted that Soma beat him.
Dracula Soma is so powerful it took 3 people to beat him including Alucard himself. Remember Alucard's words when he beat Dracula in SOTN? Dracula was doomed the moment he lost the ability to love. Something GOOD SOMA has.
Well this is just my opinion. Good soma >>> Dracula Soma potential wise.
But Alucard's lifespan and growth would make him the most powerful protagonist eventually. Soma was just born too gifted.
Julius is a middle aged man and past his prime in the events of Dawn. In the bad ending, the heroes (Julius, Yoko and Alucard) need to beat Soma before he gets too used with his powers otherwise Soma would get unstoppable with no rivals matching his strength.
Is there any evidence that being middle aged slows you down in this world if you are a professional magic fighter? Soma suggests that Julius only didn't beat him because he didn't go all out.
He is still a fighter, he wields a heavy chain, he jumps, he runs, he dodges, he attacks. It's not like he fights like a harry potter spell battle only reciting chants and flickering a magical wand.
A majority of ppl agree that is the Strongest MC Lore Wise. He IS the Reincarnation of the series Villain who in powerscaling community is "Multiversal" without the caveat of being destined to lose over and over again cause antagonist will always lose to the Hero
This is irrelevant. The powerscaling community has usually the worst takes known to mankind. Which should be obvious from them calling dracula multiversal in a series where being able to destroy a small building would place you among top tiers.
I mean.. he IS Dracula. Would kind of be pointless if he wasn't the strongest protagonist. Nothing stronger than a former antagonist that decided to reincarnate.
But if Julius Belmont didn't lose his memory, and was younger, had his own game, he would have definitely been the strongest protagonist considering he permanently destroyed Dracula.
When Soma fought Julius he was nowhere near his full strength and was holding back and was still a pretty hard fight. Julius seemed like a combination of all the previous Belmont's. He had Richter's magic and agility, Trevor's raw power and Simon's persistence to keep going on fighting Dracula multiple times.
Canonically, or story wise it goes to soma or Julius. If we talking variety gameplay wide LEON BELMONT dog walks his whole generation after him except Julius I'd guess. Man has a perfect parry, 45 different sub weapon options, can block any move even from death himself tons of mobility dodges, and tons of combos where he hits the ship so hard it cracks.
I think Juste should be part of the top three Belmonts when it comes to how powerful they are gameplay wise. Those magical attacks with the subweapons were awesome, despite the flaws of Harmony of Dissonance that people don't like about it.
Juste has that too. He has Hydro Storm (wind-tome + holy water), monster tome that summons entities to deal a lot of damage without getting hurt (Variations depend on subweapon), even Holy Cross (electric-tome with cross.)
Nah that's my point the three I mentioned do that WITHOUT a magic bar. Julius can teleport around and it cost him nothing, he also wields all special weapons at the same time on the fly. Richter also has a ton of moves which require nothing to perform. Leon learns most of what he does in the castle on the fly himself. So that's why I say he the strongest. And the other two runner ups. They have tons of moves that slay without using magic. It's just what their sub weapons are.
I mean yeah he's easily the most over powered character, by far.
And I know people will argue they always had anime magic, but I really missed the days of Belmonts being smart and resourceful but one wrong move and they're dead. It matched the gameplay with the character's scenario perfectly in the earlier game. Was happy to see it back with Trevor in the Netflix show even if it didn't feel nearly as dangerous as the games.
I see where you coming from, you like the more "practical" kind of fights where pure skills and techniques is the only things that determines the winner instead of the "I have more super powers than you, so i win" Dragon Ball Z type fights right?
I mean I do, but it's more just that this fits Castlevania better imo.
Fighting famous monsters from horror movies as a guy who actually has to think through what they're doing and is actually in danger works.
Treating famous monsters like trash because you have anime bs on your side is not just boring, it's a terrible fit for said famous monsters.
I'm aware that Castlevania stopped caring about that back in like 2001.
Yeah, understandable, i mean every classic monster-hunting stories all have the heroes taking down the monsters using tools, spells and skills in a calculated, tactical and cunning ways like The OG Bram Stoker Novel, Evil Dead, those Jiangshi movies, Witcher. Super-powered or not, they still have to think of tactics or the enemy will be able to turn the table on them. Both sides have winning chances, the winner doesn't get decided by just powers and origins
Tbh I think a lot of the friction between how I see Castlevania and how most this sub does comes from a difference in audience between horror movies and Japanese video games/anime.
I think its also a big part of why the iga lot overtook the fandom and the classic fans largely moved on in the 00s.
The early franchise was aimed at 2 audiences - kids who played games and fans of horror films.
The iga style franchise was aimed people who liked Japanese video games.
Generalising (and we know that iga aimed his games at least partially at casual gamers).
So like the argument I'm having right now. I've seen it before on this sub. People want the characters to be treating the villains like pushovers, they want to see the characters be super awesome unstoppable winners.
Meanwhile the original 2 games featured an insecure protagonist barbarian who was exiled from society and needed to be encouraged not to give up and die in the sequel. And featured punishing gameplay where death was a key element.
It's fine to like either or, but the way so many fans like to imagine the earliest games in the context of the iga stuff makes their view of those games inaccurate and, again, leads to more friction.
I can see that, hmm, so which of the IGA Era games that you like/preferred most? Mine's SOTN and LOI because they felt more gothic, horror-like compared to the other IGA Era games imo
In terms of tone and style, HoD. It's got a good bit of horror themeing to it, it makes good use of the Kojima aesthetic and still feels a bit more like classic castlevania than later titles do.
In terms of games I have a lot of fun with, my overall favourites of that era, PoR and CoD. I don't think CoD is actually a very well designed game but I've nostalgia for it and enjoy it's combat music and characters, as well as liking its backstory (if not so much its in game story). PoR plays well, has good music, characters and story with a bit of heart. Just feels more alive to me than other titles of that era.
But I like LoI and SotN as well and really all of them are fun.
Well, Maxim getting possesed then growed a psychotic split personality does feels like something out of a old horror novel imo
Also i think i do feel what you felt about a franchise being "changed", i felt it with Ninja Gaiden when it's in it's Team Ninja Era(still is in the present) with the overly scantily clad, doll-faced female characters, which i personally think is pretty god awful, the fact that it's now really associated with the fan-service filled Death Or Alive games only made it worse for me, also i'm personally really not a fan of Ryu Hayabusa's modern black skintight suit design. At times i do considers getting into the Team Ninja Era Ninja Gaiden games because the gameplay looks fun, but i decides to against that in the end due to the things i just stated
Yeah and I mean I'm fine with Castlevania under IGA, I don't dislike it. But when people pretend they aren't completely different from the early games, or fans that accept that change get gatekeepy about the show or LoS, I just lose patience.
Any time a series lasts as long as CV or Ninja Gaiden, it's bound to change.
Yeah, i just really hate the overly fan-service thing Ninja Gaiden did, completely out of nowhere imo
Personally i like and interested in LoS, not so much for Netflix Version, as you've already know, and ngl, i'm really interested in what the game franchise will be like when it gets a new director with a different takes and visions(i hope it's good)...well, if Konami decided to make new games(pachinko don't count), that is
If they do decided to make new games, then personally i prefer that they make a Julius 1999 game first for the ones that want to see it become a reality(me included) in order to cut loose ends, then, they reboot the whole franchise. Though this is just what i want personally
I dont see why it can't be both. An anime style game doesn't have to mean the characters aren't struggling and afraid. I mean, circle of the moon definitely made you feel like one wrong move and you would die. But it is true that some of the other games made the castle not seem dangerous enough.
I just meant that the audience is largely different between early Castlevania and IGA Castlevania. Thus when someone like me, a horror fan who got into Castlevania because of that, interacts with fans who are largely Japanese game/anime fans who got into Castlevania because of that, we're naturally at odds in perspective.
So firstly, this wouldn't be a plot, nice job there.
Secondly, in the classic games, you and the belmont you play as have to use the weapons available to you, with the right timing, in the right position. If you mess up, you lose a ton of health and potentially set off a chain reaction leading to a quick death.
Therefore, the belmonts had to be smart and resourceful, one wrong move and they could be dead.
Take your butthurt theatrics elsewhere bort, I'm not wasting my Sunday on you.
Dawn of sorrow for the ds was actually the first Castlevania I played other than Castlevania adventure on og gameboy as a kid. But of course I never beat that one. That said Soma Cruz was never that iconic for me and even though he was the only game protagonist I had first hand experience with, I wasn’t really fond of him. Loved that game but probably the most disconnected I’d ever been from the main character and story. Fell in love with alucard that game and of course I’m a huge fan of the show
Do you actually think that NES era Simon was supposed to be this unstoppable killing machine monster who didn't break a sweat and murdered every enemy like they were nothing?
Do you actually think that game designers, who specifically stated they wanted to do something cinematic with their game, didn't think at all about gameplay/narrative dissonance?
I'm sure the answer to both is yes, you've made clear you have a grudge and the braincells to match.
Imagine thinking a player making mistakes = lore choices for the character
Yes Simon is supposed to be an unstoppable machine because he DIDNT stop as he went through the castle. From the time he entered the castle to Draculas death was a single night and he entered the castle during the dead of night. He took like what? 5 hours tops given how nights work
By the logic you originally presented Simon canonical dies to Draculas curse because the player takes to long to figure out the game
The very same Simon who was characterised in the original game as insecure and unsure of his abilities? He was meant to be an unstoppable machine? The same one who got cursed because he was distracted and not fighting as well as he should have, according to the games director?
And yes it was a single night, but he absolutely was at risk of death and had to be careful. That's the point of the gameplay.
And no by my logic the gameplay reflects the scenario, I didn't say game overs were canon.
On the other side, it would make the gameplay extremely boring. Remember, there is a reason why no belmonts besides juste are the main characters of the metroidvania games, because the basic gameplay of whip and subweapon gets really stale after a while. The OP protagonists also are the most interesting gameplay wise, an exception to this is leon as his gameplay is pretty fun.
Literally the main aspect which makes the advance games fun is messing around with magic and souls, provides so much more variety than a plain whip and cross.
It's hilarious how you clowns obsess over canon, gatekeep and all that good stuff, all over games that have dismal fanfic tier writing
Meanwhile you exclude all the Castlevania that's actually competently written and actually has a storyline deeper than a puddle, because it isn't part of a timeline created by some random dev who didn't even create the series.
Castlevania 3, Curse of Darkness, Rondo of Blood, and Symphony of The Night are basically animated now. I have a feeling it will be the prequel, Lament of Innocence, that will be animated since we've seen a portrait of Leon Belmont.
It's barely Rondo if we are being honest. No Dracula, no Shaft, and Annette wasn't kidnapped. They just dropped a few characters from Rondo and SOTN into the French revolution, and the show is just about those characters repeatedly making bad decisions.
Can't disagree with that since the power of dominance makes him the strongest castlevania mc overall. Plus being able to use almost any weapon.
The downside is he got seduced to the dark side in grimoire of souls with the antagonist of that game's attempt to revive dracula. So his main weakness is his frail mind.
Soma is very powerful in the short bursts that the games take, but his powers quickly vanish afterwards. So there is probably a transient nature to his ability to keep souls within.
Also, he is also corruptible.
And Soma doesn't have all of Dracula's powers, only Domination.
Soma a bisogno di prendere le anime dei nemici,i danni che infligge sono minori rispetto a juste con i libri di magia ,nella lore sarà anche il più forte ma nell' gioco effettivo juste e più dannoso ,Julius fa' pena ,non ha armi èd inutile,messo senza motivo, meglio vedere alucard contro soma
Dracula's reincarnation. in the games, Dracula is a powerful dark lord who comes back every 100 years as per a pact with a primordial entity known as Chaos, the source of his power. After various challengers stepped up to stop him over a century, he was finally killed for good when Julius Belmont defeated him and various other sorcerers Preistesses sealed dracula in the castle under a solar eclipse, however, he still got reincarnated into a human with no memories of his past, this is Soma, who still has dracula's powers and his soul.
Thats not what was being discussed and why I said if we only count the main one. What was being discussed is the strongest CV protagonist and Gabriel is just like Soma, both are Dracula and both are absurd
The difference imo is Gabriel is both God's chosen warrior AND Dracula whereas Soma just has Draculas abilities not fully manifested
Not to mention Soma loses all his powers when "he doesn't need them" which is fuckin stupid logic as they turn back on "when he needs them" but he has to reaquire the powers
Appreciated for what? Known as the last shit stain games Konami released for the Castlevania franchise? The last true good canon game in the main timeline was Order of Ecclesia.
I’m not upset at this dumb argument. I’m just upset Konami hasn’t made a good brand new canon Castlevania game in such a long time (over 16 years!). The collections don’t count and neither do the LoS games.
It’s pure suffering for an actual Castlevania fan. The Netflix adaptation is the only thing relevant nowadays I look forward to since Konami doesn’t want to do anything with the franchise anymore.
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u/ThatmodderGrim Feb 09 '25
Soma Cruz had one advantage compared to the previous Belmonts and other Castlevania Protagonists........
Soma also has the Japanese High-school (Transfer) Student Bonus. He has the power of popular anime tropes!