25 Things You DIDN'T Know About Castlevania

25 Things You Didn’t Know About Castlevania

Welcome to MojoPlays, and today, we’re taking a look at 25 facts about “Castlevania” you may not have known about.

Judging Performance

If you haven’t played to much of “Symphony of the Night”, then you may not be aware of how the game differs in certain playthroughs. Yes, you can start the game as many times as you want, and things may seem the same on the surface. However, “Symphony of the Night” does alter itself slightly when you start a new game. It all depends on how Richter’s fight with Dracula goes. Killing Dracula quickly and without taking damage can net you some really great starting stats for Alucard! You can also alter what kind of items Alucard starts with by bringing certain items and sub-weapons into the fight. So, if you plan on tackling “Symphony of the Night” again, maybe look at a guide that can break down all the different starting builds and their requirements beforehand.

The Would-Be Hero

There isn’t a ton of information known about whatever cut contant may be laying around with “Castlevania”. We’re not just talking about the game - we’re saying the whole franchise. But one piece we found interesting was the presence of a character named “Coller” in “Castlevania 64”. Remember the Frankenstein-like monster with the chainsaw? That enemy was actually supposed to be a playable character during development! Coller was planned to have a unique playstyle in wielding a chainsaw and shotgun before he was scrapped and made into an enemy. The shotgun part of his kit would be revisited and implemented in Henry Oldrey’s moveset for “Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness”.

Order of Canon

As most of us likely already know, a majority of the “Castlevania” games see you taking control of someone from within the Belmont lineage. Of course, there are some like “Aria of Sorrow” and “Circle of the Moon” where you don’t and instead play as someone like Soma Cruz or Nathan Graves respectively. But “Order of Ecclesia” stars Shanoa, a woman who loses her memories after trying to give herself up to a set of powerful glyphs known as Dominus. On the surface, it may seem like Shanoa’s journey doesn’t have a place in “Castlevania’s” story. However, producer Koji Igarashi has clarified the game’s place in the timeline, calling it a “gaiden”, or “a canonical side story”.

From Green to Blue

One may recall a 3D arena fighter using the “Castlevania” name called “Castlevania Judgment”. Released in 2008, “Judgment” became notorious among “Castlevania” fans for its stark depictions of the characters we came to know and love. It’s such a drastic and gritty artstyle that it almost doesn’t look like a game that belongs on the Wii, and it almost wasn’t on the console. During development, Konami planned to capitalize on the Xbox 360’s monumental success and make “Judgment” an exclusive game for the platform. Problem was that Igarashi wanted to bring a “Castlevania” game to Wii to implement motion controls into the gameplay. Whatever they had cooking wasn’t working out, so “Judgment” got pushed to be the Wii exclusive instead.

Co-op’ted Error

Have you ever seen the instruction manual for the original “Castlevania”? There isn’t anything too special in there aside from story details and technical things you may want to know, but there is an error printed in most of these manuals. When it was making games for the NES, Konami often used the same template for every single games instruction manual, and a large handful of Konami’s games did implement a 2-player mode. “Castlevania” does not have a 2-player mode despite the game’s instruction manual stating otherwise. Guess someone at Konami forgot to hit delete on the word processor.

Curse of Streaming

Netflix’s “Castlevania” show was immaculate, one of the best TV series based on a video game ever! But there was a moment where we almost didn’t get this show. The animation powerhouse known as Frederator Studios had acquired the rights to “Castlevania” way back in 2007, almost a whole decade before the show’s premiere. The plan was to animate and release a simple direct-to-DVD movie based on the franchise, no different than what we had seen in adaptations of “Halo”, “Dead Space”, and other video game IPs at the time. The plans changed when Netflix picked up the rights years later and made plans to pivot to the TV format.

Historical Accuracy

Though it may seem farfetched when said aloud, “Castlevania” does have an interesting date attached to one of its games. “Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness” takes place in the year 1844, which has some religious beliefs tied to it. American Christian preacher William Miller had claimed that Judgement Day would occur in the year 1844. Adding to this connection, the Japanese title for “Castlevania 64” includes the word “Mokushiroku”, which translates to “apocalypse” in English. So, it is likely that writer Takeo Yakushiji borrowed this year as inspiration for the game’s story.

Give the Kid a Break!

“Kid Dracula” might be the most bizarre game in “Castlevania” history with its cute artstyle and goofy antics. Despite this being the only time “Castlevania” has ever gotten this silly, the games that came after have paid their tributes to it over the decades. For example, Galamoth, who was introduced in “Kid Dracula”, has made an appearance as a secret boss in “Symphony of the Night”. Rahab, the boss of Stage 4, became a secret boss fight in “Aria of Sorrow” while the boss of Stage 6, Elgiza, became a recurring enemy in “Portrait of Ruin”.

A Loss in Localization

Considering most of the “Castlevania” games are developed by Konami and/or its other partners that also reside in Japan, one would think that every “Castlevania” would receive its own Japanese dubbing before any further translating and dubbing begins for other languages. Alas, that is surprisingly not the case, at least with the “Lords of Shadow” games. Developed by Madrid, Spain-based studio MercurySteam, “Castlevania: Lords of Shadow” was the only game in its trilogy to receive a Japanese voice dub. For whatever reason, Konami and/or MercurySteam decided not to put in Japanese dubs for “Mirror of Fate” nor “Lords of Shadow 2”.

He Sees You

As with many, many other video games, “Castlevania” does acknowledge the Konami Code when it is inputted at the title screen. Unfortunately, it does not give you anything useful like infinite lives, invincibility, or even a slightly stronger weapon. Heck, only a small handful of “Castlevania” games actually do anything with the code. Input it when playing “Kid Dracula”, and you’ll get the message, “Sorry, nothing this time!”. Input the code in “Legacy of Darkness”, and you’ll get extra playable characters and costumes. Meanwhile, “Lords of Shadow” and its sequel will give you access to an in-game cheat menu. Some other “Castlevania” games will also acknowledge the code, but not every game will do something neat.

Kept in the Family

If you haven’t played “Castlevania: Mirror of Fate”, you may be surprised to know that the game contains a strange item that connects the franchise to Nintendo’s own “Super Mario”. In Act Two, one of the knights of the Brotherhood of Light will drop a scroll upon defeat. The thirty-fourth Fallen Knight Scroll reads, “The terrible state of the pipes down here would perturb even my brother Mario. Some parts have rusted terribly, while others are covered with fungus due to the high humidity. Not all the mushrooms look good to eat either, who knows what might happen if I eat one?”

Game Bat

As history has shown, most games that become huge hits on Nintendo consoles are Nintendo’s own games. They’re typically the games to hit massive sales milestones, the games to define the platforms, everything. But shockingly, the Game Boy version of “Castlevania” was the first to hit a very impressive milestone. According to old documents made by Konami back in the 1990s, “Castlevania” was the very first Game Boy game to ever sell 2.5 million units. That is quite a pretty penny for a handheld that isn’t entirely up to snuff with the home console games.

The Forbidden Track

Those that owned a PlayStation may recall that many PS1 games doubled as soundtracks. Yes, you could insert some of your PS1 games into a CD player and listen to music from your favorite games. “Castlevania: Symphony of the Night” has an interesting way of starting the soundtrack by opening with a special message from Alucard. The listener is told to not play Track One as its just used for storing the game’s data. It then proceeds to play the most kickass remix of “Dracula’s Castle” known to man.

A Surprising Reveal

Going back to “Lords of Shadow” for a brief moment, the 2010 title had a very bizarre reveal and an even more bizarre switchup during development. At first, the game was planned to be a reboot of “Castlevania” until Konami decided to suddenly switch gears and make it an original title. Those plans reverted when MercurySteam showed off the game after getting additional help from designer Hideo Kojima. Even though the plan remained the same as before, Konami still revealed the game as “Lords of Shadow”. It wasn’t until much later in marketing when the publisher officially slapped the “Castlevania” name onto the title.

Shadow of the Potato Chip

To some, “Castlevania Judgment” was nothing more than a weird anomaly. As we mentioned earlier, so many characters got such drastic redesigns that it left a bad taste in everyone’s mouths. Why did Konami suddenly have the urge to just go and have everyone changed like that? Well, this was partially due to who they let lead the art direction. Character design was done by famed artist Takeshi Obata, who many may know as the creator of “Death Note”. The cast definitely has that same vibe as Obata’s manga, but to this day, we have no idea what decisions were made behind the scenes that led to this exactly.

Drama at the Castle

Whereas some appreciated “Lords of Shadow”, the sequel we got in 2014 was broiled in controversy. Colin Moriarty’s middling review of the game landed IGN in hot water with Konami as other gaming media outlets were leaving more scathing reviews. But the biggest drama bomb occurred when MercurySteam’s own staff began outing the company. An anonymous employee sent a letter to several outlets that detailed a chaotic work environment, a total lack of communication on management’s part, and inconsistency behind creative decisions that wound up causing the game’s 6-month delay. Once “Lords of Shadow 2” had finally been released, MercurySteam had fired thirty-five employees, likely to save the company money and boost profit margins in the short-term.

Getting the Gang Back

Between 1997 and 2002, Koji Igarashi had only worked as a producer on one “Castlevania” title, that one being “Castlevania Chronicles”. During that time, we had already seen “Castlevania 64”, “Circle of the Moon”, “Legacy of Darkness”, and “Legends”. So, when it was time for him to work on a brand new game for the Game Boy Advance, Igarashi assembled the almightiest development team possible to make something just as great as “Symphony of the Night”: …it was the same team behind “Symphony of the Night”. Everyone who worked on the PS1 classic wound up working on what many consider to be the best of the GBA “Castlevania” games.

Relaunching Death

Did you know there was a mobile game based on “Castlevania”? We promise this isn’t the fact here, but bear with us. “Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls” was not long for this world. Players would play the game like a regular “Castlevania”, platforming and all. However, people were not keen on the microtransactions, and many players still resented Konami for many decisions the company had made in the 2010s. So, when “Grimoire of Souls” launched in 2019, it didn’t get much attention anyways. The game was suddenly removed from sale in 2020 only to reappear in 2021 as an Apple Arcade exclusive. On top of that, all microtransactions were removed from this iteration of the game.

Cemented in Heavy Metal

This may come as no surprise to some folks, but “Castlevania” has become a major inspiration for some heavy metal bands that are still going on today. For instance, the death metal band known as Black Dahlia Murder created a song called “What A Horrible Night to Have a Curse”, named after the same line seen in “Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest”. Another death metal band called With Dead Hands Rising uses a bit of “Castlevania” music in their song “A Ghost For the Brokenhearted”; some of the music is borrowed from the “Bloody Tears” track from “Simon’s Quest”.

Another Face Lift?

Speaking of “Simon’s Quest”, you may not have known that this game wasn’t made with entirely original assets. Yes, it is definitely a non-troversy that would have terminally online individuals frothing at the mouth today. But it’s true. A large amount of “Castlevania II’s” character and concept art is heavily inspired by the 1984 arcade game “Super Don Quixote”. Most of these similarities can be spotted when looking through “Castlevania II’s” instruction manual, but at the time, how many were even giving “Super Don Quixote” the time of day to notice such similarities?

The Forgotten Mobile Game

What!? There was another mobile game? Indeed, there was a “Castlevania” mobile game, and it came long before “Grimoire of Souls” was out. And what’s weird about this one is that it was only ever released in the United States in 2007 and the United Kingdom in 2010. “Castlevania: Order of Shadows” still has classic platforming and even some of the RPG elements of “Symphony of the Night”. Only one problem with all of this: the controls. Phones were not designed with gaming in mind at the time; they were an afterthought. As a result, “Order of Shadows” played about as horribly as just about every other mobile game on the market.

What is a Moonlight Rhapsody?

Oh, yes, there was going to be a third mobile game in “Castlevania’s” decades-long history. Unfortunately, this never came to be. “Castlevania: Moonlight Rhapsody” would have featured tons of characters new and old for you to play as. As far as gameplay is concerned…well, no one knows much about this game. All we do know is that it was planned to first release in China, there was a play test conducted, and shortly after that test, all development was brought to a screeching halt. Why? Who knows. Neither Konami nor any of the development team have come out to talk about what happened.

From Sony With Love

Of all the games to show “Castlevania” some respect, “EverQuest” was more towards the bottom of our list. As with most online games, “EverQuest II” will display messages to all players about certain encounters and occurrences happening throughout the game. There are a couple of special messages that display when the game’s world goes from day to night. Players will briefly see the message, “What a horrible night to have a curse”. Once the sun rises, the system will display the message, “The morning sun has vanquished the horrible night.” Both messages, as most “Castlevania” fans will know, comes from “Simon’s Quest”.

Metal Cross Vampire

Earlier, we had mentioned how Hideo Kojima had assisted in the development of “Castlevania: Lords of Shadow”. Well, Kojima had actually been watching the franchise develop from afar ever since the very first “Castlevania” when he was still new at Konami. While he was developing the first “Metal Gear” game, another team next door was busy making what would become the original “Castlevania”. Kojima wouldn’t have any involvement with the series until “Lords of Shadow”, and that would be the only game in the franchise he got to work on.

The Real Vampire Overlord

For decades, Koji Igarashi has been heavily associated with “Castlevania” to the point where some may confuse him with being the creator of the franchise. That is not the case. While Igarashi and his teams were responsible in making some of the best games in the franchise, the creator of “Castlevania” is none other than Hitoshi Akamatsu. Not only did Akamatsu develop the first three “Castlevania” games, he also developed “The Goonies II”, “Snake’s Revenge”, and “Asterix”. “Asterix” would be the last game he ever worked on as Akamatsu retired from game development sometime afterwards. Since then, he’s made a few appearances here and there, but has mostly kept to himself.

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