u/CyberdarkEnjoyer

https://yeswelder.com/cdn/shop/articles/TIG_Pulsed_Welding_And_When_To_Use_It_7b50b84a-a3f7-4465-a062-4d4992e44431.webp?v=1773732970

Sacred Beast: Got a new Fusion after the Structure Deck, then in 2022 Yubel support came around and integrated the SB engine into it, but Konami reassured SB fans in the same pack that they didn't forget about them with Phantasmal Summoning Beast. In 2026 all the new cards were made pointless by a completely new deck that is still themed around Sacred Beasts, even though they are retrains.

Ice Barrier: Got an ok SD, bad post SD Support (promo + 1 card in a main booster) and then got some amazing cards in Terminal World that retroactively made the SD better.

Charmers: Got mistreated with bad SD support and through the years they slowly released Charmer Links that were generic supports for any deck out there. However, Konami finally gave the strategy some new Possessed cards some months ago and they are good.

Cyberdark: Got a bad Structure Deck with no follow-up whatsover, and neither Dragonroid or Rebirth Judgment were turned into Cyberdark support when printed. Then the time came to boost Cyber Dragon and Konami made Cyberdark Wurm which turned Cyberdark into a sub-engine for other decks like Cydra and R.B.. It also got completely ignored in Limit Over Collection: none of the 3 Over-Frames help or acknowledge Cyberdark in any way.

As an attempt at giving an origin story to the feud between the Belmont clan and the Dark Lord, LoI falls flat in a few aspects, even though it's definitely an improvement compared to Legends which really doesn't explain anything.

First of all it's so far in time and detached from the rest of the games. It's set in 1094 A.D., almost 400 years before Dracula's Curse, and its location to this day remains completely unknown. Usually, the Castlevania games are episodic and can be enjoyed individually, but their stories are connected to other games. Think of Bloodlines and PoR for example. Or CVIII which is connected to SotN and Demon Castle War, has Curse of Darkness as a sequel and now is also getting another. Lament of Innocence in spite of its importance story-wise has little to no recognition aside from Leon showing up for a frame in a special attack. This is also due to that massive 400 years gap that isolates it from the rest of the timeline.

But also LoI doesn't answer all the questions, or it answers them in an unsatisfying way. If the feud between the Belmont and Dracula started in 1094, are we seriously supposed to believe that they never crossed paths again until Trevor's time? We've seen Mathias becoming a powerful vampire but how did he become the Dark Lord? When did he become the emissary of Chaos itself on Earth, master of all the dark souls and primary vessel of that power? Things rapidly become blurry in the game itself because Walter was immensely powerful too, and possessed most of Dracula's moveset, but he is no Dark Lord, nor he was stated to be close to becoming it. Mathias takes it to the next level thanks to the Crimson Stone, but we never get to see what happens after he teleports away. And most importantly...how the fuck Castlevania (which is bound to the Dark Lord) even came into existence?

Perhaps, they were withholding as many info as possible because they wanted to make another game closely connected to Lament. But then they made Curse of Darkness, which expands upon many topics, but not the ones posited by Lament of Innocence.

To this day that 400 years gap remains completely unexplored, and it's a shame because it offers so many possibilities. We could have followed the personal story of Leon, seeing him find inner peace and pass on the torch, or obsessively pursuing his objective until his last breath. A game with Mathias as protagonist would also been cool, to see how he would have continued his war against God, amassing power, becoming the legendary Vlad and building the Castle, while also not hating humans to the point of wishing them genocide...yet. There are also plenty of stories that could be told about Leon' successors between 1100 and 1400, not necessarily about Dracula. In fact the game world is supposed to be full of mysteries, mythical creatures and sinister occurrences/places even when Castlevania isn't around, it's just that only the return of Dracula causes world-ending scenarios.

>The graveyard keeper illuminates the dark night with a lantern; their flame-based attacks are powerful.

The last Castlevania game by director Akamatsu, it was considered unsuccessful by Konami, also the international release is very hard to get into for the average person because they ramped up the difficulty so much, and yet:

-It's Igarashi's favorite game

-Ralph (Trevor) became Japan's favorite Belmont

-Spawned a sequel (Curse of Darkness) and now Belmont's Curse

-SotN can also be considered a sequel, too

-...And multiple Pachinkos

-Influenced Julius Mode in Dawn of Sorrow (the game files indicate Hammer was meant to be Grant's equivalent, then it was cut due to time restraints)

-Demon Castle War was also supposed to be a callback to CVIII (first vs last Dracula war)

-Getting a movie which then became the Netflix adaptation

-Bloodstained Circle of the Moon copies the same formula

Simon is still the face of CV ( alongside Alucard), and other classicvanias like I, Rondo or Bloodlines are usually preferred to III, but very few games had such an impressive legacy.

1. Shot of the Castle emerging in the middle of Targoviste vs shot of the Castle emerging in the middle of Paris.

2. Belmont's family crest. This was actually introduced in Lords of Shadow, Netflix simplified the design and removed the combat cross. On the Belmont's Curse website the same design as Netflix is used.

3. A golden cross emerges at the tip of the whip when an enemy is slain with the whip in Netflix and in Belmont's Curse. Existing Castlevania games have a variety of special effects to represent a "holy element" weapon hitting the target (all hits, not just the final strike), but none look like impaling the enemy.

4. Red light effect over characters used in promotional material vs first area of Belmont's Curse.

Random selection of enemies.