Castlevania is a series of video games produced by Konami. This is one of the company’s most successful and long-running franchises, spanning several different consoles from Nintendo consoles to the Playstation. The first game, Castlevania, released in 1986 for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
The Castlevania games tell the tale of a familial clan of vampire hunters and their quest to rid the world of Count Dracula, with heavy ties to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Each game chronicles a different member of the Belmont family and their quest to defeat the creatures of the night. The gameplay across the games is split into three different genres; Classic Castlevania, which functions as a side-scroller; Metroidvania, which provides a large singular map and focuses on exploration and back-tracking; and 3D Castlevania, which adapts the Metroidvania style into a 3D plane.
Each Castlevania game is set in the same universe, with only a few notable exceptions (Castlevania Legends, Kid Dracula, the Lords of Shadow series.) Nearly every game’s main character shares a familial connection.
The Belmont Clan takes center stage as the main characters, each being noted as legendary vampire hunters. Every member of the Belmont clan wields the powerful Vampire Killer whip, which was given to the Clan as the Whip of Alchemy, by an alchemist named Rinaldo Gandolfi.
The main recurring rival of the Belmont Clan is Lord Dracula, a powerful immortal vampire who has existed for several hundred years. Having a deep hatred for God and humanity, Dracula curses the land of which he stands, and returns every 100 years after he is killed. Castlevania: Lament of Innocence established that Count Dracula was once a regular human and masterful tactician named Mathias Cronqvist, who was also best friends with the ancestor of the Belmont Clan, Leon Belmont. After the death of Mathias’ wife, he swore vengeance against God and sought out a powerful relic known as the Crimson Stone to become the Dark Lord, Count Dracula.
As the Dark Lord, Dracula has domain over a great many things, including a large castle known fittingly as Castlevania. This castle is directly tied to Dracula’s power, will rise when Dracula himself is resurrected, and will crumble as Dracula is defeated. Both the powers of Castlevania and Count Dracula are sourced in primordial Chaos, and the parallel universe known as the Chaotic Realm, in opposition to God’s order and law. Because of his status as the Dark Lord, Dracula has control over a large number of different evil creatures; ranging from skeletons, zombies, mermen, werewolves, bats, gargoyles, ghosts, Medusa, Frankenstein’s Monster, and Death.
There are also several other Clans of vampire hunters in the series who assist in the destruction of Count Dracula. Such as the Morris Clan, which functions as the successor to the Belmonts and inherits their Vampire Killer whip, during the nearly two centuries that the Belmont Clan had disappeared. There are also the Belnades, Renard, Lecarde, and Kischine Clan, which have been seen assisting the Belmont Clan in some of their most important battles.
Reception: Castlevania is a very popular video game series all around, being a commonly used example of the old day "Horror Games" before survival horror games were made, along with this it has a Netflix series that was very well received, gaining four seasons and its newer Netflix series Castlevania: Nocturne getting its second season.
List of Misconceptions
"Gaiden" means "Non-Canon" or "Alternate Timeline"
This stems from the belief that when Iga or a producer calls a Castlevania game a "Gaiden" it is therefore non-canon or an alternate timeline and can be dismissed. This, however, is not the case.
The term "Gaiden" merely just means a side story, spin-off, or a separate tale. The term "Gaiden" does not determine the canonicity of a work, it just lets you know if the game is a spin-off/side-story or if it's a main story. Take, for instance, the Kingdom Hearts series. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories would be considered a gaiden, as it's a side-story and spin-off title that isn't a mainline numbered title, however, it is in all manners canon and important to play to understand Kingdom Hearts II.
The same can be applied to Castlevania itself, Castlevania Symphony of the Night is a gaiden game. Yet it is very obviously canon and pretty important to play to understand more of Alucard's backstory. The idea of a Gaiden game for the Castlevania series itself would be any game not dealing with one of Dracula's main 100-year-resurrections, which in this case, even Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest is in a way a gaiden, despite being completely canon.
This is all to say that Gaiden does not at all mean "non-canon" or "alternate timeline" and should never be treated as such, the term itself has nothing to do with the canonicity of a product.
IGA Statements Quoted by a Fan
Any statements Iga has made about Judgment that don't come from this IGN interview or a sourced and reputable article are not usable. This is, of course, referring to the popular statements used when discussing Judgment's Canoncity about a fan asking IGA about the game's Canoncity on Facebook, here are some of them below:
Fan: You mentioned Legend of Cornell was an alternate continuity. However, Cornell appears in Castlevania Judgment, which I believe is not an alternate continuity. How does that work? is he from a different universe than the other characters? It is not really explained in the game itself so I was hoping you could give some clarification on the issue.
IGA: Judgment is a work that surpasses space and time and brings them together.
Fan: I get it. So, is the explanation I suggested in the previous reply possibly correct?
IGA: I don't think it's exactly correct. Judgment is a work born of thinking it would be fun to remove all the hedges and bring characters that appeared throughout the series together. I think that you need to view it as an event from another world which does not consider things like timelines or parallel dimensions at all.
Now these seem like pretty clear-cut statements until you start to try to find where these come from.
There is no way to find anything sourced or verifiably proven that this person spoke to Iga. Trying to look up the person didn't get any real results either.
Translation: Regarding the Famicom version and the X68000 version, the X68000 version is an arrangement based on the Famicom version. The arrangement of a game is the kind of thing where you add a lot of different things as needed, so honestly speaking, it think they both should be considered legitimate. In conclusion, I think they should be considered as the same scenario of fighting to defeat Dracula, just with a different middle part. The Super Famicom version is different as well... If you simply must have a clear answer, the Famicom version must be given deference."
Now the quote itself doesn't state remakes or remasters are non-canon despite what people believe. It's moreso a quote of Iga stating that all of them are the same scenario, just with differences. However, an interesting point is that Iga says the NES version should be given "deference", as in to defer to the NES version.
Overall due to the quote itself having no source, it is unusable. The way we will treat remakes, remasters, or ports here however is that they are all equally canon unless stated otherwise. Most of these tell the same story with the only real differences being extra background information added, such as Haunted Castle having it be Dracula stole Simon's wife, though the same overall story still applies even here. Iga himself has already expressed that the original Castlevania's story is pretty simple[3] and Simon having a wife does not affect anything in the overall narrative. Super Castlevania IV notes that Simon is a vampire, though this was due to a novel writer making him a vampire in their novel. The novel was originally supposed to be an adaptation of Super Castlevania IV but was then dropped and made its own thing. Super Castlevania IV itself is still canon, but the subplot of Simon being a vampire is not. The most recent timeline even acknowledges it as canon[4].
Chaos: Chaos is the primordial entity, once formless matter that existed before the creation of the universe, which was formed as the opposition to God’s order and law. Chaos exists in a realm known as the Chaotic Realm, which is visibly a parallel universe to the main one in which the games take place. When Mathias Cronqvist rejected God and became the Dark Lord, his powers became rooted in the Chaotic Realm, so that he would continue to live on so long as Chaos existed, along with the hatred within the hearts of mankind. Chaos was also the entity that chose Soma Cruz to be the reincarnation of Count Dracula and made him the Dark Lord, after Dracula was killed once and for all in 1999. When Soma Cruz enters the Chaotic Realm, Chaos takes on a physical form for their battle. Chaos is responsible for many things that Dracula and Soma are capable of doing.
Power of Dominance: An ability that is given to the Dark Lords chosen by Chaos; notably Count Dracula, and his reincarnation Soma Cruz. This is a special power that allows for the user to extract and absorb the souls of those they defeat; absorbing their souls then allows them to perfectly mimic the abilities of the monster whose soul was absorbed. This is an ability that Chaos can give and take away from those it considers the Dark Lord.
Vampire Killer: The Vampire Killer whip was originally created as the Whip of Alchemy by an alchemist named Rinaldo Gandolfi. When his daughter was turned into a vampire by a demon lord known as Walter Bernhard, Rinaldo created the Whip of Alchemy as a way to confront Walter and get revenge. Unfortunately, the Whip of Alchemy was far too weak to defeat Walter in Rinaldo’s hands, and so he decided to give the whip to a young knight named Leon Belmont in hopes that he could bring the whip’s latent power out. Eventually, the Whip of Alchemy was infused with the vampiric soul of Leon’s betrothed, Sara Trantoul, and transformed into the powerful Vampire Killer whip; a whip that is specifically made for destroying the creatures of the night. It has gone through drastic design changes, from a simple leather whip, to chain whip with a flail and a cross-shaped handle; the former being considered the “canon” design, and being the one that was adapted into the Super Smash Bros. series. The Vampire Killer whip not only acts as a powerful weapon against demons, but can also act as a seal against them to keep their magic suppressed. Furthermore, it contains a realm within it that is accessed through the Lecarde Clan, that hosts the whip's memories and can summon apparitions of its previous wielders. If the Vampire Killer is wielded by someone it does not view as worthy of it, it will slowly drain the life force from them until they perish.
Dominus: This is a powerful glyph created by Barlowe of the Order of Ecclesia, which is viewed as the ultimate weapon against Dracula’s evil during a time when the Vampire Killer and the Belmont Clan were absent. This glyph is so powerful that it had to be segmented into three parts; and Dominus itself can only be fully utilized when all three parts are used simultaneously. However, it was soon revealed that the glyph was actually created through using Dracula’s own remains, and thus Dracula can take control of anyone who tries to use Dominus against him. However, a woman named Shanoa is able to use the power of Dominus against Dracula without the handicap of him taking control of her, and she was able to use it to destroy him.
Canon
Although an official timeline has been officially revealed, it is quite outdated with new releases and contradictions. There is a mass of confusion surrounding what can be considered "canon," and what should not be.
The entirety of the timeline and it's canon has been explained here.
