Welcome to A LINE THROUGH T⌛ME, where I take the time to look through your favourite
franchises and work out how it all lines up.
Castlevania Judgment is a weird time travel-based arena fighter. Time travel is a necessity
in this case, since the series' storyline takes place over around a millennium, so most
of the cast are dead by the time the story ends. Despite this, some entries got more
focus than others, giving us some great potential for interactions between misaligned characters.
Of course, the game utterly fails to properly capitalise on this potential, but that's not
really important for this video.
Let's begin with the series' original protagonist, Simon Belmont. He's confirmed to have already
beaten Dracula by his intro, and his ending claims Simon's Quest happens six years after
this. The infamous sequel is set in 1698, meaning Simon is pulled from 1692, one year
after his original adventure.
Next, we have the four heroes of Dracula's Curse: Trevor Belmont, Sypha Belnades, Grant
Danasty and Alucard.
Trevor has his eye and chest scars from his fight with Dracula, setting this after Dracula's
Curse. His intro and outro suggest he's currently investigating the return of Dracula's followers
in Curse of Darkness, set in 1479.
Grant's bio references the events of Dracula's Curse and then places Grant's involvement
in Judgment as one year later, in 1477.
Sypha is the hardest hero to place. She's from a time multiple years before she met
her three companions in 1476, which is only explored in their stories, not hers. And there's
nothing else to help place her. The timeline on the wiki claims she's from around 1471,
but no sources are cited.
As a vampire, Alucard has one of the longest lifespans in the series, giving him the most
pre-existing relationships. He tells Trevor that he awoke three-hundred years after they
last met, his awakening leading directly into Symphony of the Night. He recognises Maria
if they fight, meaning Symphony has taken place by now. Sure would have been nice if
they'd included this interaction in their stories instead of focusing Alucard on fighting
major villains and Maria on envying the chests of the women. Alucard could be pulled from
any time between Symphony in 1797 and his next appearance in Aria of Sorrow in 2035.
His design draws much more from the former than the latter, though, so he's presumably
from closer to that.
Next is Maria Renard from Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night. Maria's placement is
laid out quite clearly by her story mode. She comes from in between her two mainline
appearances, setting off to find Richter a year after returning home, and then Dracula's
castle returns for the events of Symphony a year into her search. This means the boob-obsessed
loli is fifteen years old and comes from 1795.
Then, we have Eric Lecarde from Bloodlines and Portrait of Ruin, portrayed here as a
small child, rather than the bishie Final Fantasy hero he used to be. He's fifteen,
according to the preview in the BradyGames guide for Order of Ecclesia, making him a
decade younger than in his debut, which is set in 1917, meaning he originates from 1907.
We cap off the Warriors of the Light with Shanoa, the protagonist of Order of Ecclesia.
She's in pursuit of Albus when she encounters Aeon, setting this during Order of Ecclesia
in the early 1800's, though I don't believe when exactly has ever been confirmed by Konami.
Cornell from Legacy of Darkness is up next. His ending leads directly into his debut game
in 1844.
Now, the villains of Castlevania tend to recur a lot more than the heroes, which makes placing
them quite difficult. Death and Carmilla are both aware of Alucard's defection, meaning
they're both from at least after Dracula's Curse. Golem is just one of a normal enemy
type, and there's really nothing to suggest his point of origin.
Dracula, however, does have something to work with. His intro against Eric shows he remembers
him, despite the age difference, placing Dracula's origin some time after Bloodlines in 1917.
Since Dracula isn't at full power during his return in Portrait of Ruin and he does seem
to be in Judgment, it's possible that Dracula is actually from the time of his next appearance,
the Demon Castle War of 1999, where he would ultimately meet his end. And let's be real,
Dracula had one of the best designs in this game and just imagining that being taken down
by Julius Belmont... That's pretty sick, if you ask me.
And finally, the Time Reaper is from ten thousand years in the future. Ten thousand years from
when is unclear. Aeon is a time traveller who apparently "has no era of his own to return
to", so make of that what you will.
And that's it for the Judgment cast. There have been other time travel crossovers in
this series like Harmony of Despair and Grimoire of Souls, but there's even less to work with
in their barebones plots, and I don't think either is even available anymore, so don't
expect another of these videos on this franchise. A normal timeline video on the other hand...
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Today's recommended playlist is the GameTrailers Castlevania Retrospective from an actual decade
ago. As well as discussing each game and the series' timeline, it also explains historical
and mythological sources referenced in the games, as well as the series' rad music. It's
really good. Just watch it.