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Update - Castlevania: The Final Season to release on May 13

Commissar SFLUFAN
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Dre801

Dre801

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I knew something was off about the two warriors that befriended Alucard, but I didn't expect that.

 

As for Hector, I really hope he gets out from under the vamp bitches and rains hell on them; the blonde and the one that played him like a fiddle deserve it the most.

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Brick

Brick

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Something definitely seemed off with them, but then turning on Alucard seemed to come a little suddenly. Like, really you're going to get mad and kill him just because he won't tell you how to move the castle? You're not going to try any other tactic first, like maybe getting mad, and begging him to figure out how to fix it? If they revealed that they always planned on killing him that would have been a little better, but that doesn't seem to be the case. 

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Greatoneshere

Greatoneshere

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15 hours ago, Brick said:

Something definitely seemed off with them, but then turning on Alucard seemed to come a little suddenly. Like, really you're going to get mad and kill him just because he won't tell you how to move the castle? You're not going to try any other tactic first, like maybe getting mad, and begging him to figure out how to fix it? If they revealed that they always planned on killing him that would have been a little better, but that doesn't seem to be the case. 

 

I think they also wanted to kill him because he's half-vampire, not just because he wouldn't teach them everything (though that was part of it too). They are vampire hunters, after all.

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Brick

Brick

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1 hour ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

I think they also wanted to kill him because he's half-vampire, not just because he wouldn't teach them everything (though that was part of it too). They are vampire hunters, after all.

 

I thought that too, but again it was never mentioned or even heavily implied, so them attempting to kill him seemed to come out of nowhere. 

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Greatoneshere

Greatoneshere

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1 hour ago, Brick said:

I thought that too, but again it was never mentioned or even heavily implied, so them attempting to kill him seemed to come out of nowhere. 

 

That's why it was a twist! It did come out of nowhere (we all should have known better since they said they were vampire hunters from the start though). :p 

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  • Commissar SFLUFAN changed the title to Update - Castlevania: The Final Season to release on May 13
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Kal-El814

Kal-El814

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Posted
10 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Is it just me or does this season look a lot more detailed than the previous ones? Something about it is so crisp and vibrant.

 

It’s a mixed bag, I think. Some of it looks a lot more detailed, a couple scenes specifically seem borderline not finished.

 

I binged it yesterday evening and this morning. Overall I think it’s good, but it’s the weakest of the seasons. I suspect that COVID and Ellis being a shit contributed to the problem but it really feels like 2 seasons of content crammed into 1 season worth of episodes, and a bunch of stuff suffers.

 

Hector and Isaac:

 

Spoiler

I like where Hector ended up and it felt pretty well earned.

 

Isaac feels like he pivoted a couple times pretty quickly and we don’t really get a final moment with him and that feels like a missed opportunity. He went from wanting to wipe humanity off the map, to maybe liking an army, to realizing that he’s talking to people, to wanting to kill Hector, to not wanting to, to wanting to kill Carmilla, to… sort of wanting to give people a chance? He’s got an army of night creatures and given everything we’ve seen it feels unlikely people will just let that stand, but that’s where we leave off with him. Out of everyone’s arc, his specifically feels like the ending just kind of drifted off, which is a shame since he’s the show’s most interesting character.

 

The three heroes and St Germain:

 

Spoiler

I feel this was rushed a bit, too. There’s a difference between finding the morning star in the Belmont hold to finding two dope weapons, one of which is used to kill the big bad, in the span of a couple episodes, just to get an info dump on one of them after everything went down.

 

I would have liked more time with Alucard and his new lady, too. His pivot from, “well guess I’ll stake some people outside my house,” to, “well that was a mistake,” was pretty quick.

 

And obvious I liked where Trevor and Sypha ended up, but how they got there was a little convenient.

 

Saint Germain got from A to C too quickly also. “I won’t kill anyone! Oh well I guess I’ll absorb a shitload of souls.” My guess is that Death was more subtly manipulating him than they ended up showing in one season. And his “saving” Trevor could have been, I don’t know, teased or hinted, or something. It feels like it came out of nowhere.

 

The baddies:

 

Spoiler

Carmilla and Lenore both got solid sendoffs, I think. Their stories felt pretty complete. Morena and Striga were okay, too, though I felt that was a little quick.

 

Death was… I dunno. Again, I feel like we needed more time. I’ll rewatch eventually and maybe there will be more clues, but other than teasing Death, who he ended up being felt pretty random.

 

Dracula and Lisa ending up alive was nice, but this seems half baked, too. Why was Lisa in hell at all? She seems like a good person; is it because she was condemned by the church? Dracula’s wife? The characters spent a bunch of time talking about god and how he must have created hell in season 3, that convo and what happened with Death feels like there’s stuff left on the table. Last we saw Dracula he was actively planning on purging the planet of humans, which Lisa must know about… they just talked that out offscreen I guess? Feels like a missed chance.

 

Overall a really fun 4 seasons, and I liked this one too. It’s not often I feel like we need MORE content by the end of a series, but season 4 really feels like they wrapped everything up without the time needed to get there. But it’s way more fun and better than I ever hoped a Castlevania cartoon would be.

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elbobo

elbobo

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On 5/14/2021 at 12:31 PM, Kal-El814 said:

 

It’s a mixed bag, I think. Some of it looks a lot more detailed, a couple scenes specifically seem borderline not finished.

 

I binged it yesterday evening and this morning. Overall I think it’s good, but it’s the weakest of the seasons. I suspect that COVID and Ellis being a shit contributed to the problem but it really feels like 2 seasons of content crammed into 1 season worth of episodes, and a bunch of stuff suffers.

 

Hector and Isaac:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

yeah Issac

is bipolar this season. One episode he is using his army to rebuild a city and seems kind of satisfied with that path and the next "welp to go murder the hector and the vampires"

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Greatoneshere

Greatoneshere

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8 hours ago, Kal-El814 said:

Watch this and report back, @Greatoneshere , you coward. :p

 

8 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

I'm on episode 8 now so I'll give my @Greatoneshere approved impressions.

 

Hahaha yes I'm dying to see it! I should have actual final season review by end of weekend. Everything mentioned so far by you guys sounds very promising for the most part.

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Keyser_Soze

Keyser_Soze

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I wrapped this up, I was very pleased. My initial impressions stand and maybe even got better as the series went on.

 

The artwork looks very good and is incredibly detailed, it continued to impress until the very end where I think it just elevated itself to awesome. I think the 3D and 2D tends to make some scenes look framey but overall I thought everything moved very smoothly. I thought the action scenes were very impressive, sometimes surpassing  something you'd see in a live action movie.

 

I feel storywise it's the opposite of season 3. Season 3 was not enough Alucard and what included him was kind of underwelming, in the meantime Isaac and Hector got built up. In season 4 the three main characters are featured pretty prominently and Alucard has a pretty good storyline. The Isaac stuff felt a little odd, as noted above, because it came and went so quickly, but I think it feels a bit less odd if you continue stuff over from Season 3. Overall I wasn't displeased with how it went

 

I did mention Malcolm McDowell earlier and I thought he was pretty good, then turned fucking awesome

 

Spoiler

When he was Varney I thought alright he's some lovable loser but when he transformed towards the end he really stepped the performance up to something else.

 

Overall, this is probably the best season and a fitting end if they end (well if they end up not making any more episodes this is a pleasing finale :p )

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Brick

Brick

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Finished. That was overall a good season, but even though this was 10 episodes I still wanted more. I think it should have been split into 2 seasons since there was so much more that could have been expanded upon. 

 

I liked the one monster with only two legs showing up since that's a common boss from the games, and the fleas too. I'm sure there were other references to the games that I missed. 

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Greatoneshere

Greatoneshere

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Okay, I don't normally do this anymore (man, not in awhile, since before the big deletion?) but people actually asked, which is cool. @Kal-El814 and @Keyser_Soze here are the full, FULL impressions. For everyone else, this is to a degree how I used to review things. I will not be hiding spoilers - I'll also try to address everything the way Kal-El did.

 

My wife and I loved this season and thought it closed things out really, really strongly. However, I do agree with @Kal-El814 that it was definitely overstuffed and felt like 2 seasons' worth of material in one. Not all but some characters have strange jumps in characterization where you can see how they'd get there but it either happened between seasons or happens very fast. That said, beyond that issue I really enjoyed the season. It was beautifully shot, scored, directed, voice acted, with everyone at the peak of their games. Certain fight scenes are just nuts, and the easter egg to Berserk was something I personally nerded out on.

 

What's funny is I feel the opposite of @Kal-El814 about Hector and Isaac. I like both characters a lot but it's Hector's characterization and arc that felt like it suddenly jumped to a new place as opposed to Isaac, where I feel like I've gone on this beautiful journey with this quiet, soft spoken, carefully considered man while he travels the world having great conversations with different people and demons. Hector felt totally cucked in season 3, to the point his naivete was getting hard to believe. But it ended with him basically trapped. We then start season 4 with him kind of happy with his lot in life, doing a side gig to collaborate to help bring Dracula back to life with St. Germain and Varney and walking around his prison happily, with a secret plan via the things he is putting into the walls. The fact Lenore seems almost miserable in her situation and deferential to Hector in her therapy sessions with him also felt like a heel turn given her actions in season 3. However, I am happy with how it all ended. It felt weird that Lenore's two other sisters just totally gave up on checking if she was still alive, simply presuming she's dead, and then for Lenore to kill herself willingly felt, while poetic, quite sudden. But I am happy Hector gets to live, and maybe happily with the only other Forgemaster on Earth.

 

Isaac, by comparison, has changed over the seasons and we've seen that from everything he's gone through until now in all of his unique conversations with Flyeyes and the Captain and others. He has slowly changed his mind on humanity over time. It always made sense why Isaac hated humans given his horrific treatment when he was a slave but time, wisdom, and experience change him. When the episode ends with: "I want to live" it's incredibly life affirming in the most honest way for his character. Before he was a slave, to some master, then to Dracula, then to the idea of resurrecting Dracula. He realizes he must forge ahead, not look to the past or be submissive to someone else. Isaac never truly realized the power he had cultivated over all this time, still thinking himself the slave. But now, he knows - he is strong, he has power, and perhaps he can do some good with it. It's a beautiful turn of character for someone we never thought would do so (given his very different version in the game Curse of Darkness).

 

As for Trevor and Sypha, what can I say? Their relationship and banter is great, their fight scenes look awesome, and they continue to do what Belmonts and Belnades do, kill monsters. We saw all of that here. I love the characters and the action, but their investigative story into the plot to resurrect Dracula was kind of boring and the crazy young person in charge of who was left in Targoviste was irritating to no end. But it all comes back together when Alucard shows up. Alucard's storyline was enjoyable, a nice redemption from how season 3 was heading him down a dark path. His flirtatious interactions with the village leader were fun and Alucard's fish out of water moments usually land. It's a pretty slight storyline, but a good one. 

 

St. Germain, I don't know where to start. I love all the Infinite Corridor stuff and St. Germain is always an entertaining presence but like Hector and Lenore his characterization felt rushed. The idea the fun St. Germain from season 3 is forced to go dark because of Death and at first he hates forcing himself to do terrible things to accomplish his goals is super interesting. But eventually he's just a bad, terrible guy and they skip a lot of that changeover. Either way the St. Germain Alucard learns of is quite different than the one Trevor and Sypha knew in season 3. Thankfully he gets a moment of redemption before he dies, saving Trevor. The fact the mysterious girl he is after blows him off is also super strange but intriguing - given we're now getting a Rondo of Blood (and presumably a follow up Symphony of the Night) adaptation, perhaps she could re-appear. He is somewhere between an anti-hero and villain this season.

 

As for the villains, I definitely enjoyed Carmilla's plotline. She fit her mythological status in vampire lore perfectly, becoming the bloody countess whose bloodlust can never be sated. Her fight scene was fucking epic, and her and Isaac represent a duality - she hungers for more, Isaac wants to live. It's fitting it is Isaac who ends her, given his love and her disdain for Dracula. I already mentioned Lenore, and I also liked the B-plot of Morena and Striga - they share a lovely relationship and their individual realizations that they could no longer follow Carmilla was really well done. When they go through all the options they could do, when they speak about living forever, together, quietly, you feel that. Their story was small but good. Death was a very sudden thing to happen. It was cool, his design was cool, the action was cool. But it was pretty clear from the start that some random lady sitting in the Infinite Corridor with crazy shit like special keys is probably not who they say or show that they are. I was confused by her initially because it made no sense. It being explained helps, but St. Germain should have been a lot smarter about that. But he perhaps was blinded. Varney/Death was enjoyable. You can't top Dracula, so pivoting to a spiritual entity that feeds on death and so needs someone like Dracula alive is both amusing and fun. 

 

Dracula and Lisa. Yeah, I don't know how to feel about this. Lisa is in Hell because she was condemned by the Church - Hell only exists if Christianity exists, and so, if you aren't a good Christian you go to Hell, and that's why she's there. Dracula is in Hell for obvious reasons. The fact they come back in their corporeal forms just because their souls are freed makes no sense to me, but whatever, it's spiritual/religious mumbo jumbo. The fact the TV show plays it like they finally "get to be happily together" is . . . weird to me? Like, Dracula is a genocidal murderer. Even reformed now, he was one. Lisa doesn't mind? No discussion about any of it? I guess it can come back in the Rondo of Blood adaptation but it was a weird ending to me for them. And the fact they are like: "fuck seeing Alucard, he needs a break" also was hand wave-y. Alucard would LOVE to see his mom alive, I'm pretty sure. It's a nice coda without context, but in terms of the story I like it and I don't at the same time.

 

TL;DR: Season 4 was awesome and maybe the best season for me. I loved the whole show though. Season 2 is a close second. Seasons 1 started it all and season 3 was a great bridge season with interesting tangents. Nothing was all that bad.

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