Being my first post, I feel obliged to explain something beforehand, my vision of video games and how I usually see them. When I experience a game, I focus on two aspects: the story and the mechanics, and since I am a fan of art, I will definitely look at this game for its artistic and literary side. That said, while I'm going to be looking at this particular game in this artistic and literary way, I'm also not going to make a big argument about how important these values are, because Castlevania LOS begin his journey on the path that we know video games are very good at, and that is telling an epic story, and Castlevania LOS had everything and even more to be able to achieve it, but it didn't make it... the game just couldn't do it…
Starting with the analysis, we have to go to the beginning, the introduction is very important to understand the two aspects that I am going to focus on, and although I usually separate the two into different arguments, this time I will unite the story and the mechanics, because not to would be doing this game a disservice, as just the way it melds mechanics with lore and story is amazing. In the intro usually games that are epic make it clear that they are, but in the case of Castlevania, this didn't happen, instead it presented its story themes more subtly and it wasn't so obvious that you were about to start an epic story.
The inspiration
As for the themes that it presents, to the knowing eye, the influence of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy is immediately noticeable, but this is somehow expected, after all this game was compared wen it came out to “Dante Inferno” and “God of War” and the three of them have a story heavily influence by the Divine Comedy and his concept and themes presented… well of course “Dante Inferno” y practically a game about the Divine Comedy LOL, but in the case of “God of War” we see more present this in the mechanics more than the story.
But getting back to Castlevania, the story definitely has the influence of the Divine Comedy and you can notice this in the similarities with both stories, such as, for example, that both Dante and Gabriel our protagonist try throughout the story to communicate with his recently dead wife, and trying to bring her back, focusing more on the conceptual part of the story, seeing how in both hope and redemption are main themes, and it doesn't even stop there, in certain scenes of the game we see how Gabriel walks in the opposite direction of the sun and goes into the dark, and this is very important for the development of the story.
In the Divine Comedy, Dante uses light as a metaphor for holiness, and Gabriel, just like Dante, must walk away from the light in order to reach his wife. This is something that is evident in the story, since light and darkness are a very important theme in Castlevania to the point that we see their literary relevance integrated into the mechanics of the game, something that it is present in the form of powers, and light magic and dark magic abilities and even goes one step further, making the hero's weapon blend with the story.
Now this is as i say, my first post, so i dont have that much RC, so a will have to end it here, but i suggest that you follow me. I intend to continue this in the next part...