Castlevania influences in poe?

Not sure if this has been pointed out before, but it now has me curious if it's intentional and if so, who on the dev team enjoyed Castlevania enough to draw inspiration from it?

There's a small handful of similiarities that I've noticed with my limited CV knowledge. As an example, the Terminus Est sword from Symphony of the Night (labeled a poisoned "executioners" sword). POE also has a Terminus Est, and the orange text is in reference to an executioners sword.

There's soul eater rings through a few CV games, and ofc, POE also has soul eater, although they act a bit differently. This one is a reach, possibly.

I'm not sure if chaos in POE has any sort of story/lore to it, but it also exists in CV as something that represents the root of all chaotic things. Is chaos in PoE a bit deeper than just a damage type?

Another fairly interesting bit is that Dawn of Sorrow introduced "weapon synthesis", a method to create more powerful weapons. Now this could be a stretch as well, but I found it to be pretty amusing.

A few other things:
Soul Taker a reference to SotN's Soul Steal?

Megingjord in Castlevania gives strength and attack. Meginord in PoE gives strength and attack!

Mjollnjr, a Dawn of Sorrow lightning based cudgel vs Poe's Mjolner (lightning as well).

I thought I had more in mind but can't recall. Pretty neat references if not completely accidental. I'm curious now where the developers other influences may exist outside of the typical arpg classics.

Some uniques were from supporters wiki has where Terminus Est came from.


https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Terminus_Est

Soul taker is another supporter unique.

And Mjolner is also one I believe. But even if not, that's more Norse mythology than CV influence imo.

A castlevania ARPG POE Grim Dawn style would be a great idea.

Terminus Est is from a series of books I am actually currently reading, written in the 80s. The OG "this sword is so beautiful it's a she" fantasy series. Sadly she doesn't talk.

OP: do your googling before assuming a source is THE source. Castlevania didn't invent much at all, given the trend of 80s and 90s Japanese fantasy game design was to plumb existing ideas and use them wholesale. Alucard? Vampire Hunter D, himself inspired by Van Helsing. Beelzebub? Legion. Big daddy D himself? Hammer horror. Cursed sword murasame? Legend from the Edo period. Some of these were so obscure in Japan at the time they likely seemed original.

Meginord is indeed from Norse mythology.

Then there's an issue of localisation. The notorious crissaegrim had a different Japanese name -- I honestly don't know why they renamed it to a mountain range from Lord of the Rings.

And Final Fantasy isn't much better. You can find ripoff Mindflayers in there. Tiamat as a multiheaded dragon is straight out of D & D. Orcs. Goblins. The occasional mech.

Otoh Japan and the West have been plundering each other's artistic cultures for almost 200 years so really it's all just carrying a fine tradition.

---

As for PoE items, there is also a unique wand that references My Little Pony. User made, but there is in fact at least one GGG dev who is or was a fan of the show. Lol.

Soul taker+ heartbreaker= kingmaker. Two former moderators made those. I always assumed it was a reference to a song. Def not Akumajou.

Pretty sure poe takes things from everywhere, just like castlevania and every other game.

Ayup but in this case it was less "taken" and more "taken and then given".

Nothing will ever top Diablo 1's best Biblically-inspired unique: Rod of Onan.

Let's face it GGG borrow heavily from everywhere.

"

AbilityPoints wrote:

Let's face it GGG borrow heavily from everywhere.

hoho and what games haven't lets face it.