1852 AD

Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness

After the events of Legacy of Darkness, Castle Dracula still remained, a blight on the land that eventually needed to be eliminated. Eight years after Cornell defeated the Dark Lord Dracula, another hero ventured into Dracula's lands on a quest to balance the scales of good and evil.

This man, Henry Oldrey, was the child Cornell saved in 1844 AD. He'd witnessed the death of his parents at the hands of Dracula's minions, but he also remembered that a tall, blue-haired werewolf had come to his rescue and saved him in his hour of need. Having grown up with that memory, Henry trained as a Holy Knight of the Church, working to gain the power to go back into Castle Dracula and help rid the land of the Dark Prince and his evil.

But his quest wasn't to directly confront Dracula. No, Henry was there to free kidnapped children from Dracula's dungeons, to stop them from being used in Dracula's Black Mass Ritual (which would be used to give Dracula a new host and a new, more powerful form). He was essentially there to prevent other children from meeting a fate that could have also befallen Henry were it not for the intervention of Cornell. He knew he had a duty and how could he do any less for these kids than was done for him?

Henry was able to free six of the children, saving their lives and making Dracula's resurrection, hopefully, that much more difficult. It was up to other heroes, though, to directly intervene with Dracula's resurrection and put the final nail in the coffin (if you will) of the Dark Lord's plans...

Castlevania 64

While Henry ventured into Dracula's Castle to save the six children, two other heroes went forth to track down and kill the newly resurrected Dark Lord. One was Reinhardt Schneider, a distant descendant of the Belmont clan (that clan having disappeared, passing their whip to relatives or other warriors powerful enough to wield the whip in their stead). Reinhardt went to the castle, as was his birthright and destiny. In the castle, he encountered a girl, Rosa -- a beautiful, unwilling vampire. Reinhardt fell for the girl, and even though he had to eventually fight Rosa at one point during his adventure through the castle, he fought to free her from Dracula's hold, potentially giving her mortality and her freedom.

The other hero, Carrie Fernandez, was a descendant of the Belnades clan of sorcerers (potentially just a class of sorceresses, even, as aside from Juste Belmont, no other male hero is ever shown with the Belnades powers). As with Reinhardt, it was Carrie's familial destiny to go to Dracula's castle to try and stop the Dark Lord. There she faced off against another Belnades descendant, Camilla Fernandez, who had been turned into a vampire by the evil witch Actrise. Carrie had to destroy the unlucky vampire, and then take on Actrise herself, removing the sorceress and her power from Dracula's grasp.

Both heroes also encountered Malus, a creepy little child that had been kidnapped by Dracula's minions and taken to the castle. Unlike the other kids Henry freed, Malus was not rescued by the Knight. Instead, he was actually the child chosen to be Dracula's new host. Carrie encountered Malus more than once, attempting to rescue him from the clutches of Dracula's minions, but each time it seemed the child fell deeper into the darkness, all because he was never meant to be freed.

When the two heroes reached the top of the castle, they each had to fight a set of battles: the "false" Dracula, Gilles de Rais, and then Malus, as an adult, in his form of the reborn Dracula. Dracula's magic was strong, but could not withstand the power of the two heroes working side-by-side. The vampire lord fell while the heroes stood victorious. They escaped the castle (and in Reinhardt's case, was joined by the freed Rosa on the outskirts of the castle), while Dracula lay defeated as his castle crumbled once more.