God this is just the coolest thing. Iga always seemed to take an almost perverse delight in subverting the idea of playing as a Belmont in his Castlevania games. I think the only ones that was just a straight forward Belmont protagonist was Juste and Leon. Every other game he helmed, you were specifically NOT playing as a Belmont for the main story. I think that was mostly motivated by a desire for gameplay variety, since other protagonists could use weapons that weren't just. You know. The whip. But it ALSO allowed them a lot of creative control over being able to do cool shit like this, where the Belmont is a boss fight.
This moment hits even more strongly than the fight with Julius in Aria. That was cool and impactful and all, but this fight has even more weight thrown behind it because this is TREVOR. This is the protagonist we played as in Castlevania 3. And he's in his prime too, Julius was shaking off a pretty bad bender by the time of his fight, but here Trevor is fresh only three years off from his fight with Dracula. Making this initial encounter an unwinnable boss fight was the right call, it really hammers home just how insanely powerful Trevor is after slaying Dracula. Hector is probably lucky to be alive considering how stupidly he handled that question - I mean it's OBVIOUS the dude was asking about Isaac bro, why are you completely incapable of lateral thinking? x3
I really love how Trevor describes the events of Castlevania 3 as "the war" against Dracula. For us it was just ten or so levels of 2D platforming. But for the characters in universe it was a whole bloody conflict against the forces of darkness. Trevor proudly attributing his success to the help from his friends always makes me feel so warm and fuzzy inside. He didn't stand alone! He fought alongside Sypha! And Alucard! And absolutely nobody else =^B justice for Grant
And going to the retcon topic again, having Trevor reference elements of Hector's backstory by alluding to it as hearsay is a good method of applying retroactive continuity like that. Again it's very easy to presume that Hector and Isaac were fucking around doing stuff in the background of Castlevania 3 and they just never were encountered during the game, but Trevor and the gang still heard tell about them. It adds depth to the previous game, it expands on a legacy protagonist, and it does the job of unraveling the mystery of this new protagonist for the audience in this game. Very well written storytelling considering how minimalist it is.
