The trailer has landed for Castlevania on Netflix, and before I say anything more just check it out below:
The trailer starts out with an image of an original Castlevania cartridge on NES, weathered to look ‘80s fabulous. When the cartridge is inserted, the screen shows a very old-school Netflix selection menu that I kind of wish you could adopt for use as a skin on your actual Netflix account. You listening, Netflix? I just gave you that one for free. You’re welcome.
Then the trailer cuts into an accented voice talking about a darkness upon the land and a savior being needed, skeletons on stakes, moody music, castles, fire, explosions, shining blades, mages and all that kind of good stuff. I’m a little distracted because the female voice going “Who are you?” literally sounds exactly like Tali and I am #shooketh.
I never played a Castlevania, I never met a Castlevania , I don’t even know ha, so I’m not even going to pretend to be the world’s reigning Castlevania expert. Yeah, I know, I was in a coma until I turned 30, forgive me. But Castlevania is a huge inspiration to people both in and out of the games industry and one of the big classics, so it’s about time it got an adaptation with some heart in it.
From what I can see in the trailer, Castlevania ’s character and environment design look absolutely fantastic but the animation seems a little stuttery when characters are moving, which is pretty much what I would expect from any game-adaptation anime. That’s in the trailer, which is usually where you show off your animation at its peak, so if characters always move in that stuttering fashion, maybe that just means Castlevania saved its budget for the fight scenes. Or maybe the animation is just bad. It happens.
Castlevania comes from Frederator Studios, the team behind Adventure Time and The Fairly OddParents, and Warren Ellis, the legendary comic book writer who created Transmetropolitan (one of the only comics I ever managed to read all the way through), Global Frequency and more. It’s being produced by Adi Shankar, who was behind projects like Dredd, Killing Them Softly , and Lone Survivor. And he’s pretty pumped for what he considers “the first good video game adaptation.”
As for exactly what series of events in the intricate Castlevania timeline this series is adapting, it appears to be focusing on Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse with an emphasis on what drove Dracula to become the monster that he is. I always love a good, monstrous vampire story that grounds itself in horror rather than glitter, and judging by the trailer’s over-the-top moodiness, that’s just what we’ll get.
Castlevania 3 itself is notoriously difficult, both on a mechanical level and thanks to some technical issues with edge detection, but a lot of players find it abundantly rewarding. And you can’t beat the soundtrack:
Bump that bad boy at the club or make it your wedding song. Either way, Castlevania arrives on Netflix July 7. Will you be watching? Feel free to let us know in the comments section below.
