Let’s take a crack at something new for Halloween.
When I first heard that Castlevania of all things was getting the Netflix original treatment I had little expectations because these things NEVER turn out to be all that great or worth mentioning. I frankly never heard of Warren Ellis but if nothing else, the choice to adapt Castlevania 3 was a lot smarter than say adapting Castlevania 1 and 2 since 3 at least has the adventuring party of Trevor, Sypha, Grant, and Alucard.
I’m not the most avid Castlevania fan but I have had my experiences with the series in its earlier incarnations on the NES and SNES before the awkward transition to 3D on the N64 and PS2 and the limbo it went through on the console space while the series had a revival in the handheld platforms. The subject of this talk however pertains primarily on the NES title Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse, the PS2 title Curse of Darkness, as well as elements of the legendary Symphony of Night on the PS1 as the Netflix animation covers them all three to a degree. Now I say to a degree because not only are the first two aforementioned games linked chronologically on the canon timeline Konami put out but the animation bothered to incorporate the plot points from Curse of Darkness that begin in Dracula’s Curse into the adaptation which is something I appreciate the thought of because the people behind this seem to really want acknowledge the other games in the series. Symphony is mostly in there to help characterize Alucard and Dracula, which is a pretty big deal.
So how does the adaptation, from a western studio I might add, do to the Castlevania name? Well let’s find out, but I’m not going to pretend you can’t read the title so you already have a rough idea.
Lair of the Idle 