Castlevania is coming to Netflix
Earlier this year, it was reported that an animated Castlevania series was being developed by Netflix, with not one, but two seasons already confirmed.
Now Netflix have not only dropped a debut trailer, but they have confirmed the series release date, 7th July 2017.
In probably one of the more interesting trailers seen recently, we see after someone plugs in a Castlevania game into a Ninento Entertainment Systems, or as it is more commonly known, the NES, a retro-styled game menu appears showing various Netflix IP off as options, before Castlevania is clicked on.
It is in this moment, that we get an idea of the series story. The series description in the trailer reads as follows: "The last surviving member of a disgraced clan fights to save Eastern Europe from Dracula. Inspired by the classic NES game".
We then see a number of actions scenes, before a man declares that he will be the one to kill Dracula. That's right, we've got some more vampire fighting coming to our screens!
What is Castlevania?
For the uninitiated, Castlevania is a games series created by Konami, starting in 1986. There have been a series of games in the franchise, the latest being Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2. If we look beyond video games however, the latest iteration of Castlevania would be the erotic, (yes, I said erotic), CR Pachinko Akumajoi Dracula machine, in 2015 in Japan.
Pachinko machines, for those unaware, are a cross between a slot machine and an upright pinball machine and are popular in Japan.
Castlevania, along with Nintendo's Super Meteoroid series, had such a big impact on the gaming landscape, with a focus on side-scroll exploring in usually, but not always, 2D environments, for items and abilities, non-linear gameplay and other characteristics, that it created its own sub-genre of gaming, known as "Metroidvania".
This classic NES game that the series is inspired by, is Castlevania III, Dracula's Curse.
Elephant in The Room
Let's be honest, adaptations of video games series haven't usually set the world alight; well, for good reasons anyway.
The "Street Fighter" film released in 1994 and starred the likes of Jean Claude Van Damme and Kylie Minogue, was panned by critics, along with Super Mario Brothers (the most memorable part of the film for me being the "Everybody Walk the Dinosaur", song), Doom, Double Dragon, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, BloodRayne, DOA: Dead or Alive, Hitman, Assassin's Creed, Tekken (denounced by the games series director), Postal, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, and so forth and so forth.
The original Mortal Kombat movie and the MK TV series weren't bad, but I do not believe that there's much hope for gamers like myself, in not seeing the trend of their beloved game franchises being torn to shreds and ruined for mass viewing and consumption, ending any time soon.
However, one of the producers of this show is Adi Shanker. Adi's work includes Dredd and also, the fantastic unofficial, modern iteration of the Power Rangers.
It is a more mature version of the Power Rangers and I highly recommend watching it (I didn't link the video due to at least one brief NSFW scene, but it can be found on YouTube). So, perhaps there is some hope. I am looking forward to watching and hope any cynicism is shattered, and this is a fantastic series.
For more information and discussion on the Castlevania series, please check out Osamu Inoue's article, thank you.
