If you had a Nintendo in the 1980s or knew someone who did, then you've heard about the Castlevania games. One of the earliest examples of games that blended both fantasy and horror, the Castlevania games also had great storylines and responsive gameplay. They started as classic sidescrollers and are still some of the best examples of similar games from the same time.
In the last three decades years, however, the Castlevania franchise has grown to include more than 30 games, a reboot series, and even a few spinoffs. On-screen adaptations languished in development purgatory for years until Adi Shankur and writer Warren Ellis brought it to life via Netflix in an animated adaptation. Like most film versions of video games, some things stay the same while others have to change. It looks like someone finally got that right, as Castlevania is already being recognized as one of the best adaptations of a video game to the screen to date. Here are five things that gamers will recognize from the Castlevania series in the cartoon and five other things they'll miss.
Different: Grant Danasty
We've got the Belmonts, along with some other characters like Sypha and Alucard, but one prominent figure from the games is missing. That would be the thief and pirate, Grant Danasty. Grant has quite the fan following, and, along with his companions Sypha and Trevor, is heralded as one of "the Greatest Three"—the team of heroes that defeated Dracula and rebuilt the nation of Wallachia.
A love triangle was a part of the drama, which in turn led to a splintering of the group and Grant's very own time-traveling quest. Perhaps the writers of the animated series felt that, since Trevor started as something of a rogue, the story didn't need Grant. At least, not yet.
Same: Belmont Family, Vampire Hunters
Not all of the games include the Belmont family, but they're an integral part of the vintage games and feature prominently in most of the modern ones. Their portrayal in the first two seasons of Netflix's Castlevania revolves around Trevor, the last surviving member of the family in this version of the story. Trevor also appears in several video games and is apparently the son of Gabriel Belmont and the father of Simon Belmont.
All of the characters appear in the games, but Simon is probably the most well-known of the Belmonts. In both the game and the animated series, they have a long history of fighting vampires along with other creatures of darkness.
Different: The Belmont Manor and Hold
If you've played the games, you get the idea that the Belmonts are an old family—probably landowners or nobility, perhaps even royalty. The medieval European backdrop also helps set up that assumption.
However, the games never contain any references to an ancestral home, castle, or similar structure that such a family would possess. In the animated series, Trevor takes his companions home. Alucard actually mocks this sentiment initially, the same way a gamer might, as the Belmonts never even had a home for all we knew. The depiction of the ruined house in the cartoon is eerily similar to Dracula's castle from the video games.
Same: Trevor and Sypha
It's not overt, but the way Sypha and Trevor grow closer throughout Season 2, which concludes with them riding off into the forest side by side, suggests the relationship is deepening beyond party cooperation or friendship. This follows the storyline in the games which make Sypha and Trevor a couple.
To that end, this could be a foreshadowing the appearance of Simon, who is a descendant of Sypha and Trevor in the video game storyline. Kudos to voice actors Richard Armitage and Alejandra Reynoso for giving these characters believable and heartwarming chemistry.
Different: The Bride of Dracula Backstory
In the many video games that pit the Lord of Darkness against the Belmonts, Dracula Vlad Tepes is not a sympathetic character. In fact, we know very little about his backstory at all from only the video games. His human wife, a woman named Lisa, is given little more than a name in the course of the games.
In the animated adaptation, she's a much more interesting character. Her determination to become a doctor in a world of superstition introduces the main theme of the series, that being the idea that ignorance is the true evil. She isn't present in the games, and she is burned as a witch at the beginning of Castlevania, Season 1. Her execution is the catalyst for Dracula's attack on humanity, a war that he launched in her name.
Same: Alucard
Alucard is one of the most powerful playable characters in the games, and his strength carries over into the animated series. In the video game Mirror of Fate, he's the vampire version of Trevor Belmont and eventually meets up with his son Simon, but as Alucard, not Trevor.
His depiction in the video games and animated series are similar, with the same long blond hair and formal Elizabethan clothing, and his main weapon is always a sword. In the animated series, he is estranged from his father Dracula since he disagrees with the premise of his father's war on humanity. Why he has turned against his father is never explained in detail in the video games.
Different: Magic, Science, and Speakers
It's simple in the game. There's good magic and bad magic. In the animated series, these lines are blurred cleverly. There's science, which is often mistaken for magic, the magic that you learn if you're a wizard-like Sypha, and the "magic" the corrupt church of Wallachia claims to wield.
The Speakers are set in opposition to this, comparable to European Roma in the sense that they are permanently nomadic as part of their culture. In the video games, Sypha is simply a skilled wizard. In the animated series, she's also a Speaker, a race that memorizes knowledge as opposed to writing it down. Their persecution mirror's that of Lisa, Dracula's wife.
Same: Dracula's Castle
Earlier games included more settings, like graveyards and forests, but in the end, the ultimate battle always took place in Dracula's castle. In some of the more recent games, the whole epic adventure takes place within the castle walls.
In the animated series, the castle moves around, which is similar to some of the more recent games. The ability of the castle to move isn't magic in the series, however. The traveling castle seems to be science-based in the Castlevania series, equipped with gears and lamps, but we don't get to find out before the mechanisms are destroyed at the end of Season 2.
Different: Carmilla's Loyalty
In the video games, Carmilla is fiercely devoted to Dracula. She's one of the more powerful characters, and players actually take her on as a boss at one point. In the storyline of the video games, she resurrects Dracula in her own castle in Austria.
In the animated series, she's set up as someone using intrigue and outright violence to take his place. She's the one who seduces Hector away from Dracula's side and bullies him into becoming her slave. The power vacuum that Dracula's death creates at the end of Season 2. Plus, the fact that Carmilla now has her own Forgemaster gives her a lot of potential as the next leader of the vampires.
Same: Hector and Isaac
In spite of some differences, these characters are generally the same in the video games as they are in the animated series. They serve Dracula by resurrecting corpses and building armies for him. Hector is the one who wavers in the loyalty to Dracula, but his motives other than a weakness of character are unclear.
Isaac, on the other hand, is loyal to Dracula without question. Isaac is another boss that players will fight in the games. In the animated series, their characters have a more cohesive backstory that explains how they were trained as Forgemasters, why they despise humanity, and finally, how they came to serve Dracula.