Often times in the past, tv shows based on video games have been underwhelming to terrible. I still have flashbacks to the old Legend of Zelda cartoon. The words “Excuuuuse me princess” haunt my dreams to this day. So it was delightfully surprising that Warren Ellis’ Castlevania, which came out earlier this month, is really freaking good!
The show took influences from Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse as well as artistic inspiration from animes like Cowboy Bebop and Beserk. The four episodes of the first season are dark, gruesome, and yet laced with a biting humor (sorry for the vampire puns). Four episodes is not enough to sate our sanguine thirst for more (ok really I’ll stop with the puns). There is so much to cover in the series and Ellis has just dipped his toes into the show. So what can we hope to see in next season? Erika and Trisha will be talking to Adi Shankar, filmmaker and producer of the Netflix Castlevania series next week to see if we can wring some details from him. Until then, here’s my wishlist for Castlevania season two.
Grant Danasty
Grant Danasty is the third ally that teams up with Trevor Belmont. He’s got a super acrobatic fighting style that would be amazing translated on screen and since the show has introduced the ally characters in the same way Trevor meets them in the game, that would mean a fight between him and a possessed ninja-pirate, and that sounds awesome.
Ellis originally cut Grant from the series for two reasons. One, he didn’t have a lot of time to work with in the series. There were only 80 total minutes to pack as much in as possible, so Ellis decided to focus on fewer characters so that they would have their time to shine. Two, as stated in an interview “Grant DaNasty is a stupid name that I cannot take seriously. When he does turn up, I’ll probably use the alternate spelling of Grant DiNesti.”
Death
How can Dracula’s BFF not be a part of the series? This iconic enemy makes an appearance in virtually every game in the series including Castlevania 3, so it just makes sense that our favorite horseman would pop in for a cameo. Death could be a monstrous counterpoint to the surprisingly likeable Dracula and just imagine Trevor’s desperate fight against Death’s flying scythes and what horrors the animators could do with Deaths transformation into a disembodied head of doom.
More subweapons
Speaking of Scythes, let’s talk weapons. A Castlevania mainstay is your choice of sub-weapons. Trevor uses are each an opportunity to make the show’s already-great fight scenes even cooler. I like the addition of the sword to Trevor’s arsenal, and we’ve seen him make awesome use of the dagger, especially in his fight with the cyclops (ironic, since it’s basically the lamest of the subweapons). The axe makes a brief cameo, but we’d love to get a look at the flaming holy water, the shockingly powerful boomerang cross, and the awesome (and inexplicable) time-stopping pocket watch.
Music
Castlevania 3 has some truly phenomenal 8-bit music (in particular the absolutely amazing Japanese OST). The music in the show has been great – moody and atmospheric – but there are so many great tracks to be enjoyed in the game OST, we’d love to get some more adaptations in there
Dracula
Ok, so this one’s cheating, since we get plenty of the guy in the course of the show, but Ellis does such a good job of making us identify with our supposed big bad at the outset of the show, we find ourselves just wanting to spend more time getting to know the befanged Lord of Shadows. We all know a confrontation with him is inevitable, but wouldn’t it be great to see what he’s doing in the interim, or how he and Lisa spent their time together before that comedically evil church stepped in and doomed everyone and everything?
What do you want to see in the next season of Castlevania? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to know more about the Castlevania Netflix series? Check out next week’s Game Engine on Twitch Tuesday at 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm Pacific Standard Time.
Image Credits: Castlevania/Netflix, Castlevania 3