Castlevania season 1 (and 2) review

[Deleted member 377734]

lets get this over with, I went into this 4 - episode series expecting it to be awful like half the Temp said it would be, and was promptly blown away by how good it was, the writer knew what he was doing, the animators worked there asses off, and the music was great. While I was a bit disappointed at the length ( four 25 minute episodes ) it managed to set a great plot, introduce a solid cast, and have some satisfying action scenes. ( might I add that the fights were excellent ? ) .

The Animation
"top notch" is really the only way to describe the animations in Castlevania, they easily surpass anything Anime has to offer, it's just...mindblowing. it looks 2D, but has a surprising amount of debt which you'll really start noticing around the 3rd episode, this gives Castlevania a haunting atmosphere, hell even the generic characters look awesome. there is so much attention to detail here, that frankly, it made me fall in love in just first few minutes. if there's one problem I've always had with anime, it's the graphics during fight scenes, but these are flawlessly animated, everything from characters movements to sound effects meshed together perfectly.

( sped up quite a bit)​

The Story

The story of Castlevania follows Trevor Belmont, the last member of the disgraced Belmont family as Dracula's armies sweep across Wallachia, it's loosely based on Catlevania : Lords of Shadow ( emphasis on loosely ) the depictions of the Characters are drastically different from their originals. The cast, the setting and the dialogue all comes together to create a riveting story, also, the English VO's are awesome, Trevor's depiction succeeds largely due to his excellent dialogue.

​

Closing
Castlevania is a "must watch" for any fan of the series, heck for anyone who likes a good story and some action...if you can stomach the highly detailed gore in the first few episodes, that is ( that certainly came as a surprise ) Personally, I give it a 9.8/10 twas just a WEE bit too short for me, but left me hungry for season 2.

​

 

[Cyan]

thanks for making a review of that series.

For information, the story is not based (even far away or emphasis) on Lords of shadow, but on the second chronological entry in the main canon series : NES Castelvania 3 Dracula's Curse. (sorry it's the french wikipedia, english one doesn't have the chronology)
story, located around 1470 is about Lisa, dracula's wife, being murdered, and all three characters (playable characters on NES) meeting to go fight Dracula's rage against humans after cursing them for killing his wife.

On that point, I was happy to see that version was following correctly the canon story, matching names, characters, places, event, facts* and date correctly (almost, 1472 instead of 1476 is a very small difference)
* Like the fact they clearly say that the castle can appear anywhere is part of the main story. the castle appear every 100years at different place, but sometime does before 100 years for different reasons.
They also depict a very emblematic location in the castle, one which is present in ALL games. that's cliché, but it's a good choice.

Spoiler: Spoiler on Character's name

Trevor meets Alucard and Sypha Belnades (also called Fernandez family in N64 game).
in the game, you can also play Grant, who is not (yet?) part of the anime series.

They are therefore not "drastically different" than the game. they match their NES version which the story is based on.
You can find more information here :
http://castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Castlevania_III:_Dracula's_Curse
http://castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Castlevania_(Netflix_series)


Lords of shadow is a reboot of the series, using the same character's names, and not part of the official storyline.


One thing I can note about the French translation provided by netflix : the first episode is using proper name, like Ţepeş, which from episode 2 is replaced with standard Tepes.
I don't know why they started using the correct letters to then remove them.

 

[Deleted member 377734]

thanks for making a review of that series.

For information, the story is not based (even far away or emphasis) on Lords of shadow, but on the second chronological entry in the main canon series : NES Castelvania 3 Dracula's Curse. (sorry it's the french wikipedia, english one doesn't have the chronology)
story, located around 1470 is about Lisa, dracula's wife, being murdered, and all three characters (playable characters on NES) meeting to go fight Dracula's rage against humans after cursing them for killing his wife.

On that point, I was happy to see that version was following correctly the canon story, matching names, characters, places, event, facts* and date correctly (almost, 1472 instead of 1476 is a very small difference)
* Like the fact they clearly say that the castle can appear anywhere is part of the main story. the castle appear every 100years at different place, but sometime does before 100 years for different reasons.
They also depict a very emblematic location in the castle, one which is present in ALL games. that's cliché, but it's a good choice.

Spoiler: Spoiler on Character's name

Trevor meets Alucard and Sypha Belnades (also called Fernandez family in N64 game).
in the game, you can also play Grant, who is not (yet?) part of the anime series.

They are therefore not "drastically different" than the game. they match their NES version which the story is based on.
You can find more information here :
http://castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Castlevania_III:_Dracula's_Curse
http://castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Castlevania_(Netflix_series)


Lords of shadow is a reboot of the series, using the same character's names, and not part of the official storyline.


One thing I can note about the French translation provided by netflix : the first episode is using proper name, like Ţepeş, which from episode 2 is replaced with standard Tepes.
I don't know why they started using the correct letters to then remove them.

guess I got my sources mixed up, thanks for pointing that out, mate. much appreciated.

 

[daweasel27]

Good review dude

 

[Cyan]

After more than a year, we finally got season 2!
We waited a long time, and I'm happy with what we got.

I thought it would be more paced and action centered now that the team assembled and had a purpose, but it's in the same continuation than the first season. lot of talk, research, and feeling. The action is there on the second half.
I felt it was more centered on Dracula's life and sorrow (Dracula's curse), almost enough to be sorry for him and agree about his plan.

Story wise, I liked it, it continued to follow the game's and character's storyline. Seeing some emblematic antagonist characters was really enjoyable too.
Animation was like season 1, sometime very good, sometime just enough.
Music was good, especially some theme we could recognized from the games. (castle entrance!)


The ending, without spoiling, allows possible season 3. Or just keep it open to match the chronology with next "Curse of Darkness" chapter, 3 years later.
There are still some unexplained events. I'm wondering what was their purpose. "throwing a cape in the forest" ? maybe a beacon to come back?


edit:
now, it's time to get a new castlevania game, please. Nothing since 2014. It would be nice to fill the missing years 1095-1470