Castlevania

Cheerful Ghost Radio Episode 43: Castlevania NES Review

We're in a Castlevania mood this month! If you liked our recent review of Castlevania on Netflix, then listen to us talk about the game that started it all, way back in 1986, and started one of the most-loved game series of all time!

Cheerful Ghost Radio Episode 42: Castlevania Season 2 Review

Dracula's war against humanity rages on, and we are here to tell you all about it! Netflix recently released season 2 of Castlevania, their hit series based on the vampire-slaying video games. Will Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard stop Dracula and bring peace? Find out in this episode of Cheerful Ghost Radio!

And if you'd like to hear what we thought of the first season way back in Episode 4, check it out here: https://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/posts/3452/cheerful-ghost-radio-episode-3-castlevania-special

Next Up On The Nintendo Classic: Castlevania!

jdodson gives this an astounding "Must Play" on the Ghost Scale

This achieves something special, and it would be a shame to miss it.

jdodson gives this a "Must Play" on the Ghost Scale

This achieves something special, and it would be a shame to miss it.

After recently completing Metroid and Mega Man 2 I decided to start playing Castlevania. One big motivation for picking up the Nintendo Classic was to finally add a bunch of games to my collection to play and Castlevania was one of those games. Castlevania has been a game on my bucket list and it's good to finally get around to playing it.

"Nintendo hard" came to mind immediately as I started playing Castlevania. The first few levels aren't too difficult but once you move on the difficulty ramps up and it doesn't seem to stop. Like with Mega Man 2 or Metroid if you spend some time to learn the game, you can get better a bit at a time. If you look at how long these... Read All After recently completing Metroid and Mega Man 2 I decided to start playing Castlevania. One big motivation for picking up the Nintendo Classic was to finally add a bunch of games to my collection to play and Castlevania was one of those games. Castlevania has been a game on my bucket list and it's good to finally get around to playing it.

"Nintendo hard" came to mind immediately as I started playing Castlevania. The first few levels aren't too difficult but once you move on the difficulty ramps up and it doesn't seem to stop. Like with Mega Man 2 or Metroid if you spend some time to learn the game, you can get better a bit at a time. If you look at how long these original Nintendo games are from start to finish(if you were practiced at them) they only contain a handful of hours of gameplay and because of this developers made them hard. So the average time that players beat Castlevania might be 3 hours but if you add up the amount of times you have to play the game to do that, it could take you upwards of 20 or more. So if you're not into playing the same levels over and over again then these old games might not seem like very much fun.

If I had one complaint of Castlevania it's that the platforming is often strange or a bit too unforgiving. For instance if you jump on a moving platform and you don't jump dead in the middle sometimes you can fall through it. This means that I am really careful jumping on moving platforms but it's something the original Super Mario Brothers could do well so i'm wondering what happened here? There are other instances that are just as odd but I have a few gameplay workarounds that seem to be fine they just took some figuring out.

One really nice feature of Castlevania is that the game doesn't penalize death as much as it could. Firstly you get unlimited continues which helps because Castlevania has no saved game feature and you die a lot. Castlevania is also fairly liberal with your whip upgrades often giving you them all in the very early parts of each stage making you get the most powerful main weapon rather quickly after you die. This is a huge improvement over other games like Altered Beast or Gradius that punish you way more for dying. One other fun aspect of Castlevania is the secondary items. Each one is pretty unique and useful in most situations. It's fun to consider how Castlevania influenced modern games such as Shovel Knight as many of the Castlevania items have direct Shovel Knight equals.

All that said, Castlevania is an incredible platformer and it's no wonder this kind of game spawned the incredibly popular Metroidvania genre. Even though Castlevania is difficult it never feels too punishing just that I have yet to figure something out or time a jump or attack properly. I'm looking forward to continuing my playthrough and I can't wait to take a crack at killing Dracula when his times comes!

Cheerful Ghost Radio Episode 4: Castlevania Special

Netflix dropped a new show based on the classic Castlevania series and in this episode we break it down for you to easily digest. Does Castlevania elevate the spate of terrible video game shows and movies or is it something else? The show contains some mild show spoilers so we recommend you watch it before listening. Don't worry the show is only four episodes and well worth watching!

The New Castlevania Netflix Show Is Bloody Great!

The new Castlevania Netflix show dropped recently and last night I sat down to watch the entire first season. It's not hard to binge watch the whole show as it's only 4 episodes that clock in at about 30 minutes each. That said I really appreciated that the show didn't waste much time and completed it's first story arc in four episodes. My only real complaint by the end was that there wasn't more story waiting for me but Netflix has said that it's picking up another season of 8 episodes so if you liked the first season, more is on the way.

The basic premise of Castlevania is that Dracula lost his wife and wants to take his revenge on mankind for taking her life. The... Read All The new Castlevania Netflix show dropped recently and last night I sat down to watch the entire first season. It's not hard to binge watch the whole show as it's only 4 episodes that clock in at about 30 minutes each. That said I really appreciated that the show didn't waste much time and completed it's first story arc in four episodes. My only real complaint by the end was that there wasn't more story waiting for me but Netflix has said that it's picking up another season of 8 episodes so if you liked the first season, more is on the way.

The basic premise of Castlevania is that Dracula lost his wife and wants to take his revenge on mankind for taking her life. The first episode focuses on Dracula and you really feel for him and understand why he decides to become a super villain. I was very surprised at how much I loved the story and how the choices the show creators made I didn't really expect. I was expecting some generic vampire hunter show and what I felt very fresh and original. The first season is an interesting take on religion, science and how power is used to control people. I didn't expect that Castlevania would start the show on such a pro-science bend but it does and it's an entirely surprising focus in a universe that is primarily focused on sword and sorcery. Kind of strange to consider but the Castlevania show expertly juggles science, religion, magic and monsters in such a way I was really impressed.

Simon Belmont is the main character of the show and he starts out as a defeated drifter who literally gets the shit kicked out of him when we first meet him. I really enjoyed Simon's character and the voice acting by Richard Armitage is superb. Other characters are brought in over the course of the four episodes but I don't want to spoil anything by telling you who it is.

The show feels like it's taking notes from Castlevania III and Symphony of the Night. Castlevania III is the highlight of the NES series for me but the show doesn't feel like it's a direct companion to the NES games. Frankly I really enjoy the fresh take on this universe, religion, science and the like so having the Netflix show have only light parallels to the video game is entirely fine by me.

If you have Netflix and are curious to watch the show I recommend you check it out. My only cautionary tale is that you take heed to the content as this show is very dark, bloody and contains some shocking stuff.

The Trailer For The New Castlevania Anime On Netflix Is Out!

Netflix is spending a ton of money on original new content and one of the new shows that will be coming to the streaming service this July 7th is Castlevania. The new trailer doesn't pull any punches as it starts with someone putting a Castlevania game into an old Nintendo and then the Netflix logo and 8bit video morph into a few clips of the show. The animation style looks solid and I wasn't sure how i'd feel about a dark adult Castlevania but this looks like it could be pretty interesting.

What do you think of the new Castlevania trailer? Is this something you are going to watch when it drops on Netflix July 7th?

Castlevania TV Show Coming To Netflix In 2017

http://cdn02.nintendo-europe.com/media/images/10_share_images/games_15/game_boy_advance_7/SI_GBA_Castlevania.jpg

It seems that Netflix is continuing it's journey to create as much interesting content as possible with the announcement of a new Castlevania cartoon show. According to a Collider interview with the series creator Adi Shankar the show will be based on Castlevania III and be a hard hitting dark anime. Adi Shankar is the crazy mastermind behind the Power/Rangers YouTube short that was all over the Internet back in 2015 so it's not surprising he is leading this project.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/02/09/netflix-castlevania-series/
http://collider.com/castlevania-animated-series-adi-shankar/

Fan made Castlevania film... With Worf!?

I was curious if any of you fellow Mirthful Specters out there have seen this fan made Castlevania film that just happens to have a couple Star Trek: TNG alums in it. (Michael Dorn and, in later episodes, Marina Sirtis).

I started watching it primarily because I heard Michael Dorn was in it, but the episodes aren't that bad. I'd say they're better than some fantasy shows that have made it to actual television. *cough*Legend of the Seeker*cough*

What are your thoughts?