Is The Castlevania Anime Telling The Same Story As The Game?

While debatable in its status as an anime in a game of semantics that I am uninterested in playing, the Netflix anime-style Castlevania series was a huge phenomenon during its time and even though the same can’t be said for its follow-up series, Castlevania Nocturne, it has firmly established its fanbase.

However, before Castlevania was a hit TV series, it was a beloved franchise of Gothic horror games that helped coin the “vania” bit of the “Metroidvania” genre of games that are styled after its signature style of side-scrolling, non-linear action gameplay.

What Games Does The Castlevania Anime Adapt?

The Castlevania anime is not strictly adapting the story of one single Castlevania game in full. However, it is adapting the story of most of a single game while patch-working some of the better details from other games in.

The Castlevania anime story is primarily drawing its characters and inspiration from Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse which follows Trevor Belmont and Sylpha as they try to stop Dracula.

As the Castlevania anime goes on, it moves on from Castlevania III and uses more plot points from Castlevania: Curse of Darkness when it introduces characters like Hector and Isaac, whose conflict makes up much of the Curse of Darkness game plot.

Finally, Alucard’s portrayal is heavily lifted from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night where he was the main character and was actually given personality and more detailed backstory.

Most of what the Castlevania anime does differently is quite obvious. Castlevania III was a game from 1989 and did not have a particularly robust story and characterization. So the anime added that in, and sometimes, they changed whole characters to better fit the narrative and characterization that they were crafting.

The most notable change is the characterization of Isaac, who is a completely different type of character in Curse of Darkness. Although, the anime also made Dracula himself far more sympathetic as well.

What Games Does The Castlevania Nocturne Anime Adapt?

Like the original Castlevania anime, Nocturne seems to be inspired by a particular Castlevania game, but not particularly concerned with adapting the story of it in with any diligence.

Castlevania Nocturne follows the characters of the Castlevania: Rondo of Blood game. In the game, Richter, who is a descendant of Simon Belmont, is trying to save his beloved Annette from Dracula who captured her.

This is obviously different from the Nocturne anime where Richter, a descendant of Trevor Belmont, is trying to stop the rise of the Vampire Messiah.

While the original Castlevania anime differed significantly from the plots of the games it was using at various points, it did use pieces of those plots. Nocturne, however, completely changes the plot of Rondo of Blood (which wasn’t especially interesting anyways) and only uses the characters.

While Nocturne Season 2 is not yet out, it would not be unexpected to see more plot and characters from the Symphony of the Night game leak into subsequent seasons of Nocturne, since Symphony of the Night is a direct sequel to Rondo of Blood.

Find Anime Recommendations Like Castlevania at Our Sibling Site:

Anime Like Castlevania

After his wife was burned at the stake for witchcraft, the powerful vampire Vlad Dracula Tepes declares that all of Wallachia will die. He summons an army of