Trevor Belmont, Sypha Belnades, and Alucard largely balanced bringing in monsters, characters, and storylines from the video games, particularly Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse and Castlevania Curse of Darkness. However, creator Warren Ellis mostly ignored one of the most beloved elements of the Castlevania game series, which could have taken the Netflix adaptation to the next level.
Castlevania seasons 1 and 2 followed Trevor (Richard Armitage) as he teamed up with Sypha and Alucard to take down Dracula (Graham McTavish). This culminated in an attack on Dracula's castle, playing the iconic "Bloody Tears" music from Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, as the trio decimated Dracula's vampire army. After Alucard killed his father, Dracula, Castlevania seasons 3 and 4 saw the trio take on other game antagonists like Carmilla, Hector, and Isaac. Season 4 ended with a climactic battle between Trevor and Death, as the dimension-hopping Saint Germain sacrificed himself to prevent Death from bringing back Dracula in a tortured state, which would have seen the vampire decimate the land. All of these stories had a clear link to the original game – however, the show still largely missed one crucial connection.
Music was a key part of the Castlevania game series, and apart from the brief use of "Bloody Tears", the Netflix series did not make the most of many of the games' iconic tracks. There is a reason that there were so many videos on YouTube of people reacting to the "Bloody Tears" fight at Dracula's castle. Many viewers expected the series to use the franchise's vast pool of music to accompany the many awesome scenes of Trevor Belmont, Sypha, and Alucard fighting Dracula's forces. Using "Bloody Tears" but no other tracks from the games was even stranger, as it proved that musical rights were not to blame for the other tracks' absence. This represents a huge missed opportunity for the show that could have elevated it above and beyond other similar adaptations.
Why Castlevania Needed The NES Games' Iconic Tracks
The most baffling absence in the series was the track "Vampire Killer" from the original Castlevania game. This track accompanied the very first stage and was an iconic piece of NES music. Netflix's Castlevania featured Trevor Belmont's whip, the Vampire Killer, prominently, so leaving out its namesake music was a strange choice. Trevor even used the weapon in his final fight against both Dracula and Death, so its inclusion could not have been more appropriate.
It is also odd that Netflix's take on Castlevania did not use the song "Beginning" from Castlevania III: the game the series was most heavily based on. There were many liberties taken with the adaptation's story, such as the absence of the fourth playable character Grant Danasty despite including Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard. However, leaving out this iconic track from the game the series is based on was an unforgivable mistake. Castlevania remains one of the greatest adaptations of a video game, but Netflix could have taken things to the next level by incorporating more recognizable pieces of video game music, particularly "Vampire Killer" and "Beginning".