Board 8 > Just finished watching Castlevania. Wow!

(+) Yeah! (+)

Few questions.

Which game(s) does this series take place on?
How closely does the series follow the game?
If I wanted to play the series, which games should I play and on which consoles are they?

Also, let me say, I couldnt help but root for Dracula.

It's based on an NES game lol
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Which one?

Also, Trevor Belmont is a main character but I dont recall him in any of these tournaments, only Simon?

Castlevania 3, for the NES. It's a somewhat loose adaptation. Not that there was a huge amount of story to the game anyway. The biggest change is that one of the optional playable characters is AWOL.
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So this has nothing to do with SotN?

The game is based off of castlevania 3, which is probably still the best classic-vania to this day, its a good game to start with since the multiple characters make it a less painful experience, if you like that you can go back and play castlevania 1, which is just as good on a technical and difficult level but there's only one character.

After that, you can go in any order you'd like but if you want to start on metroidvanias, start with symphony of the night, since it's an amazing and beautiful and perfect but also the worst of the metroidvanias so it's hard to go back to.
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Castlevania 3, and looks to be leading into Curse of Darkness with Trevor and Isaac being prominent characters.

Not sure as I haven't played CV3 and I don't remember anything from CoD besides the characters.

Symphony of the Night (PS1, PSP, Xbox Arcade, PS4), Circle of the Moon, Harmony of Dissonance, Aria of Sorrow (GBA, Wii U VC), Dawn of Sorrow, Order of Ecclesia, Portrait of Ruin (DS, not sure if they've been released on other platforms), Adventure ReBirth (WiiWare, now unplayable legally unless you've already got it before Nintendo made it impossible to add Wii Points)

For the classic castlevanias, I don't have recommendations for them. Just start from the first and go in order. They all play about the same anyway, and are pretty tough compared to all of the newer games.

You can ignore every single 3D Castlevania game safely. At best, they're mediocre, but still inferior to the 2D games.
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Castlevania 3 (the last NES one) with a lot of elements of Curse of Darkness in season 2 (which will presumably be adapted for season 3). Some of Symphony of the Night's backstory too (Dracula and his wife).

It greatly expands it, but doesn't really contradict anything so it's pretty faithful. There was a fourth Castlevania 3 protagonist who was adapted out though.

The games are spread across a ton of consoles, but the best way right now is to probably get the Rondo of Blood/Symphony of the Night collection on PS4.
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Alucard is both a playable character in castlevania 3 and the main character of symphony of the night (plus he's in a bunch of other games as playable too)
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I really enjoyed the battle scenes in the series.

Castlevania 3 (w/ Trevor) takes place before the original Castlevania 1 + 2 (w/ Simon). As NES games there's not a huge amount of plot in the actual game, but basically Trevor is taking on Dracula's castle and along the way you can recruit 2 of 3 allies: Sypha, Alucard or Grant (who was not in the show).

There's tons of references to other games- for instance they talk about Leon Belmont in Season 2, who was the first Belmont and starred in Lament of Innocence. Hector and Isaac are main characters in the sequel Curse of Darkness. Alucard's backstory is described in Symphony of the Night.

One main difference is the show is a lot more R-rated than the games (games don't have so much blood and swearing).

As for which to play: Jeremy Parish actually just put together a pretty good list ranking all the games. His top 10 sort of mirrors my own, so I'd say any of those are definitely good to try.
https://www.polygon.com/features/2018/10/26/18011828/best-castlevania

I had no idea there so many games...

Yep, it's a 30 year franchise!

If you only play one, my top recommendation would be Symphony of the Night (starring Alucard).

if you want to play as alucard: symphony of the night

if you want a good, story driven game with a sequel: aria of sorrow + dawn of sorrow

if you want to play some classic castlevania: play at least 1 and 3. the anime loosely adapts the story of 3, it's a really good game. the original is an all time classic if you're the type of person who can actually play and enjoy NES games.

some people swear by super castlevania iv but I cannot personally recommend it over 1/3

if you want a very interesting game: order of ecclesia. it's pretty high quality and I think it blends classic and modern castlevania styles while still managing to have its own unique flavor.
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Eddie___Dean posted...

One main difference is the show is a lot more R-rated than the games (games don't have so much blood and swearing).

Except Castlevania: Bloodlines for the Genesis. Being a 90s Genesis game, that one is hilariously bloody
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just pick up Castlevania Requiem on PS4

you get Rondo of Blood and SotN which are both top of their class in each style of Castlevania
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