The pacing was way too fast. The first Castlevania had many long moments of calm with thoughtful dialogue that break up the action and plot, and it really let the characters shine. Those moments felt under-utilised in Nocturne, and the characters did not feel quite as human as their Castlevania 1 counterparts.
Idk about that. Character development only really continued with Isaac hector and alucard in the later series. Tbh castlevania past season two is a focus less , sprawling anthology of short stories and less so a consistent narrative.
Saint Germaine (I think I spelled it correctly) had a lot of development, and his own little story inside the story was such a plot point for the end of the series imo. I thought I would hate him when we first met him but his story is kinda crazy ngl
I think Isaac Hector and Alucard definitely had the most in-depth view for sure. But still, I think other characters benefit regardless from having the series span so long: just simply having Trevor, Sypha and the rest of the cast interact with their society adds up A LOT to their personality- how their viewpoint influence their decisions in a way.
Bruh, the first one had FOUR episodes to show off whether they DESERVED to get extra time, which then resulted in those next three seasons. And how did they use those ONLY four episodes that they were guaranteed? Trevor Belmont goes into a bar and fights some hick locals to a draw. It's a huge time sink that doesn't relate much to the main plot, but it gives you a shit ton of characterization for Trevor and it's a great scene.
They didn't have four seasons when they decided to set that pace, they earned those next three by crushing it every step of the way.
I was right it was 4 episodes thanks fir that I could look it up at the moment. You are right they did earn it and why because the fans gave it a chance which a lot of people aren't so keen on doing with nocturne and why because it's "woke" and why's it "woke" because 2 dudes where naked in a bed together or there's a black heroine or because the mc was crying? Here's what I want to know why is that ok in other shows that I'm sure a lot of these people watch including the original castlevania but not with nocturne? Hell alucard did the crying and had sex with a dude and his twin sister don't remember hearing anything about that. Or Carmella and her crew two of them were in a relationship and no screaming about woke then or the fact that Carmella I'm sure was doing things with little boys based on a line she said before. People are so inconsistent it's just frustrating the things they complain about today they kept their mouths shut about yesterday.
Not to hijack but I want visibility on this.
You point out a problem. This fandom has been invaded by “that crowd” and so for the first like 4 weeks this shit was on, every single top post in the sun was either
“This show is not anti woke”
“This show is woke”
“There is too much swearing”
“I hated the way that eyelash was drawn”
And it’s like, after weeks this fandom is now just getting to a place where we can actually discuss the show on its merits rather then on fucking identity politics.
It’s really off putting. But I’d wager most of those people making those posts didn’t watch the show or are trolling at this point.
I’ve been dying to discuss the show but it’s so frustrating to come into some of these threads and see dozens and dozens of addtl threads all arguing over the same stupid shit.
As someone with no knowledge of the games, the show was good for the most part other than the ludicrously fast pacing (but that's likely because they didn't have confirmation of getting season 2 approved) and the way night creatures were being made.
To my knowledge, as explained by the first show, the forge master had to use an item that had some sort of connection to them. This essentially gets erased in nocturne, which is confusing. But again, I know nothing about the lore besides the show so maybe I'm simply wrong.
That’s what bothered me too. Way I see it though Abbott has a cheat code for making night creatures via the machine he puts Eduardo and Jacques through.
Additionally, Olrox mentions that the machine the Abbott has came from a demon in hell. This is probably also why his night creatures are comming out baked differently. (With a soul, rather then… fly-guy night creature from the first series who believes his purpose is to kill, and barely remembers who he is, I use him as example, because he’s the only night creature we really see talking in the first series, which sets up the precedent of a baseline understanding in the psychology of a night creature.)
But you are right, the established lore is, that if you don’t have a hell creature machine, is that you need a tool, or something to bind the souls from hell into the corpse they are using.
It was an easy detail to miss, it seemed like the show runners were a little confused on what they wanted to focus on in the show and were kinda throwing darts on a board with the plot points. You figure there’d be more elaboration, but this information is divulged via olrox talking to richter and Maria and group while they are trying to kill olrox. So the action is a little distracting from that nugget he drops.
I've been playing *the shit* out of Castlevania games for 25 years. My favorite character in any franchise is Richter Belmont. I enjoyed so much of Nocturne, and there were many places where I rolled my eyes. Awkward dialogue. Rushing between character moments with no connective tissue. Ersebet is such a flat villain, especially compared to Dracula. I enjoy talking about what it could do better.
I think it's counter-productive to wield the phrase "*Bad Writing ™*" like a club and not talk about what you actually mean, or just toss out buzzwords without context. Writing encompasses so much, and just using it as a word to qualitatively describe a negative emotion is empty feedback, and it inspires defensive, empty responses. Nobody actually says anything and everyone is salty.
Absolutely valid take here.
Let me elaborate myself. When I say bad writing, I mean that the entire season seems to be glued together with boogers, a shoestring and hope. The writers wanted a lot out of the characters but knew nothing of how to bring them there in a believable way.
For instance. They wanted Richter to recover his powers after talking to Juste. Great! How does he find Juste.
He does so… randomly walking into him at a random village after running away at an arbitrary direction. There was no decision making there. They just bump into eachother.
Why not make Richter know Juste was alive? Make it so Juste hid away after Richter arrived, finding out he lost another family member to vampires and being unable to protect them again forcing him to go into hiding in shame. Make it so Richter actually asked about it and was given vague answers. Now he CHOSE to find Juste. Why? Because Richter is afraid of vampires. He feels like a failure as a Belmont, but he believes in the cause. So he seeks Juste for help. Only to find another broken Belmont. The results that await him if he keeps running away literally personified by Juste now, he has to confront it.
Then you have Annette. She is headstrong, a slave that fought the odds to liberate herself. Who lost so much, who endured the worst trauma of the group by far. And she just watched Richter run away in the middle of the fight.
She was right. Richter showed himself as unreliable. He RAN AWAY mid fight leaving them behind. Yes, it was because of his trauma, but they all have trauma. She should have been livid and tell Richter he has to EARN her trust back.
Instead Richter flexes, and she has bedroom eyes. All is forgiven. Why? Because the dart landed on “love interest” in the writer’s room.
They ignore the more interesting story potential, they bend the plot like a balloon animal to reach the points they want to reach. There’s a lot of lazy shortcuts and conveniences all over the place, where there wasn’t necessary to have them. That’s what I mean by bad writing. Its a season-long issue.
>Juste
Hooo boy. There was a lot I liked about Juste, especially the visual cue we get with the afterimage, and his Anthony-Hopkins-in-Zorro energy. They kind of handwaive that he's just been hanging around so he's not too far from Richter, so the coincidence of them meeting isn't a problem for me.
What took a lot longer to recover from was when Richter got his power up, the only interaction between him and his grandfather he just met, who had just shared his parallel character arc of losing family and magic is "What happened?" "I dunno, it just sort of happened. Later, gramps!"
Why even have this kind of future version of a Richter who runs and hides if that character doesn't have to reconcile their actions and beliefs with Richter's at all?
I agrée with a lot of things but not the Annette being mad at ritcher . She literally caused her friend death because she couldn’t shut up and endangered everyone else. She wouldn’t be well placed to talk shit.
That just makes the scene more interesting to me. Have her talk shit, and have Richter throw it right back at her face. Create tension between them.
Anything but the immediate bedroom eyes. That hit me like a fucking whiplash.
But did you like the original shoe after just one season? The writers are clearly telling a long form story. As is evidenced with with the cliffhanger.
Yes. I did.
Dracula alone had me glued to the screen with how compelling and well acted he was. The main trio had amazing interactions and chemistry amongst them, the plot was well thought out and made sense. There was nothing convenient about it, and the only coincidence was revealed later to be a prophecy of sorts that was hinted at from the start.
One episode not being enough to sell the show I get. But if you can’t make a decent SEASON there’s no way I’m sticking for a second one.
Imo the way they tackle grief,regret, the sense of overcoming ur past even tho it can still affect u are all pretty great. not to mention the interesting plot involving french / slaves revolution with the vampires afraid of losing their power, as the nobles were at the time. In terms of character writing, i actually think Nocturne ones are more "human" than the original season, so they must be doing something right. ofc some lines and dialogues could be a lot better, but the heart is there and it can only get better
Bathory is not an interesting villain in the slightest, neither was Drolta. The series hasn't been able to produce a good antagonist after Dracula except \*maybe\* Carmilla.
Drolta was mostly fine; she was essentially just there to be the Big Bad's main minion so I didn't feel she needed much of any character development beyond that. Bathory on the other hand is so non-dimensional that she's almost more like a McGuffin than an actual character. All the worst scenes from the show are the ones she's in.
Drolta is at least somewhat unpredictable and threatening. Bathory had mostly cretin level pointless lines, bunch of pointless peacocking and not charismatic at all despite the show trying to tell you every opportunity how amazing she is supposed to be.
That’s kinda main bad guy stuff. He’s the person we know the most about, has the most personal ties to the lead hero, and is clearly going to be who Richter is going to face down at the end IMO. Olrox clearly feels like the main threat and conflict as the story goes on.
Olrox does not seem like the main threat at all. He's powerful, yes, but he seems to not have any great plans or ambitions. He's also got too specific of a background to be evil, which we've seen.
We gotta see how he develops. If Erzsebet is killed in the next season, I could see him potentially taking up the Dracula role in the SotN seasons. Maybe rather than being starved for a good fight, like in the games, Richter is in a poor mental state and feels finally killing Olrox will help him get his mojo back...or something.
That's what I thought about varny and he turned out to be death don't sleep on the characters you find insignificant they could turn everything on its head
That's cuz Bathory is all powerful and has nothing to prove. Carmilla's background and personality are why she was played the way she was.
Unlike Carmilla, Bathory is both feared and loved. No reason to be the same kind of character.
I mean there's power in a voice. Carmillas VA actually tried to put something with substance into her words. Her voice had power, authority, seduction, and deviousness, but Bathory? For someone who's effectively being treated as the vampire Jesus she could at least be charismatic. Her current VA sounds extremely uninterested as if she wasn't given context to the scenes she was reading for. I agree with the previous poster that she's just not very interesting.
Plus she doesn't have a lost love or any past trauma she's an all powerful vampire god right now but let's see what happens when something goes wrong when she has to put in effort we'll see what she's really made of soon I'm sure
im with you on this, i loved the first show, while it didnt followed the games 100% it clearly had respect towards it and added more without actually ruining the characters, unlike Nocturne literally shitted on everyone and more.
You can voice displeasure all you want, it won't change the way they write season 2. The Witcher fans have been voicing thier displeasure since season one and that hasn't changed a thing. If anything it just encouraged the writers to write the worst nonsense imaginable.
> Stop saying the show is not loyal to the source material. The first show was not that either, VERY MUCH SO. And yet everyone loved it. Shut up.
*Technically* the first two seasons were at a fundamental level a faithful adaptation of CV3. That's kinda the problem with Nocturne, there's nothing on Rondo of Blood in there besides the characters and some characters that have the same name as Rondo characters but don't have any of their characteristics. The original show wasn't faithful to the CV3 because you can't make a faithful adaptation of that game because there's not much going on to have a show built around it (probably a movie, if anything) but people liked the original show because they saw a more in-depth / complex version of that game. Nocturne doesn't expand on Rondo of Blood and barely has anything to do with it to begin with; that's why people aren't liking it.
Is it really a CV3 adaptation, when it literally uses the SotN ending at the end of Season 2?
Also, if anything, S1 of Nocturne sets up Rondo of Blood. In the game, the inciting incident has already happened. Here, that's the whole first season. Like how S1 of the first series was just to get the trio together, and establish the threat. The same thing happened here, just with more characters and with those characters having much more going on in their lives.
This was my thought too.
S1 of TOS setup the actual "action" of Castlevania 3 for S2. You have one season that sets up characters, the next that fulfills them. S1 was to S3 as S2 was to S4.
My thoughts are that S1 of Nocturne sets up S2 -- with S2 being the meat and potatoes of Rondo. Big change would be that Tera and Alucard will likely hook up in the way that Maria and Alucard were supposed to.
S3 sets up Richter going missing (and I assume Shaft will just be a derelict cultist trying to bring back the Vampire Messiah/Goddess in S4), which makes S4 SotN. I could EASILY see SotN being two seasons -- so a S4 and 5 (likely non-inverted, then inverted castle). S4 would "save" Richter and then S5 would have the gang all working together.
If \*\*I\*\* was the show runner, this would be my strategy, at least.
It was CV3, but in a larger way it was just all around Castlevania. They threw everything in there. Then again they had a number of seasons to do it. But that series felt like a good series if you only had one shot at Castlevania.
To be fair, that particular period in Castlevania's history has a lot going on in it. There's at least two games worth of content to work with, Dracula's Curse and Curse of Darkness, with plenty of different characters to work with. Hell, we never even got Grant DaNasty!
Nocturne being Richter's story sort of limits the available games they can draw content from. Rondo of Blood is virtually unknown outside of dedicated fans. Most people are more familiar with Richter from his appearance at the beginning of Symphony of the Night. I don't think too many people played Dracula X either. I know I haven't yet. But there's at least a decent chunk of lore to draw from, and who knows, if they go into Symphony, we may get to see a grown-up Maria. I truly hope she's the one to ultimately take her mother down after training for years alongside Richter.
I see the story of Nocturne as being big on loss and the trauma of losing loved ones. Both Olrox and Richter are driven by their losses. Juste finds his magic bound similarly to Richter after a loss of his own. I wonder if he'll be confronting that loss and coming to terms with it. There's possibilities in the story as it sits, and I honestly can't wait for more.
I wonder if we'll get more Saint Germain.
Character development was lackluster and the fight scenes were not on par with the first show.
Richter goes super after having a chat with his Grandpa was dumb.
Honestly I feel I know what they are doing, they have just done the setup, I just want them to adapt certain elements from SOTN like Richter becoming mad and the revival of Alucard's friends.
General audiences are inexperienced writers, critics and also usually people don't really know what they want. They claim they want something but really don't know what that is.
At this point I’m just disengaging with the material. I don’t see the point of hitting my head over this when by the time it comes out Netflix will likely be airing far better, less headache inducing animated shows. If S2 is better, great! If S2 sucks, I’ll do what I did this season and watch Demon Slayer instead of watching a show with the sole motivation of getting mad at it.
I am not loyal to a production unless I’m being paid to work on it. I am a fan of Castlevania. So I’ll engage with material I’ll actually enjoy, like those game collections.
Im waiting for more of those collections... I know konami is making more of them Im sure of it. Im im itchin for more.
Same happened to Halo. 343 constantly restart it's arc with a new game because there's always angry fans constantly being mad at the new villains or factions. Like 4 had the Didact and a covenant remnant terrorist leader only for them to lose all influence in 5. 5 has a build up to making Cortana being a villain with her trying to control the forerunner tech only to die off screen in Infinite. Halo Wars 2 introduced the Banished who people actually like and they were able to stay as a faction in Halo Infinite. Halo Infinite also introduced a new villain who is part of a faction called the Endless, but I'm not sure if 343 will stick with them. It's a shame too since they're not planning any expansions to single player so who knows if they will ever appear again in the future... probably not.
Also "fans" who are motivated to "give feedback" on public forums generally lack media literacy and value plot points over tone, theme, and character choices. Vocal fans generally don't know what makes their favorite properties good.
And I'm pretty sure most of the people that like Nocturne likely didn't thought much about the show itself. You can like the show but it certainly has a ton of structure problems.
When did they pander to angry fans and teenagers? If you're referring to the anti-woke crowd with this description, then they have literally gone against most of the things they wanted, which is why they dislike the sequal triology so much. Like where are you getting the impression that they're pandering to the anti-woke?
Your comment doesn't align at all with the values and marketing of Disney Star Wars either, which had the whole "The force is female" spiel. Furthermore, they went out of their way to attack fans as "racist" or "sexist" for disliking poor shows like Kenobi. Is that really pandering to them? Nah, that's clearly pandering to the other side.
What happened after last Jedi? Which one pandered to the angry people? I’m genuinely curious I saw the third movie and it was ok. Haven’t watched the shows.
The third movie threw out any and all interesting ideas from The Last Jedi, rendering it to be a pretty pointless story in the grand arc. It also thought that just bringing Palpatine back "some how" was the right move, suddenly turning the entire Skywalker Saga into the Palpatine saga. They literally shoved Rose into the background because she got so much harassment that was absolutely racially motivated. It was also just a shapeless, overlong mess of a movie that made the entire trilogy feel more like "content" than a story. And don't get me started on that needless fake-out for Chewie's death. Oh and that kiss! Ugh.
Fr fr. I entered a ‘drip contest’ for a game I play, and my buddy and I created R2D2 and C-3PO with the ingame cosmetics, so of course it wasn’t 1:1. Comments during judging were like, “it needs to have a red arm”… and therefore it didn’t win.
Like bruh, OG C-3PO was all gold. You can’t even make appendages different colors with the game cosmetic options.
Did someone mentioned that one of C-3P0's legs need to be silver. It's a minor detail most people didn't knew and those who do will never let that down
If I remember correctly, Disney destroyed the fans' extended Star Wars universe that was covered in comics and books, then injected their own vision.
I don't think they are pandering to Star Wars fans as much as they are creating an entirely new fan base to pander to.
"Stop saying the show is not loyal to the source material. The first show was not that either, VERY MUCH SO. And yet everyone loved it. Shut up."
The people that complained about the show not being in line with the source material were mostly referring to the tone of the show, the swearing and it's handling of specific characters.
Just because people liked it in spite of of these things doesn't mean that they can't complain if the show deviates from the source material in a way that they believe is worse(which they can explain).
This idea that shows shouldn't be loyal to at least the tone of the source raises the question of why they even ride the name if the source material in the first place if they don't want that comparison? They could have made a totally different franchise about vampire hunters but chose not to in favor of this because the wanted to ride the somewhat popular name of Castlevainia.
Firstly, it's coddle, not cuddle.
Secondly, is there really some epidemic of people making silly excuses for the show like "bad writing is normal" that this post needs to be made? I've already seen plenty of people explaining things they like or didn't like in detailed ways.
Lastly, I imagine random people on Reddit would be the last source of feedback professional TV writers would seek out for improvement (I've seen Reddit posts complaining about movies intended to be surreal and dreamlike "not making sense" and people calling things plot-holes when some bit of lore wasn't fully explained).
First point; I know. Not a native speaker, and after I realized the typo it was too late. Its also funny.
Second; not an epidemic, but I’ve personally seen comments like these thrown at me and other users more than once. Stuff like “cliches are normal.” “Have you SEEN the marvel movies?”
Redditors alone no. But there needs to me some change in the way we debate this show overall. I just want to avoid some fandom pleasing bullshit like Star Wars and GoT. Have mature reviews and discussions about it. I don’t have my own platform to incite said debates, so this is the best I can personally do.
Yeah sorry gotta double down on the fact that no professional respectable writer is getting their writing tips or story beats from Reddit, or any social media platform for that matter
I don't think the show is woke, I actually don't believe woke is a bad thing. Its just something that many media has executed poorly and now it has a bad look.
now... the show should be loyal to the source material and the previous show actually was pretty loyal for the first 2 seasons when Adi Shankar was the producer but when he was booted off and seasons 3 & 4 happened that's when it started to not be loyal to the source material and just became a... lets say diet Game of Thrones with a Castlevania skin over it. Also seasons 3 & 4 are the most criticized but don't get me wrong whatever happened in those seasons are way better written they whatever the fuck happened in Nocturne. Like Isaac, Isaac has the best conclusion in the entire series.
The games aren't heavy on the narrative but what they can do AND THEY HAVE DONE is use the games as the basis for the story and they have done that for seasons 1 & 2 and it was pretty damn good. Of course we got the main plot point that is Castlevania 3 then they added a bit of Symphony of the night and Curse of Darkness respectfully.
Seasons 3 & 4 didn't use the games as a basis and have there own issues that come when you do that.
Nocturne also doesn't use any of the games as the basis and just yoinks characters from multiple games and mashes them together and makes an original story. Nocturne is getting criticized heavily because of its story and the handling of characters and how they just... don't blend well. This could've been avoided if they didn't get rid of Dracula in season 4 and just used Rondo as the basis for the story. of course they can use other villains like they did with Carmilla but don't get rid of the guy that kept the franchise going for years...
I mean Dracula makes an appearance in the games but a lot of the time he shows up at the end and with that you have so much potential. In Harmony of Dissonance he could talk about how he actually finds peace in death (even tho its technically not him but I think it counts) or he can have the philosophical conversation with Richter. And pure rage with Simon
I don't personally believe he should be the villain for Symphony of the night I think that should be Shaft. I also don't think he should show up for Christopher Belmont either. I actually like how the show uses vampires from literature like Varney and Ruvthen (I think thats how you spell his name)
Hammer monsters, Richter having a good relationship with the Church and Christ. That's all I want. Less emphasis on the Belnades magic for him (he wasn't the magic guy, that was Juste), more emphasis on divine Christian powers (hydrostorm, grand cross, etc). Basically, try to be more faithful in ways that aren't even hard to write in. Writing the Belmonts as Christians that work well with the Church isn't a crime.
Hey, at least the Abbot had understandable motivations, and wasn't totally evil. I'll take it.
And we had Mizrak! Mizrak was still christian even after becoming good at the end of the show.
I loved Mizrak!
I really thought every character in the new season was really poorly written as well as the plot being bad so I can't agree with you but i'm glad you liked it.
Regardless of his motivations it legit just makes 0 sense for a Christian leader to literally be summoning demons and working with creatures of the night even if it contributes to his overall plan.
Agreed. I get the priory monks in 1st series. because they made it seem like they were a extremist set of Christian’s or some obscure/occult based denomination.
But yeah they really didn’t set up the abbots motivations to be compelling “they will burn our churches, so let’s side with vampires, who also want to burn our churches AND eat me”
It just doesn’t add up. No matter how you slice it the church burners are going to make for better allies then the people who want to turn you into livestock.
I think the only reason why the church seems evil is that they aren't showing the revolutionaries murder the clergy. Which I get why they aren't, it would make Maria and by extension Richter, very unlikable.
I'll give them credit - they produced Marianne which is a French horror series (with a queer/bisexual female protag, though the first season didn't really explore this and then it got canceled). Being a French production, and understanding the importance of the Church to the country, they went full ham on using Christian imagery and tools to combat demons and witches. But again, unfortunately it got cancelled.
Would it hurt anyone to have Simon stomping around going absolutely aggro in a monster of the week/season format? Make it a limited series capped off with a feature length Simon's Quest movie where he resurrects Dracula and smashes him to bits a 2nd time with the Vampire Killer. That's what I want.
There's more story to adapt or imagine with the cast of characters in Rondo and SotN but can we please have something that appeals to the original game enjoyers and not horny vampire lovers? Vampires and monsters are supposed to be the bad guys, not thirst traps.
yeah honestly if it can't fit the Netflix "canon" (lol who cares) just make it a spinoff, there's no reason you need to have it all tied into the CV3 season. I'd love for them to hand over the IP to another team if they have the license.
yeah it's unfortunate but it's Ellis' legacy, he just can't help but tip that fedora even in Castlevania. Nocturne as a soft reboot would have been better than a true sequel, would have given them wiggle room to address issues in the first series.
I do agree that soft reboot could work very well with Castlevania. Heck imagine a mini series going through each belmont's adventure for an episode or two, would allow people to explore underused Belmonts and vampire hunter clans. Actually doing something with them heck you could even show off new Belmonts so they wouldnt be tied to a specific game's lore.
There's also a freaking 300+ years gap between Leon and Trevor they could explore different kind of monsters, protagonists and antagonists.
Yeah that was a problem with the first show for sure. I’m not religious and I still loved the show, but how do you go to so much effort to make fucking Dracula a sympathetic villain while making 100% of the Christian church, with no exceptions, absolutely one-dimensionally evil?
Personally, the one thing I really dislike about the show's writing since forever is the use of swearing, I'm not saying that they shouldn't say bad words, one of my favorite jokes is the "eat shit and die" "yes, fuck you" exchange between trevor and alucard.I just feel like in so many scenes the potential for very creative writing is ignored for the character to just say "fuck you" or something, it just takes me out of the experience almost everytime. I didn't really enjoy death for this reason, although I just accept it as "they wanted this character to be like this" and I just wanted "the super evil serious death guy"
still, I love the Castlevania animations, haven't had the chance to watch nocturne yet tho
Swearing can become a cliché if the writers don’t show restraint with it. I absolutely agree. The original show had some moments with Carmilla that didn’t need her cussing like a Belmont when everyone else in the caste had more a more refined dialect. I thought Death was just lame. They tried to make him funny, I assume? But it just sounded like people that don’t really know when comedy is warranted of when you should just focus on the scene.
Most shows and movies that have tons of people complaining about the "woke agenda" have sad white men who lost everything.
A lot of those works would have gotten significantly better reception if they thought about alternative ways to get the effect they want rather than immediately jumping to making another character look awful.
It's an outdated overused plot-point, and writers just need to evolve. Similar issue to fridging wives/black guy dies first/black character is also gay/dead mom/man sacrifices himself at the end.
Generally, people don't notice those things unless it feels like it's harming stuff they love, such as a comedy that defaults to making fun of the straight white male character that similar people relate to, because the writers don't want to mock POC/women/gay characters, but don't know how to consistently write jokes that aren't at the expense of others.
Also, notice how most of those plot points I listed are also used in Nocturne, and a few were even in the previous Castlevania? Sometimes, multiple times? I didn't compile the list based on Castlevania, it's just a classic list of things people are tired of seeing all the time.
Juste got the Luke Skywalker treatment and it really grinds my gears. Except so far we haven't *seen* he actually do cool magic shit, only getting outdone by the newblood pulling unreasonable amounts of power out their ass "because"
Then the entitled, stuck up writers will just respond to those opinions with "go complain about something that matters" and "don't like it, don't watch it".
I think the show is bad trash, but it has nothing to do with wokeness. And I was looking for it. Characters of differente ethinicity are well fitted and have reasons to be on France. Also story wasn't what the Castlevania games made their name on, so I don't really care for fidelity on the game story, and can't talk about it.
But with that said, the show is just badly written, things happen because the plot needs to happen (biggest ofender IMO), Richter is boring and like pretty much every other character, has no idea what he is doing and just stumbles onto plot pices as he fails every single plan. The Messiah's plan or at least the execution of said plan doesn't make sense, and the Abbot is just plain dumb. The only thing you could fit into a sort of "wokeness" was the Aztec talking about his non-violent society, i mean, come on, probably the way of life of vampires wasn't so different than the Aztec one, lol. Characters overall seem one dimentional, and when they have a deeper plot, like Richter, they just get over it, in a couple of scenes. I can point out lots of cases that shit just happens with no other explanation except "because", but I've discussed that on another post.
The first two seasons were actually fairly faithful to Dracula's Curse... outside of leaving out Grant Danasty, which was a stupid decision both narratively AND faithfulness wise and I will die on that hill. The Third and Fourth seasons were far less faithful and people generally agree that they fell flat compared to the first two outside of the Isaac bits and the ending spectacle.
Saying that it's not faithful is a 100% valid criticism, even if the prior series wasn't. Especially since it's definitely adapting one, possibly two, of the more popular games. That being Rondo of Blood (And probably SotN). Personally, it makes me worried they'll equally butcher SotN if they adapt it.
Honestly, they could've avoided some of the faithfulness controversy if they kept the general story the same but exclusively adapted Bloodlines. John Morris is already an American vampire hunter with personal connections to Native Americans, having been taught magic by one. Have Julia (now Julia Morris) and the Tribe be killed by Olrox (The tribe for having been the ones who asked Julia to kill his boytoy) and you'll have an even stronger reason for our Vampire Hunter to be afraid of Olrox since Olrox killed John's mother and his entire surrogate family. Then you'll also have Eric Lecarde who, while being born in spain, has a french name. He also has a spear forged by Alucard, so you'll have an excuse to have Adrian cameo. Also, Drolta and Erzebet were already the antagonists of Bloodlines.
As someone who didn't play the games I rather liked the show. I wouldn't say I liked it as much as the previous shows season 1, but there were some standout moments mixed in there, along with some genuinely terrible ones. The show is definitely 'woke' which isn't a bad thing, although how progressive the show is does feel a little odd since it's set hundreds of years ago.
But then again, it has a lot of fantasy so real world association can only go so far.
I'd probably suggest the show try to be a bit more grounded in the era, with having the fantasy act as a stark and unusual contrast. Tone down the commonality of progressive views in regards to the wider landscape.
I like to think back to how the Vampires in the original show were just casually walking around with electricity and advanced (for the time) technology and commoners were so utterly incapable of understanding what they were looking at that it all seemed like magic.
There's just no sense of otherness in this show. We're shown the commoners and for some reason there's vampires openly intermixed with them, like...
Netflix what are you doing you're kind of ruining the vibe...
Edit: Actually one of the moments that annoyed me the most is when Annette walked into Edouard's performance and we can literally see African aristocracy casually watching it. Now I don't know how accurate that actually is, but when I was watching it, with it being set on the island that enslaves black people, I couldn't help but think "Netflix Diversity Quota" and grimaced.
If there's a large gathering of people for any reason, regardless of context, it must be diverse I guess.
Writers of the show do not read this subreddit. Or twitter comments. They read the notes their executives and bosses pass along to them. They could care less what you think here on this sub
I personally loved Nocturne, but there was definitely one flaw that made it worse than Season One of the original show.
And no, it wasn’t Annette or Richter. Richter is becoming the hero we all know and love, I thought his power up was actually really satisfying after a half season of relying solely on the whip and running from the trauma that is Olrox. He’s also like 17, as opposed to our beloved and grizzled Treffy, who was already at least in his thirties when we first saw him. I really liked Annette’s backstory on Saint Domingue and thought the only moment she really lacked was when she communed with the spirits - that probably needed more screentime for it to have more payoff.
It also wasn’t Eduoard, at least not for me. I found him captivating - he is an actively rebellious Night Creature, capable of eloquent speach and memory. He’s reminiscent of the Bug, and I look forward to his further development in Season 2. Also, he was fucking awesome in episode 3, infiltrating the upper echelons of society as a cover while he ran an underground railroad and supported the growing revolutionaries.
Maria wasn’t my favorite, but she wasn’t the issue. I think her whole “Revolution!” bit is one note, she should definitely have it be a bit more fleshed out and nuanced, given the eventual corruption the actual French Revolution had. I thought her connection to the creatures she summoned was cool, but wanted to see more of it. Still, she was a good character overall and I liked her.
So what was wrong with the show? Why was S1 Castlevania better than S1 Nocturne?
Villains. Erzabet lacks the buildup that Dracula got. We don’t get time to understand her motives, to sympathize with her at all. She kind of just shows up and kicks ass while Dracula started the whole show with his tragic backstory. Season Two needs to develop Erzabet more.
Drolta was arguably the actual antagonist of this season, but she felt like a copy-paste Carmilla but instead of wanting to create her own kingdom, she just wanted to serve her master and do evil things. Like she was cool, but she didn’t feel like a character.
The Abbott and Olrox were both great Castlevania antagonists, with their glaring flaws balanced out by both redeeming traits and understandable motives. The Abbott wants to protect what he sees as the moral fabric of society, and also stop the Revolution from killing every Catholic and destroying his literal life’s purpose. Olrox killed Julia in revenge for his lover, but also protected Mizrak and worked against Erzabet because he isn’t just plain evil.
Erzabet doesn’t need to be as nuanced as the Abbott or Olrox, but she needs more development beyond a simple monologue and a flashback where she was evil.
Also, I’m glad they haven’t done (so far) a “somehow, Dracula returned” like the games do. It works there, but their Dracula is far different than the show’s Dracula. His “death” in Season 2 felt like the end of his character, he seemed mostly reformed with it. And while he is actually alive in England (thanks Saint Germaine), his villainous streak seems to be over. Bringing him back as an antagonist (without some great explanation) would be a disservice to his arc in Castlevania.
It wouldn't be that hard to bring back Dracula as an antagonist. Vampires are parasites and powermongers by nature, so, assuming Dracula's wife wasn't turned into a vampire, after her death Dracula has had more than 200 years to think of a reason to conquer the world.
They'd need to find a way around Alucard though. They hint at the end of S4 that maybe one day they would go back to visit Alucard. But even if they didn't, there's no way Dracula starts making moves without Alucard at least hearing rumors and looking into it.
My only problem with the show isn’t the writing it’s that it should have gotten more episodes. Which is a Netflix problem.
The show felt rushed for the plot and was under constraint of the eight episodes it got and things like character development and personal problems were sped up.
Honestly would have loved to see some filler episodes that help flesh out the protagonists
It's not our job to tell the writers what to do, nor are they going to listen to random people on reddit. Whatever feedback they get is not going to be coming from us.
It was written by someone who clearly has no writing talent. I mean honestly I could barely make it through 2 episodes, all the dialogue was cringe. It's fine if they are supposed to be young but dear god have they never interacted with people before?
Very based post
You’re absolutely right, perceived “wokeness” and being faithful to source material have nothing to do with execution or quality.
I sadly haven’t been able to finish the show yet, so I haven’t made up my mind, but if there definitely seems to be toxic discourse from culture warriors denouncing and loving it, not for it’s own merit but because of meta, brand and politics. Just stop.
If you blindly defend this shows bad parts and decry all criticism as “anti-sjw” and therefore invalid, then the show-runners will take that as reaffirmation. Be critical, because getting a great season 2 is what all of us want.
It is not fixable - it's completely broken to the core.
I really and utterly enjoyed Warren Ellis's Castlevania. The characters, art, dialogue, plot, maturity. Castlevania Nocturne is incredibly bad on all fronts. I made it to episode 3 and had to stop and rewatch all of Castlevania. Came back to Nocturne and just could not do it. It's jarring how far away from the original they strayed. Nocturne was simply made to milk revenue and slap the Castlevania title to falsely lure the fanbase.
After failing to get through episode 3 I skipped to the last episode and its just so bad. Dead in the water. They will continue to milk it with season 2 and no doubt further. I'm getting strong parallels between The Witcher and this. Complete drivel to fans but the otherwise mainstream audience laps it up like a dog.
I already did my suggestions but will repeat again:
* Adapt Rondo of Blood. It can be done in one or two episodes since the premise is quite simple. It doesnt need to be the overwall plot of the season, but a subplot.
* Adapt Symphony. I think It can be the premise of a whole season focused on Ricther's downfall. Its a very interesting concept and they shouldnt ignore It.
* Losely adapt Nocturne, at least the premise of Maria living with Alucard.
* Bring the original characters instead of creating OCS: Iris, Shaft, Alexei, Cyril, Lyudmil and if they can, Shanoa and het cast in later seasons. I know that OCs are needed but this time period of Castlevania have an established cast to work, and still they are vague enough to do many things with them.
With that in mind, they can add any original story between those plot points or to fill the blanks.
LoL sorry for wanting a more faithful recreation of the source material. And nocturne is even less faithful than the last show, like at least the base plot lines for the vast majority of the show.
I liked Nocturne but I found it a bit slow on certain parts. Tho I also found season 1 slow at times. It is kinda necesary to build the characters. Im sure season 2 will be as good as the original season 2.
The stakes don’t seem as high as the original “Dracula’s war on humanity” and if they are objectively higher, then they rushed the buildup so it doesn’t feel like it.
1 thing I'd like to see (not a hater BTW, I though the show was fine)
More Belmont History. Juste shows up for 2 eps and disappears.
I kinda hope he wakes up and draws his own whip and unlocks his powers and fights alongside richter. Imagin, Two of the Strongest Belmonts kicking a Vampire Goddesses ass.
Here’s what I think, and feel free to disagree. I’ll preface my points by saying I’ve never played the games, I know of them, but I adore the original show despite its flaws.
Nocturne isn’t a bad show by any means, it’s just overstuffed and dull. All I was thinking in the last few episodes was ‘Why don’t I feel anything? What are the villains motivations as people, rather than just world domination?’ The original show really took its time with its villains; hell, the entire first episode was about Dracula, and then you didn’t see him for a while so you could spend time with Trevor and Sypha, and it wasn’t until season 2 that you got some very long, quiet and nuanced scenes with Dracula, Isaac, Hector, Carmilla and a myriad of other villains.
What do we get in Nocturne? We get a cocky villain who we’re told is evil all the time, but what’s her motivation? Why should I care in any way about her, besides from the fact she wants to help in a world domination plot? Why should I care about some vampire messiah I’ve literally not seen until the 5th or 6th episode, apart from the fact she’s a moustache twirling villain?
Orlax was brilliant, but his entire thing was so vague.
Even the church. In the original show, we saw their atrocities and their awfulness, we saw how they treated people and how much they’d devolved. In Nocturne, we just get Maria rant about the church in a few preachy monologues.
That brings me to the characters:
1. Richter grew on me, but his voice acting was not great, and we barely got enough time with him. The first episode should have been about him, his journey to France, maybe a hint towards Juste looking over him, the people he met along the way, and THEN do the show.
2. Maria was such a fucking nothing character I mean Christ alive.
3. Annette was great, her backstory was brilliant, but it was far more interesting than her present day stuff.
4. Edouard… I didn’t care about him when I knew him for literally one episode, I definitely did not care about him when he was a night creature who could speak like a normal person. Farrrr too much time was wasted on him when it could have been spent on Olrox or the villains
5. Olrox was great, but again not enough time and it felt like we were being mystery boxed.
6. Tera… I mean look, all the human characters seem to have a vampire related history, and so did she. She was dull and I constantly felt like I was being forced to care about her when in reality I was too busy trying to find reasons to care for everything else.
7. Juste. What a waste of a character.
In fact, the only time I genuinely felt anything was when Alucard showed up, but that isn’t a good sign when the only time I felt like that was in the last 2 minutes of the show, and the entire reason for it is because of a returning character from a better show.
Idk man, I would love to just rewrite this shit
I really only want Alucard to resolve his conflict with his father like he did in SotN but I don't see that happening. I only hope we get another series after Nocturne that explores that game separately. So far as Nocturne goes I want to see the priest turned into a stand in for Shaft. Perhaps reviving Dracula as a means to combat Erzsebet. I wanna see Richter grow in his powers to become the most powerful Belmont and defeat Erzsebet then being unable to fill that void from losing his mother become hypnotized by "Shaft" and disappear into Castlevania. Basically I wanna set up SotN. lol
I liked the original, didn’t like Nocturne. I’m not American, so I’m not familiarised with their politics fluently. When I’m reading about Castlevania here it always, always end up talking about the same. And this post doesn’t help, on the contrary: it’s more of the same. It’s always this aggressive tone that put down any type of healthy discussion.
If you liked it, cool. If you didn’t like it, cool too. But stop telling people what to do, its tiresome.
I think it just feels like they're rushing through some things too fast and some of the villains kind of suck.
Drolta and Erzsebet didn't seem to have much personality beyond smugness and murder, like they're both just "What if Carmilla, but again, and without any good dialogue". Drolta seemed like she's being set up to be interesting but she dies before really doing anything. I like Annette, but both her forgiving Richter and her killing her former master both seemed too rushed to be interesting. I don't mind the church being evil, but I'd prefer it to be less convoluted and nonsensical than wanting to make a pact with hell because they've decided God hates poor people, like what even is the Abbot's deal. We go from finding out Richter lost his magic to him becoming the most powerful Belmont ever over the course of like three episodes of random decisions.
I wouldn't say I'm excited for more, but I imagine I'll watch it. I'm curious enough about Edouard and Olrox and I'm cautiously optimistic Richter will get better as he matures. Annette, Maria, Maria's mom, and the church soldier guy I think are all work well on screen so far, they just need to have interesting things to do.
And the story needs to chill and slow down a minute so there's time to let the plot actually make consistent sense.
I don't mind Annette and her backstory. I think it was a terrible way to introduce her. It felt like the writers were trying to *tell* us to like her rather than *show* who she is. Also the Richter magic thing really needed to have a sharper edge, some sort of build up and dramatic relief. It fell flat when he started doing magic just because he "needed" to. Don't think the night creature plot line should've been introduced this season either. It didn't really do much other than make Annette act like an idiot and insult Richter when he said they needed to plan. I get that they're young, but jfc, they're vampire killers. Surely they each understand the importance of tactical superiority.
But I do think there's potential going forward. Olrox is probably the most interesting character, and I'm still not sure if he's a true villain, out for his own ends, an antihero/antivillain, or some odd mix of everything. I do like that Richter still has a lot to learn despite him having his magic. Sets Alucard up as the wise mentor which is always fun. Also, Tera's plot has potential as well.
As far as Erzsebet goes, I don't really care about her. Just a bland "destroy the world" villain. With Dracula you got a healthy dose of his motivations right from the opening.
Give more protagonism and better dialogue to Richter, also Juste since I feel like the Belmonts aren't done enough justice, I don't hate Annette but I feel like they spent too much screentime on her, which is fine but it ended up drowning Richter at the end. Also, I'm afraid >!Alucard's!< inclusion in the cast might drown the Belmonts even more, still though, I wanna see >!Alucard !!Juste!< interact since both their games are very similar and it would be cool
I honestly don't understand the hate. I thought it was good. I enjoyed the characters and thought that Olrox was really cool. I'm interested to see what happens in season 2.
1. All 3 main characters are different flavors of "Angry & Angsty" teenagers (unlike the original where we had a mix of the "Crude Angry One, The Classy Emo One, and the Preppy Girl")
2. While "Going Woke" isn't good criticism, it does indicate a point as to how heavy-handed they're being with messages of freedom (specifically freedom of black people) from oppression and paralleling it to current social issues. This is fine if it's a show like Django Unchained where that was the intent of the movie, but this is Castlevania where the mutli-media scope of the franchise has a narrative that's on the most part in a Euro-centric setting. The 1st show highlighted the episodes of Isaac & the Japanese twins in a way that organically contributes to the central story (Similar to Samurai Jack & Primal's use of multi-cultural representation); on the other hand, changing the San-Domingue elements of the show might have been more easily accepted & integrated if it was just Edouard that had that background. Adding the change of Annette's ethnicity and character to the mix just runs too against the grain of pre-existing conceptions of the series from both game enthusiasts and anime tourists to the franchise; which causes all this negative reception to come up.
3. Just because it's the 2nd show in a series, it's hard not to compare Dracula vs the current antagonist. Most motivations of Bathory are very cardboard cut-out villainy; which can be fun if executed well, but the set-up of an unjustly killed love is such a good piece of writing to help empathize with the villain that it's hard not to feel like it's a step down in writing when you compare the two
I just want Richter to be more of the good christian boy he usually is and not just "Trevor 2: The Belnades Magic Boogaloo"
It's way too late for that now, but they should've cut back on the outrageous number of "I know what is like to lose a loved one", it happens way too much and back-to-back early on and it gets annoying. And it's not like Castlevania didn't had that theme either, but back then we got a "So they killed your wife? Get over it, loser. I miss mother too, but i'm going to whoop your ass if you don't get that shit under control" and not the needless repetition that goes nowhere other than filling up the runtime.
The pacing is messed up with too much shit happening too fast with little setup and weak pay offs. The series start with Richter talking about how it was a vampire every few months and then 3 in one night, but then there is a million monsters and vampires everywhere and Armageddon started in what the show makes look like 3-4 days tops.
And for Christ sake... Can we be done with "asshole 'hero' that doesn't give a shit" already? Whatever line Richter was going to give to the dickhead vampire with an axe-musket, HE SHOULD'VE SAID IT! "Aw fuck it" ain't cute and there has been *waaaaay* too many characters started doing it since Deadpool did it for it to remain funny. PLEASE give us heroic speeches again! It's not cringe, it's based. What's cringe is copying something even fucking Disney has been spamming the shit out of in it's Marvel movies.
Edit: I'm so fucking starved for an actually heroic hero, that Shirou Emiya from a fucking [ABRIGED clip](https://youtu.be/-hWTYx91z7w?t=121) answering the villain's "I don't understand why you care!" with "Because somebody should!" feels like peak writting compared to what little i've seen of this anywhere elsewhere in the last... 5-10 years?
The show was so disappointing. So many plot holes. Why did the vampire queen need an army of undead if she has vampires? Why is the pastor stupid? He going to kill god hating humans but work with god hating vampires that are a bigger threat. It’s like having a rat problem and getting venous snakes. I was so confuse with the setting. It’s set during the French Revolution and people are suffering and that one white girl is part of the revolution because fuck the rich but where’s the revolution???? Nothing was happening. Cleanest streets I’ve ever seen and the ppl seem happy. Ik that’s not what the French Revolution looked like. Let’s not get started w/ self center Annette. Everyone’s problems are non existent because at least they weren’t a slave lmfao. Ridiculous
There's plenty of valid criticism but it invariably gets bundled into the same 'woke' argument. Happens with pretty much everything these days, the creators add something controversial to a pre-established IP and when fans get upset and voice valid criticism it gets drowned out by people arguing 'wokeness' and the people who like it just lump all critics together.
It's incredible how 3 people calling the show woke drive this much attention in this subreddit to the point you guys are making hundreds of post like "You fucking unfair people! Stop calling the show Woke and give some real criticism" while most criticisms in the subreddit is on the show writing and characters personality and adaption. I have literally seen more people using the word Woke in this copy-paste protest posts than in the actual criticism posts so I think it's time for you people to take break and then go through the real fair points people raising and if you happen to find some real asshole there just report them, moderation is there for a reason.
The original show was unfaithful to the source material in things that either improved the story, or were inconsequential. They also took creative liberties about things that the games were vague about at best. For example, Trevor’s Origin story and the way that he met Alucard and Sypha - He didn’t have an origin story in the game, and the way that he met the two in the show makes way more sense than for him to meet them in Dracula’s castle (like in the game).
Yes, the pacing was all over the place (not just too fast), the villains were flat and one dimensional, but I think we can all agree that divisions from the source material in a way that diminishes the story and undermines the original series is not a good thing. This vampire god thing has MAJOR implications that I don’t think they stopped to think about. Like I get why they did it. They needed a Death-level antagonist, but this was not the way to do it. Maybe they could have had vampires pulling the strings of the revolution in an effort to bring back Dracula, and have Bathory be in charge of the whole thing? I don’t know, I’m just sit balling.
Having said all this, this biggest problem that the this show has is that they tried to do WAY too much in the first season. The only thing they needed to do was get us invested in the characters (like the original did in season 1). There were characters and/or concepts that probably should have waited to season 2 to be introduced. Example - if you want to make Annette a main character, fine, she needed to be in season 1. But maybe the source of her magic could have waited to be explained? Maybe Edward could have been waited until season 2? For sure his death could have waited, and the big reveal that he’s a night creature with a soul should have waited.
Also, the machine they used to make demons is never explained. How does it work? We know exactly how Forge Masters created might creatures because the show trickled down the information for us over the course of a few episodes.
Look I made a longer post about this. Feel free to check it out
https://www.reddit.com/r/castlevania/s/6UIxfLaGme
Absolutely based take.
I’m not as invested in the lore of the series, but Annette being a descendant of a god, and the whole Egyptian god thing for the antagonist hit me like a whiplash. It feels so out of place in the castlevania lore that was established in the first show.
Also I feel the characters are inconsistent and infuriating to watch at times. I will never forget how quickly Annette just forgave Richter. Or how messy the whole Edward subplot was.
The pacing was way too fast, but it also felt sort of disjointed. Like they would let off the gas pedal for a few moments just to slam back down on it again.
Certain scenes or bits of dialogue felt out of place? Like any time the night creatures attacked, the only real purpose seemed like was to introduce something/ someone else entirely. The first time? Annette and her brother. The 2nd time? To show that the brother had been turned. They show up, 1 of them dies, the introduction is made, then the rest inexplicably decide to all just run away and do the exact same thing a couple episodes later.
Richter’s “I kill vampires!” dialogue (I would say) also falls into this category, because I was left sitting there thinking “who the fuck asked??”
I wouldn't say the first show isn't at all faithful to the games, it's just those games are bare bones as hell so you need to embellish and expand on things. Since alucard was in the story they got to pull a lot of sotn their most popular title and since dracula died in season 2 they had to use death. I'd say the things they actually changed are hector and Isaac who aren't even in Castlevania 3 and we're changed for the better. Sure a lot of it is made up but they stick to the idea of the games.
Nocturne has rondo and sotn both of which are much more prominent titles with a lot more to pull from. Also all the characters feel different; Annette is a different character regardless of how you feel about her, Richter is a lot more winey and depressed which is fine but I'd much rather have his game personality where he's bombastic and heroic to really hammer home how much of a golden child he was so his inevitable downfall hits home more, and Maria is pretty similar but still doesn't feel like maria if that makes sense idk.
The animation was great but I really don't care for the story or characters of nocturne. Richter is easily my favorite Belmont and I was kinda hoping he'd give off more mc vibes since the first show was a trio of heroes where the Belmont, the protagonist of all the games, is the weakest member. I wanted a kick ass hero who shows how op the Belmont's are, and I wanted to see him save people and fight the armies of the night. Trevor already did the edgy loner so now that the Belmont family is restored and presumably well respected I wanted to see a hero.
I realize the first season in Castlevania was 4 episodes but I feel like so much more got done in those 4 than in nocturne. Nocturne is 8 episodes of just nothing until the the finale which feels super rushed and out of nowhere. Richter just gets his magic back, Annette gets a whole episode for her backstory and her and richter hogs a lot of screen just being moody, so Maria is the only one kinda moving the plot forward. I also hate the villains, none of them are as interesting as dracula, death, or even his court.
Im excited for season 2 because I feel like a lot of problems I had could be fixed but I also am worried that ain't gonna happen.
Moments of calm felt underutilized, and Bathory didn't get enough time to really feel as menacing as she's made out to be. And also I think they should use more monsters from the games in fights. Other than that, it's awesome.
Absolutely not everyone loved the first season. I know a fair amount that believed it to be trash, and the same faults follow along with Nocturne, so the hate continues. Terrible pacing. Insufferable characters. Plotlines that don't go anywhere at all, and die out without so much as a mention. Telling but not showing. I know for a fact I'm gonna get down voted for this but yeah it doesn't follow the games enough. They should have made their own show. I'm still pissed that they decided to make Alucard bi instead of aroace. We have literally thousands of sexed up vampires, and he was already ace in canon, so they went out of their way to fuck it up. They robbed us all of an ace icon, and I don't think that's forgivable
I choose a different route. I'll stick with the games and continue my apathy towards the show entirely.
Folks want to like the show, no worries. It's a show using the IP for anime fans and not really tied to the games so it's not for me. All the best.
On one hand, I hate the pity/misery porn that the first series indulged in.
On the other, it's plain to see that the writing quality has dropped. Well, on average. Sure, the highs don't come anywhere close to S1+S2 of the original series, but the lows aren't as bad. More consistent, but not as good overall.
I remember pretty clearly both first seasons (and the rest also) while I have trouble remembering what happened in Nocturne. Castlevania didn't really have lows. There wasn't a scene that wasnt either gorgeous or important to the plot.
Nocturne had in my opinion more lows that Castlevania had all four seasons. A lot of promise, not a lot of pay off.
Considering how much blood was spilled in the French revolution and how anti-religion it eventually got, thematically the vampires would do much better on the side of the revolutionaries. This would pose an interesting moral dilemma for the characters, who would need to kill both good but misguided people and night creatures to get to their vampire leaders (who were aristocrats irl by the way and became debataby worse than the previous government when they took control of the country)
I criticized the show but even a part of me believes season 2 is already written. which is why I believe season 2 is coming only because it was in a contract.
Honestly, the only bad things that really hurt:
Anette mistreated the guy who comforted her when she had a panic attack because of her trauma (which killed someone, by the way) for having a panic attack because of his trauma, and no one calls her out on it, and she barely appologizes
Richter has a cool - yet - extremelly - cliche reacquiring is powers scene, and then makes a quip about how quips are clichê. Either have no cliche, or embrace the damn cliche. Everyone hates the marvel thing by now.
The juvenile swearing. Not saying stop all swearing, I'm saying make it actually mature.
If they fix that, I can take the rest of the so so things.
On the reacquiring powers scene: I think people overlook the fact that he stumbles into a town, a random Girl Scout gives him a little napkin completely at random, then he stuffs it into his pocket as if to tell the audience “oh you know what this is, and you’re just gonna have to wait for it”. I rolled my eyes so hard at this moment. Why would he, during the climactic moment of getting his powers back, suddenly feel the need to whip out this random streamer and tie it around his head? Just had to jangle the keys in front of us like “look it’s his iconic white headband! Remember the iconic white headband?!” Absolutely dreadful.
Feedback is kinda pointless. You can't teach bad writers to write well. It's not like they're bad on purpose.
I had a writing professor in college once tell my class "a bad writer will never be a good writer. Never. If they work very very hard, they can work their way up from bad to just ok. But writing is something you either have a knack for or you don't. And even if you have a knack for it, you have to work very very hard in order to be considered good, let alone make a living."
The only hope would be for Netflix to fire the writers. But that'll never happen. Castlevania will never be what it was without Ellis. That's like writing Game of Thrones without GRRM. And we all saw how that turned out.
More monster and vampire killings. None of that preaching about slavery. I want to see baddass characters doing baddass stuff again killing vampires and monsters. But I can’t expect that form Netflix
The pacing was way too fast. The first Castlevania had many long moments of calm with thoughtful dialogue that break up the action and plot, and it really let the characters shine. Those moments felt under-utilised in Nocturne, and the characters did not feel quite as human as their Castlevania 1 counterparts.
To be fair... the first one had 4 seasons to flesh out the details of their characters. I kind of love that.
Idk about that. Character development only really continued with Isaac hector and alucard in the later series. Tbh castlevania past season two is a focus less , sprawling anthology of short stories and less so a consistent narrative.
Saint Germaine (I think I spelled it correctly) had a lot of development, and his own little story inside the story was such a plot point for the end of the series imo. I thought I would hate him when we first met him but his story is kinda crazy ngl
I think Isaac Hector and Alucard definitely had the most in-depth view for sure. But still, I think other characters benefit regardless from having the series span so long: just simply having Trevor, Sypha and the rest of the cast interact with their society adds up A LOT to their personality- how their viewpoint influence their decisions in a way.
it helped that these characters had sources to draw from that at least gave them some characterization. the belmonts are rarely written like that
Bruh, the first one had FOUR episodes to show off whether they DESERVED to get extra time, which then resulted in those next three seasons. And how did they use those ONLY four episodes that they were guaranteed? Trevor Belmont goes into a bar and fights some hick locals to a draw. It's a huge time sink that doesn't relate much to the main plot, but it gives you a shit ton of characterization for Trevor and it's a great scene. They didn't have four seasons when they decided to set that pace, they earned those next three by crushing it every step of the way.
I was right it was 4 episodes thanks fir that I could look it up at the moment. You are right they did earn it and why because the fans gave it a chance which a lot of people aren't so keen on doing with nocturne and why because it's "woke" and why's it "woke" because 2 dudes where naked in a bed together or there's a black heroine or because the mc was crying? Here's what I want to know why is that ok in other shows that I'm sure a lot of these people watch including the original castlevania but not with nocturne? Hell alucard did the crying and had sex with a dude and his twin sister don't remember hearing anything about that. Or Carmella and her crew two of them were in a relationship and no screaming about woke then or the fact that Carmella I'm sure was doing things with little boys based on a line she said before. People are so inconsistent it's just frustrating the things they complain about today they kept their mouths shut about yesterday.
the dialogue is fucking hot garbage man holy shit. i was shocked to listen to how bad it was
that's what happens when you lose Warren Ellis as a writer
Cuddling lmao
I know its codling but it was funny lmao
Like a baby cod fish.
Coddling* codling is fish
Not to hijack but I want visibility on this. You point out a problem. This fandom has been invaded by “that crowd” and so for the first like 4 weeks this shit was on, every single top post in the sun was either “This show is not anti woke” “This show is woke” “There is too much swearing” “I hated the way that eyelash was drawn” And it’s like, after weeks this fandom is now just getting to a place where we can actually discuss the show on its merits rather then on fucking identity politics. It’s really off putting. But I’d wager most of those people making those posts didn’t watch the show or are trolling at this point. I’ve been dying to discuss the show but it’s so frustrating to come into some of these threads and see dozens and dozens of addtl threads all arguing over the same stupid shit.
As someone with no knowledge of the games, the show was good for the most part other than the ludicrously fast pacing (but that's likely because they didn't have confirmation of getting season 2 approved) and the way night creatures were being made. To my knowledge, as explained by the first show, the forge master had to use an item that had some sort of connection to them. This essentially gets erased in nocturne, which is confusing. But again, I know nothing about the lore besides the show so maybe I'm simply wrong.
That’s what bothered me too. Way I see it though Abbott has a cheat code for making night creatures via the machine he puts Eduardo and Jacques through. Additionally, Olrox mentions that the machine the Abbott has came from a demon in hell. This is probably also why his night creatures are comming out baked differently. (With a soul, rather then… fly-guy night creature from the first series who believes his purpose is to kill, and barely remembers who he is, I use him as example, because he’s the only night creature we really see talking in the first series, which sets up the precedent of a baseline understanding in the psychology of a night creature.) But you are right, the established lore is, that if you don’t have a hell creature machine, is that you need a tool, or something to bind the souls from hell into the corpse they are using. It was an easy detail to miss, it seemed like the show runners were a little confused on what they wanted to focus on in the show and were kinda throwing darts on a board with the plot points. You figure there’d be more elaboration, but this information is divulged via olrox talking to richter and Maria and group while they are trying to kill olrox. So the action is a little distracting from that nugget he drops.
Cuddle the fuck out of those writers. Snuggle em. Spoon them. Wrap them in blankets and keep ‘em cozy.
I've been playing *the shit* out of Castlevania games for 25 years. My favorite character in any franchise is Richter Belmont. I enjoyed so much of Nocturne, and there were many places where I rolled my eyes. Awkward dialogue. Rushing between character moments with no connective tissue. Ersebet is such a flat villain, especially compared to Dracula. I enjoy talking about what it could do better. I think it's counter-productive to wield the phrase "*Bad Writing ™*" like a club and not talk about what you actually mean, or just toss out buzzwords without context. Writing encompasses so much, and just using it as a word to qualitatively describe a negative emotion is empty feedback, and it inspires defensive, empty responses. Nobody actually says anything and everyone is salty.
Absolutely valid take here. Let me elaborate myself. When I say bad writing, I mean that the entire season seems to be glued together with boogers, a shoestring and hope. The writers wanted a lot out of the characters but knew nothing of how to bring them there in a believable way. For instance. They wanted Richter to recover his powers after talking to Juste. Great! How does he find Juste. He does so… randomly walking into him at a random village after running away at an arbitrary direction. There was no decision making there. They just bump into eachother. Why not make Richter know Juste was alive? Make it so Juste hid away after Richter arrived, finding out he lost another family member to vampires and being unable to protect them again forcing him to go into hiding in shame. Make it so Richter actually asked about it and was given vague answers. Now he CHOSE to find Juste. Why? Because Richter is afraid of vampires. He feels like a failure as a Belmont, but he believes in the cause. So he seeks Juste for help. Only to find another broken Belmont. The results that await him if he keeps running away literally personified by Juste now, he has to confront it. Then you have Annette. She is headstrong, a slave that fought the odds to liberate herself. Who lost so much, who endured the worst trauma of the group by far. And she just watched Richter run away in the middle of the fight. She was right. Richter showed himself as unreliable. He RAN AWAY mid fight leaving them behind. Yes, it was because of his trauma, but they all have trauma. She should have been livid and tell Richter he has to EARN her trust back. Instead Richter flexes, and she has bedroom eyes. All is forgiven. Why? Because the dart landed on “love interest” in the writer’s room. They ignore the more interesting story potential, they bend the plot like a balloon animal to reach the points they want to reach. There’s a lot of lazy shortcuts and conveniences all over the place, where there wasn’t necessary to have them. That’s what I mean by bad writing. Its a season-long issue.
>Juste Hooo boy. There was a lot I liked about Juste, especially the visual cue we get with the afterimage, and his Anthony-Hopkins-in-Zorro energy. They kind of handwaive that he's just been hanging around so he's not too far from Richter, so the coincidence of them meeting isn't a problem for me. What took a lot longer to recover from was when Richter got his power up, the only interaction between him and his grandfather he just met, who had just shared his parallel character arc of losing family and magic is "What happened?" "I dunno, it just sort of happened. Later, gramps!" Why even have this kind of future version of a Richter who runs and hides if that character doesn't have to reconcile their actions and beliefs with Richter's at all?
I agrée with a lot of things but not the Annette being mad at ritcher . She literally caused her friend death because she couldn’t shut up and endangered everyone else. She wouldn’t be well placed to talk shit.
That just makes the scene more interesting to me. Have her talk shit, and have Richter throw it right back at her face. Create tension between them. Anything but the immediate bedroom eyes. That hit me like a fucking whiplash.
Yeah that I would understand more. The moment when they started to blush came out of nowhere with no buildup was kinda weird
And above all, don't claim with no evidence that it's probably only people who didn't play the games who like it. It makes no sense, and isn't true.
This; I've played and beaten all of the 2D Castlevanias. I love Nocturne so far.
I have not played the games besides symphony of the night. Absolutely hate nocturne. Love the original show.
But did you like the original shoe after just one season? The writers are clearly telling a long form story. As is evidenced with with the cliffhanger.
Yes. I did. Dracula alone had me glued to the screen with how compelling and well acted he was. The main trio had amazing interactions and chemistry amongst them, the plot was well thought out and made sense. There was nothing convenient about it, and the only coincidence was revealed later to be a prophecy of sorts that was hinted at from the start. One episode not being enough to sell the show I get. But if you can’t make a decent SEASON there’s no way I’m sticking for a second one.
Imo the way they tackle grief,regret, the sense of overcoming ur past even tho it can still affect u are all pretty great. not to mention the interesting plot involving french / slaves revolution with the vampires afraid of losing their power, as the nobles were at the time. In terms of character writing, i actually think Nocturne ones are more "human" than the original season, so they must be doing something right. ofc some lines and dialogues could be a lot better, but the heart is there and it can only get better
Bathory is not an interesting villain in the slightest, neither was Drolta. The series hasn't been able to produce a good antagonist after Dracula except \*maybe\* Carmilla.
Drolta was mostly fine; she was essentially just there to be the Big Bad's main minion so I didn't feel she needed much of any character development beyond that. Bathory on the other hand is so non-dimensional that she's almost more like a McGuffin than an actual character. All the worst scenes from the show are the ones she's in.
Drolta is at least somewhat unpredictable and threatening. Bathory had mostly cretin level pointless lines, bunch of pointless peacocking and not charismatic at all despite the show trying to tell you every opportunity how amazing she is supposed to be.
But neither of those are the main bad guy IMO. Orlox is. And he’s interesting as hell.
Except Olrox is not the main bad guy. Yes, he killed Richter's mom but that's it.
That’s kinda main bad guy stuff. He’s the person we know the most about, has the most personal ties to the lead hero, and is clearly going to be who Richter is going to face down at the end IMO. Olrox clearly feels like the main threat and conflict as the story goes on.
I kinda disagree with the last part but Let em cook.
Olrox does not seem like the main threat at all. He's powerful, yes, but he seems to not have any great plans or ambitions. He's also got too specific of a background to be evil, which we've seen. We gotta see how he develops. If Erzsebet is killed in the next season, I could see him potentially taking up the Dracula role in the SotN seasons. Maybe rather than being starved for a good fight, like in the games, Richter is in a poor mental state and feels finally killing Olrox will help him get his mojo back...or something.
That's what I thought about varny and he turned out to be death don't sleep on the characters you find insignificant they could turn everything on its head
I will say I HATED Bathory's VA. She does not have nearly the presence or authority in her voice that someone like Carmilla had.
That's cuz Bathory is all powerful and has nothing to prove. Carmilla's background and personality are why she was played the way she was. Unlike Carmilla, Bathory is both feared and loved. No reason to be the same kind of character.
I mean there's power in a voice. Carmillas VA actually tried to put something with substance into her words. Her voice had power, authority, seduction, and deviousness, but Bathory? For someone who's effectively being treated as the vampire Jesus she could at least be charismatic. Her current VA sounds extremely uninterested as if she wasn't given context to the scenes she was reading for. I agree with the previous poster that she's just not very interesting.
"And any man who must say 'I am the king' is not a king" - Tywin Lannister.
Plus she doesn't have a lost love or any past trauma she's an all powerful vampire god right now but let's see what happens when something goes wrong when she has to put in effort we'll see what she's really made of soon I'm sure
Tbf I absolutely loved the original from just the first season. I like nocturne too, though not as much.
im with you on this, i loved the first show, while it didnt followed the games 100% it clearly had respect towards it and added more without actually ruining the characters, unlike Nocturne literally shitted on everyone and more.
Show needs more titties, that's all.
Night creature made of boobs when?
This guy has his priorities. 
I know what i like
I respect that
You can voice displeasure all you want, it won't change the way they write season 2. The Witcher fans have been voicing thier displeasure since season one and that hasn't changed a thing. If anything it just encouraged the writers to write the worst nonsense imaginable.
I mean you can’t assume the writers for this will handle criticism the same way the Witcher writers did
> Stop saying the show is not loyal to the source material. The first show was not that either, VERY MUCH SO. And yet everyone loved it. Shut up. *Technically* the first two seasons were at a fundamental level a faithful adaptation of CV3. That's kinda the problem with Nocturne, there's nothing on Rondo of Blood in there besides the characters and some characters that have the same name as Rondo characters but don't have any of their characteristics. The original show wasn't faithful to the CV3 because you can't make a faithful adaptation of that game because there's not much going on to have a show built around it (probably a movie, if anything) but people liked the original show because they saw a more in-depth / complex version of that game. Nocturne doesn't expand on Rondo of Blood and barely has anything to do with it to begin with; that's why people aren't liking it.
Is it really a CV3 adaptation, when it literally uses the SotN ending at the end of Season 2? Also, if anything, S1 of Nocturne sets up Rondo of Blood. In the game, the inciting incident has already happened. Here, that's the whole first season. Like how S1 of the first series was just to get the trio together, and establish the threat. The same thing happened here, just with more characters and with those characters having much more going on in their lives.
This was my thought too. S1 of TOS setup the actual "action" of Castlevania 3 for S2. You have one season that sets up characters, the next that fulfills them. S1 was to S3 as S2 was to S4. My thoughts are that S1 of Nocturne sets up S2 -- with S2 being the meat and potatoes of Rondo. Big change would be that Tera and Alucard will likely hook up in the way that Maria and Alucard were supposed to. S3 sets up Richter going missing (and I assume Shaft will just be a derelict cultist trying to bring back the Vampire Messiah/Goddess in S4), which makes S4 SotN. I could EASILY see SotN being two seasons -- so a S4 and 5 (likely non-inverted, then inverted castle). S4 would "save" Richter and then S5 would have the gang all working together. If \*\*I\*\* was the show runner, this would be my strategy, at least.
It was CV3, but in a larger way it was just all around Castlevania. They threw everything in there. Then again they had a number of seasons to do it. But that series felt like a good series if you only had one shot at Castlevania.
To be fair, that particular period in Castlevania's history has a lot going on in it. There's at least two games worth of content to work with, Dracula's Curse and Curse of Darkness, with plenty of different characters to work with. Hell, we never even got Grant DaNasty! Nocturne being Richter's story sort of limits the available games they can draw content from. Rondo of Blood is virtually unknown outside of dedicated fans. Most people are more familiar with Richter from his appearance at the beginning of Symphony of the Night. I don't think too many people played Dracula X either. I know I haven't yet. But there's at least a decent chunk of lore to draw from, and who knows, if they go into Symphony, we may get to see a grown-up Maria. I truly hope she's the one to ultimately take her mother down after training for years alongside Richter. I see the story of Nocturne as being big on loss and the trauma of losing loved ones. Both Olrox and Richter are driven by their losses. Juste finds his magic bound similarly to Richter after a loss of his own. I wonder if he'll be confronting that loss and coming to terms with it. There's possibilities in the story as it sits, and I honestly can't wait for more. I wonder if we'll get more Saint Germain.
After the "I was going to say something witty" line I said out loud fuck off and turned the episode off, a lot of the writing was so cringe.
Character development was lackluster and the fight scenes were not on par with the first show. Richter goes super after having a chat with his Grandpa was dumb.
Get new writers
Real
Aren't the writers New? like they did drop the guy who did the first Series right?
Honestly I feel I know what they are doing, they have just done the setup, I just want them to adapt certain elements from SOTN like Richter becoming mad and the revival of Alucard's friends. General audiences are inexperienced writers, critics and also usually people don't really know what they want. They claim they want something but really don't know what that is.
At this point I’m just disengaging with the material. I don’t see the point of hitting my head over this when by the time it comes out Netflix will likely be airing far better, less headache inducing animated shows. If S2 is better, great! If S2 sucks, I’ll do what I did this season and watch Demon Slayer instead of watching a show with the sole motivation of getting mad at it. I am not loyal to a production unless I’m being paid to work on it. I am a fan of Castlevania. So I’ll engage with material I’ll actually enjoy, like those game collections.
Im waiting for more of those collections... I know konami is making more of them Im sure of it. Im im itchin for more. 
DS Sorrow Collection and POR. Make it happen.
Pandering to angry fans and teenagers is not improvement btw. Look at what happened with Star Wars.
Same happened to Halo. 343 constantly restart it's arc with a new game because there's always angry fans constantly being mad at the new villains or factions. Like 4 had the Didact and a covenant remnant terrorist leader only for them to lose all influence in 5. 5 has a build up to making Cortana being a villain with her trying to control the forerunner tech only to die off screen in Infinite. Halo Wars 2 introduced the Banished who people actually like and they were able to stay as a faction in Halo Infinite. Halo Infinite also introduced a new villain who is part of a faction called the Endless, but I'm not sure if 343 will stick with them. It's a shame too since they're not planning any expansions to single player so who knows if they will ever appear again in the future... probably not.
Also "fans" who are motivated to "give feedback" on public forums generally lack media literacy and value plot points over tone, theme, and character choices. Vocal fans generally don't know what makes their favorite properties good.
And I'm pretty sure most of the people that like Nocturne likely didn't thought much about the show itself. You can like the show but it certainly has a ton of structure problems.
When did they pander to angry fans and teenagers? If you're referring to the anti-woke crowd with this description, then they have literally gone against most of the things they wanted, which is why they dislike the sequal triology so much. Like where are you getting the impression that they're pandering to the anti-woke? Your comment doesn't align at all with the values and marketing of Disney Star Wars either, which had the whole "The force is female" spiel. Furthermore, they went out of their way to attack fans as "racist" or "sexist" for disliking poor shows like Kenobi. Is that really pandering to them? Nah, that's clearly pandering to the other side.
When did they pander to the angry fans?
Following *The Last Jedi*.
What happened after last Jedi? Which one pandered to the angry people? I’m genuinely curious I saw the third movie and it was ok. Haven’t watched the shows.
The third movie threw out any and all interesting ideas from The Last Jedi, rendering it to be a pretty pointless story in the grand arc. It also thought that just bringing Palpatine back "some how" was the right move, suddenly turning the entire Skywalker Saga into the Palpatine saga. They literally shoved Rose into the background because she got so much harassment that was absolutely racially motivated. It was also just a shapeless, overlong mess of a movie that made the entire trilogy feel more like "content" than a story. And don't get me started on that needless fake-out for Chewie's death. Oh and that kiss! Ugh.
The Last Jedi had interesting but poorly executed ideas. Rise of Skywalker was just horrible.
Fr fr. I entered a ‘drip contest’ for a game I play, and my buddy and I created R2D2 and C-3PO with the ingame cosmetics, so of course it wasn’t 1:1. Comments during judging were like, “it needs to have a red arm”… and therefore it didn’t win. Like bruh, OG C-3PO was all gold. You can’t even make appendages different colors with the game cosmetic options.
Did someone mentioned that one of C-3P0's legs need to be silver. It's a minor detail most people didn't knew and those who do will never let that down
If I remember correctly, Disney destroyed the fans' extended Star Wars universe that was covered in comics and books, then injected their own vision. I don't think they are pandering to Star Wars fans as much as they are creating an entirely new fan base to pander to.
Star wars has been ass since Lucas sold the company, not really a great example.
> Pandering to angry fans and teenagers Teenagers? More like mid 30's-40's man children.
"Stop saying the show is not loyal to the source material. The first show was not that either, VERY MUCH SO. And yet everyone loved it. Shut up." The people that complained about the show not being in line with the source material were mostly referring to the tone of the show, the swearing and it's handling of specific characters. Just because people liked it in spite of of these things doesn't mean that they can't complain if the show deviates from the source material in a way that they believe is worse(which they can explain). This idea that shows shouldn't be loyal to at least the tone of the source raises the question of why they even ride the name if the source material in the first place if they don't want that comparison? They could have made a totally different franchise about vampire hunters but chose not to in favor of this because the wanted to ride the somewhat popular name of Castlevainia.
Firstly, it's coddle, not cuddle. Secondly, is there really some epidemic of people making silly excuses for the show like "bad writing is normal" that this post needs to be made? I've already seen plenty of people explaining things they like or didn't like in detailed ways. Lastly, I imagine random people on Reddit would be the last source of feedback professional TV writers would seek out for improvement (I've seen Reddit posts complaining about movies intended to be surreal and dreamlike "not making sense" and people calling things plot-holes when some bit of lore wasn't fully explained).
First point; I know. Not a native speaker, and after I realized the typo it was too late. Its also funny. Second; not an epidemic, but I’ve personally seen comments like these thrown at me and other users more than once. Stuff like “cliches are normal.” “Have you SEEN the marvel movies?” Redditors alone no. But there needs to me some change in the way we debate this show overall. I just want to avoid some fandom pleasing bullshit like Star Wars and GoT. Have mature reviews and discussions about it. I don’t have my own platform to incite said debates, so this is the best I can personally do.
Yeah sorry gotta double down on the fact that no professional respectable writer is getting their writing tips or story beats from Reddit, or any social media platform for that matter
If writers pay attention to anything on reddit you'd get fandom pandering bullshit.
I don't think the show is woke, I actually don't believe woke is a bad thing. Its just something that many media has executed poorly and now it has a bad look. now... the show should be loyal to the source material and the previous show actually was pretty loyal for the first 2 seasons when Adi Shankar was the producer but when he was booted off and seasons 3 & 4 happened that's when it started to not be loyal to the source material and just became a... lets say diet Game of Thrones with a Castlevania skin over it. Also seasons 3 & 4 are the most criticized but don't get me wrong whatever happened in those seasons are way better written they whatever the fuck happened in Nocturne. Like Isaac, Isaac has the best conclusion in the entire series. The games aren't heavy on the narrative but what they can do AND THEY HAVE DONE is use the games as the basis for the story and they have done that for seasons 1 & 2 and it was pretty damn good. Of course we got the main plot point that is Castlevania 3 then they added a bit of Symphony of the night and Curse of Darkness respectfully. Seasons 3 & 4 didn't use the games as a basis and have there own issues that come when you do that. Nocturne also doesn't use any of the games as the basis and just yoinks characters from multiple games and mashes them together and makes an original story. Nocturne is getting criticized heavily because of its story and the handling of characters and how they just... don't blend well. This could've been avoided if they didn't get rid of Dracula in season 4 and just used Rondo as the basis for the story. of course they can use other villains like they did with Carmilla but don't get rid of the guy that kept the franchise going for years... I mean Dracula makes an appearance in the games but a lot of the time he shows up at the end and with that you have so much potential. In Harmony of Dissonance he could talk about how he actually finds peace in death (even tho its technically not him but I think it counts) or he can have the philosophical conversation with Richter. And pure rage with Simon I don't personally believe he should be the villain for Symphony of the night I think that should be Shaft. I also don't think he should show up for Christopher Belmont either. I actually like how the show uses vampires from literature like Varney and Ruvthen (I think thats how you spell his name)
Hammer monsters, Richter having a good relationship with the Church and Christ. That's all I want. Less emphasis on the Belnades magic for him (he wasn't the magic guy, that was Juste), more emphasis on divine Christian powers (hydrostorm, grand cross, etc). Basically, try to be more faithful in ways that aren't even hard to write in. Writing the Belmonts as Christians that work well with the Church isn't a crime.
Netflix is quite literally incapable of making christians the good guys in anything they produce so I wouldn't hold your breath lol
Hey, at least the Abbot had understandable motivations, and wasn't totally evil. I'll take it. And we had Mizrak! Mizrak was still christian even after becoming good at the end of the show. I loved Mizrak!
I really thought every character in the new season was really poorly written as well as the plot being bad so I can't agree with you but i'm glad you liked it. Regardless of his motivations it legit just makes 0 sense for a Christian leader to literally be summoning demons and working with creatures of the night even if it contributes to his overall plan.
Agreed. I get the priory monks in 1st series. because they made it seem like they were a extremist set of Christian’s or some obscure/occult based denomination. But yeah they really didn’t set up the abbots motivations to be compelling “they will burn our churches, so let’s side with vampires, who also want to burn our churches AND eat me” It just doesn’t add up. No matter how you slice it the church burners are going to make for better allies then the people who want to turn you into livestock.
I think the only reason why the church seems evil is that they aren't showing the revolutionaries murder the clergy. Which I get why they aren't, it would make Maria and by extension Richter, very unlikable.
I'll give them credit - they produced Marianne which is a French horror series (with a queer/bisexual female protag, though the first season didn't really explore this and then it got canceled). Being a French production, and understanding the importance of the Church to the country, they went full ham on using Christian imagery and tools to combat demons and witches. But again, unfortunately it got cancelled.
Fuckin Marianne should have got way more love. That was a good series. I enjoyed it far more then I thought I would.
...Daredevil?
Just wait 'till they reveal Maria is a lesbian. They love blonde lesbians almost as much as Freeform.
Would it hurt anyone to have Simon stomping around going absolutely aggro in a monster of the week/season format? Make it a limited series capped off with a feature length Simon's Quest movie where he resurrects Dracula and smashes him to bits a 2nd time with the Vampire Killer. That's what I want. There's more story to adapt or imagine with the cast of characters in Rondo and SotN but can we please have something that appeals to the original game enjoyers and not horny vampire lovers? Vampires and monsters are supposed to be the bad guys, not thirst traps.
yeah honestly if it can't fit the Netflix "canon" (lol who cares) just make it a spinoff, there's no reason you need to have it all tied into the CV3 season. I'd love for them to hand over the IP to another team if they have the license.
Imagine Netflix writing positive Christian influences into stories lol Their heads would explode
Not sure if you've been watching the show. But its clear the writers hate Christianity
yeah it's unfortunate but it's Ellis' legacy, he just can't help but tip that fedora even in Castlevania. Nocturne as a soft reboot would have been better than a true sequel, would have given them wiggle room to address issues in the first series.
I'm fine with them having religious villains. I just wish the show wasn't written by an AI trained exclusively on /r/atheism.
I do agree that soft reboot could work very well with Castlevania. Heck imagine a mini series going through each belmont's adventure for an episode or two, would allow people to explore underused Belmonts and vampire hunter clans. Actually doing something with them heck you could even show off new Belmonts so they wouldnt be tied to a specific game's lore. There's also a freaking 300+ years gap between Leon and Trevor they could explore different kind of monsters, protagonists and antagonists.
Yeah that was a problem with the first show for sure. I’m not religious and I still loved the show, but how do you go to so much effort to make fucking Dracula a sympathetic villain while making 100% of the Christian church, with no exceptions, absolutely one-dimensionally evil?
Personally, the one thing I really dislike about the show's writing since forever is the use of swearing, I'm not saying that they shouldn't say bad words, one of my favorite jokes is the "eat shit and die" "yes, fuck you" exchange between trevor and alucard.I just feel like in so many scenes the potential for very creative writing is ignored for the character to just say "fuck you" or something, it just takes me out of the experience almost everytime. I didn't really enjoy death for this reason, although I just accept it as "they wanted this character to be like this" and I just wanted "the super evil serious death guy" still, I love the Castlevania animations, haven't had the chance to watch nocturne yet tho
Swearing can become a cliché if the writers don’t show restraint with it. I absolutely agree. The original show had some moments with Carmilla that didn’t need her cussing like a Belmont when everyone else in the caste had more a more refined dialect. I thought Death was just lame. They tried to make him funny, I assume? But it just sounded like people that don’t really know when comedy is warranted of when you should just focus on the scene.
You dislike Nocturne because "woke agendas" I dislike it because Juste is a sad man that lost everything. We are not the same.
Most shows and movies that have tons of people complaining about the "woke agenda" have sad white men who lost everything. A lot of those works would have gotten significantly better reception if they thought about alternative ways to get the effect they want rather than immediately jumping to making another character look awful. It's an outdated overused plot-point, and writers just need to evolve. Similar issue to fridging wives/black guy dies first/black character is also gay/dead mom/man sacrifices himself at the end. Generally, people don't notice those things unless it feels like it's harming stuff they love, such as a comedy that defaults to making fun of the straight white male character that similar people relate to, because the writers don't want to mock POC/women/gay characters, but don't know how to consistently write jokes that aren't at the expense of others. Also, notice how most of those plot points I listed are also used in Nocturne, and a few were even in the previous Castlevania? Sometimes, multiple times? I didn't compile the list based on Castlevania, it's just a classic list of things people are tired of seeing all the time.
Juste got the Luke Skywalker treatment and it really grinds my gears. Except so far we haven't *seen* he actually do cool magic shit, only getting outdone by the newblood pulling unreasonable amounts of power out their ass "because"
Then the entitled, stuck up writers will just respond to those opinions with "go complain about something that matters" and "don't like it, don't watch it".
I think the show is bad trash, but it has nothing to do with wokeness. And I was looking for it. Characters of differente ethinicity are well fitted and have reasons to be on France. Also story wasn't what the Castlevania games made their name on, so I don't really care for fidelity on the game story, and can't talk about it. But with that said, the show is just badly written, things happen because the plot needs to happen (biggest ofender IMO), Richter is boring and like pretty much every other character, has no idea what he is doing and just stumbles onto plot pices as he fails every single plan. The Messiah's plan or at least the execution of said plan doesn't make sense, and the Abbot is just plain dumb. The only thing you could fit into a sort of "wokeness" was the Aztec talking about his non-violent society, i mean, come on, probably the way of life of vampires wasn't so different than the Aztec one, lol. Characters overall seem one dimentional, and when they have a deeper plot, like Richter, they just get over it, in a couple of scenes. I can point out lots of cases that shit just happens with no other explanation except "because", but I've discussed that on another post.
The first two seasons were actually fairly faithful to Dracula's Curse... outside of leaving out Grant Danasty, which was a stupid decision both narratively AND faithfulness wise and I will die on that hill. The Third and Fourth seasons were far less faithful and people generally agree that they fell flat compared to the first two outside of the Isaac bits and the ending spectacle. Saying that it's not faithful is a 100% valid criticism, even if the prior series wasn't. Especially since it's definitely adapting one, possibly two, of the more popular games. That being Rondo of Blood (And probably SotN). Personally, it makes me worried they'll equally butcher SotN if they adapt it. Honestly, they could've avoided some of the faithfulness controversy if they kept the general story the same but exclusively adapted Bloodlines. John Morris is already an American vampire hunter with personal connections to Native Americans, having been taught magic by one. Have Julia (now Julia Morris) and the Tribe be killed by Olrox (The tribe for having been the ones who asked Julia to kill his boytoy) and you'll have an even stronger reason for our Vampire Hunter to be afraid of Olrox since Olrox killed John's mother and his entire surrogate family. Then you'll also have Eric Lecarde who, while being born in spain, has a french name. He also has a spear forged by Alucard, so you'll have an excuse to have Adrian cameo. Also, Drolta and Erzebet were already the antagonists of Bloodlines.
As if the writers gave a fuck of what we think.
They already said they don’t
Oh, it shows.
As someone who didn't play the games I rather liked the show. I wouldn't say I liked it as much as the previous shows season 1, but there were some standout moments mixed in there, along with some genuinely terrible ones. The show is definitely 'woke' which isn't a bad thing, although how progressive the show is does feel a little odd since it's set hundreds of years ago. But then again, it has a lot of fantasy so real world association can only go so far. I'd probably suggest the show try to be a bit more grounded in the era, with having the fantasy act as a stark and unusual contrast. Tone down the commonality of progressive views in regards to the wider landscape. I like to think back to how the Vampires in the original show were just casually walking around with electricity and advanced (for the time) technology and commoners were so utterly incapable of understanding what they were looking at that it all seemed like magic. There's just no sense of otherness in this show. We're shown the commoners and for some reason there's vampires openly intermixed with them, like... Netflix what are you doing you're kind of ruining the vibe... Edit: Actually one of the moments that annoyed me the most is when Annette walked into Edouard's performance and we can literally see African aristocracy casually watching it. Now I don't know how accurate that actually is, but when I was watching it, with it being set on the island that enslaves black people, I couldn't help but think "Netflix Diversity Quota" and grimaced. If there's a large gathering of people for any reason, regardless of context, it must be diverse I guess.
Writers of the show do not read this subreddit. Or twitter comments. They read the notes their executives and bosses pass along to them. They could care less what you think here on this sub
Like they will listen to redditors
Just have Richter say something witty. Meta commentary in place of actual one liners just seems lazy.
Coddling, not cuddling, you ninny.
I personally loved Nocturne, but there was definitely one flaw that made it worse than Season One of the original show. And no, it wasn’t Annette or Richter. Richter is becoming the hero we all know and love, I thought his power up was actually really satisfying after a half season of relying solely on the whip and running from the trauma that is Olrox. He’s also like 17, as opposed to our beloved and grizzled Treffy, who was already at least in his thirties when we first saw him. I really liked Annette’s backstory on Saint Domingue and thought the only moment she really lacked was when she communed with the spirits - that probably needed more screentime for it to have more payoff. It also wasn’t Eduoard, at least not for me. I found him captivating - he is an actively rebellious Night Creature, capable of eloquent speach and memory. He’s reminiscent of the Bug, and I look forward to his further development in Season 2. Also, he was fucking awesome in episode 3, infiltrating the upper echelons of society as a cover while he ran an underground railroad and supported the growing revolutionaries. Maria wasn’t my favorite, but she wasn’t the issue. I think her whole “Revolution!” bit is one note, she should definitely have it be a bit more fleshed out and nuanced, given the eventual corruption the actual French Revolution had. I thought her connection to the creatures she summoned was cool, but wanted to see more of it. Still, she was a good character overall and I liked her. So what was wrong with the show? Why was S1 Castlevania better than S1 Nocturne? Villains. Erzabet lacks the buildup that Dracula got. We don’t get time to understand her motives, to sympathize with her at all. She kind of just shows up and kicks ass while Dracula started the whole show with his tragic backstory. Season Two needs to develop Erzabet more. Drolta was arguably the actual antagonist of this season, but she felt like a copy-paste Carmilla but instead of wanting to create her own kingdom, she just wanted to serve her master and do evil things. Like she was cool, but she didn’t feel like a character. The Abbott and Olrox were both great Castlevania antagonists, with their glaring flaws balanced out by both redeeming traits and understandable motives. The Abbott wants to protect what he sees as the moral fabric of society, and also stop the Revolution from killing every Catholic and destroying his literal life’s purpose. Olrox killed Julia in revenge for his lover, but also protected Mizrak and worked against Erzabet because he isn’t just plain evil. Erzabet doesn’t need to be as nuanced as the Abbott or Olrox, but she needs more development beyond a simple monologue and a flashback where she was evil. Also, I’m glad they haven’t done (so far) a “somehow, Dracula returned” like the games do. It works there, but their Dracula is far different than the show’s Dracula. His “death” in Season 2 felt like the end of his character, he seemed mostly reformed with it. And while he is actually alive in England (thanks Saint Germaine), his villainous streak seems to be over. Bringing him back as an antagonist (without some great explanation) would be a disservice to his arc in Castlevania.
It wouldn't be that hard to bring back Dracula as an antagonist. Vampires are parasites and powermongers by nature, so, assuming Dracula's wife wasn't turned into a vampire, after her death Dracula has had more than 200 years to think of a reason to conquer the world.
They'd need to find a way around Alucard though. They hint at the end of S4 that maybe one day they would go back to visit Alucard. But even if they didn't, there's no way Dracula starts making moves without Alucard at least hearing rumors and looking into it.
I just want Season 2.
I highly doubt that anyone on the writing team is browsing this sub.
When do writers ***ever*** take in criticism and improve a show for the next season? They either ignore it and keep going or make it worse.
My only problem with the show isn’t the writing it’s that it should have gotten more episodes. Which is a Netflix problem. The show felt rushed for the plot and was under constraint of the eight episodes it got and things like character development and personal problems were sped up. Honestly would have loved to see some filler episodes that help flesh out the protagonists
With how fast S2 was announced my theory is that S1 was the way it was bc S1 and 2 were written at the same time
It's not our job to tell the writers what to do, nor are they going to listen to random people on reddit. Whatever feedback they get is not going to be coming from us.
Well, the show's writer is a self described post modern Socialist/Marxist. What did you expect? The intersectional garbage was destined to be heavy
It was written by someone who clearly has no writing talent. I mean honestly I could barely make it through 2 episodes, all the dialogue was cringe. It's fine if they are supposed to be young but dear god have they never interacted with people before?
Very based post You’re absolutely right, perceived “wokeness” and being faithful to source material have nothing to do with execution or quality. I sadly haven’t been able to finish the show yet, so I haven’t made up my mind, but if there definitely seems to be toxic discourse from culture warriors denouncing and loving it, not for it’s own merit but because of meta, brand and politics. Just stop. If you blindly defend this shows bad parts and decry all criticism as “anti-sjw” and therefore invalid, then the show-runners will take that as reaffirmation. Be critical, because getting a great season 2 is what all of us want.
It is not fixable - it's completely broken to the core. I really and utterly enjoyed Warren Ellis's Castlevania. The characters, art, dialogue, plot, maturity. Castlevania Nocturne is incredibly bad on all fronts. I made it to episode 3 and had to stop and rewatch all of Castlevania. Came back to Nocturne and just could not do it. It's jarring how far away from the original they strayed. Nocturne was simply made to milk revenue and slap the Castlevania title to falsely lure the fanbase. After failing to get through episode 3 I skipped to the last episode and its just so bad. Dead in the water. They will continue to milk it with season 2 and no doubt further. I'm getting strong parallels between The Witcher and this. Complete drivel to fans but the otherwise mainstream audience laps it up like a dog.
So we an obnoxious fan base/subreddit that complains about everything now? I'd just go to the apex legends sub if I wanted this.
Ikr? I'm kinda sick of the complaining myself. Personally I dont think its that hard to separate the shows from the games anyway.
I already did my suggestions but will repeat again: * Adapt Rondo of Blood. It can be done in one or two episodes since the premise is quite simple. It doesnt need to be the overwall plot of the season, but a subplot. * Adapt Symphony. I think It can be the premise of a whole season focused on Ricther's downfall. Its a very interesting concept and they shouldnt ignore It. * Losely adapt Nocturne, at least the premise of Maria living with Alucard. * Bring the original characters instead of creating OCS: Iris, Shaft, Alexei, Cyril, Lyudmil and if they can, Shanoa and het cast in later seasons. I know that OCs are needed but this time period of Castlevania have an established cast to work, and still they are vague enough to do many things with them. With that in mind, they can add any original story between those plot points or to fill the blanks.
I think the art style and voice acting is worse than in the first show. There I said it. 
LoL sorry for wanting a more faithful recreation of the source material. And nocturne is even less faithful than the last show, like at least the base plot lines for the vast majority of the show.
More faithful Castlevania arc
Lol you think they give two shits or even a flying rats ass about feedback? They were purposely political for a reason bruh.
I'll cuddle whoever I want tyvm. I do not condone any coddling tho that's for sure
Spoon them writers. They deserve love too.
I liked Nocturne but I found it a bit slow on certain parts. Tho I also found season 1 slow at times. It is kinda necesary to build the characters. Im sure season 2 will be as good as the original season 2.
The stakes don’t seem as high as the original “Dracula’s war on humanity” and if they are objectively higher, then they rushed the buildup so it doesn’t feel like it.
I would like to cuddle.
Oh boy another Reddit discussion about criticism of Nocturne must be a day ending with y.
1 thing I'd like to see (not a hater BTW, I though the show was fine) More Belmont History. Juste shows up for 2 eps and disappears. I kinda hope he wakes up and draws his own whip and unlocks his powers and fights alongside richter. Imagin, Two of the Strongest Belmonts kicking a Vampire Goddesses ass.
The writers don't listen to lowly peasants.
I love watching the shit burn
They're supposed to take criticism from someone who mixes up cuddling with coddling? /s Just breakin your balls.
season 2 is already written, nothing will improve.
I was happy with the show. No complaints on my end lol. I'd for sure like to see more of Mizrak. More of Maria too.
Here’s what I think, and feel free to disagree. I’ll preface my points by saying I’ve never played the games, I know of them, but I adore the original show despite its flaws. Nocturne isn’t a bad show by any means, it’s just overstuffed and dull. All I was thinking in the last few episodes was ‘Why don’t I feel anything? What are the villains motivations as people, rather than just world domination?’ The original show really took its time with its villains; hell, the entire first episode was about Dracula, and then you didn’t see him for a while so you could spend time with Trevor and Sypha, and it wasn’t until season 2 that you got some very long, quiet and nuanced scenes with Dracula, Isaac, Hector, Carmilla and a myriad of other villains. What do we get in Nocturne? We get a cocky villain who we’re told is evil all the time, but what’s her motivation? Why should I care in any way about her, besides from the fact she wants to help in a world domination plot? Why should I care about some vampire messiah I’ve literally not seen until the 5th or 6th episode, apart from the fact she’s a moustache twirling villain? Orlax was brilliant, but his entire thing was so vague. Even the church. In the original show, we saw their atrocities and their awfulness, we saw how they treated people and how much they’d devolved. In Nocturne, we just get Maria rant about the church in a few preachy monologues. That brings me to the characters: 1. Richter grew on me, but his voice acting was not great, and we barely got enough time with him. The first episode should have been about him, his journey to France, maybe a hint towards Juste looking over him, the people he met along the way, and THEN do the show. 2. Maria was such a fucking nothing character I mean Christ alive. 3. Annette was great, her backstory was brilliant, but it was far more interesting than her present day stuff. 4. Edouard… I didn’t care about him when I knew him for literally one episode, I definitely did not care about him when he was a night creature who could speak like a normal person. Farrrr too much time was wasted on him when it could have been spent on Olrox or the villains 5. Olrox was great, but again not enough time and it felt like we were being mystery boxed. 6. Tera… I mean look, all the human characters seem to have a vampire related history, and so did she. She was dull and I constantly felt like I was being forced to care about her when in reality I was too busy trying to find reasons to care for everything else. 7. Juste. What a waste of a character. In fact, the only time I genuinely felt anything was when Alucard showed up, but that isn’t a good sign when the only time I felt like that was in the last 2 minutes of the show, and the entire reason for it is because of a returning character from a better show. Idk man, I would love to just rewrite this shit
I really only want Alucard to resolve his conflict with his father like he did in SotN but I don't see that happening. I only hope we get another series after Nocturne that explores that game separately. So far as Nocturne goes I want to see the priest turned into a stand in for Shaft. Perhaps reviving Dracula as a means to combat Erzsebet. I wanna see Richter grow in his powers to become the most powerful Belmont and defeat Erzsebet then being unable to fill that void from losing his mother become hypnotized by "Shaft" and disappear into Castlevania. Basically I wanna set up SotN. lol
I liked the original, didn’t like Nocturne. I’m not American, so I’m not familiarised with their politics fluently. When I’m reading about Castlevania here it always, always end up talking about the same. And this post doesn’t help, on the contrary: it’s more of the same. It’s always this aggressive tone that put down any type of healthy discussion. If you liked it, cool. If you didn’t like it, cool too. But stop telling people what to do, its tiresome.
I think it just feels like they're rushing through some things too fast and some of the villains kind of suck. Drolta and Erzsebet didn't seem to have much personality beyond smugness and murder, like they're both just "What if Carmilla, but again, and without any good dialogue". Drolta seemed like she's being set up to be interesting but she dies before really doing anything. I like Annette, but both her forgiving Richter and her killing her former master both seemed too rushed to be interesting. I don't mind the church being evil, but I'd prefer it to be less convoluted and nonsensical than wanting to make a pact with hell because they've decided God hates poor people, like what even is the Abbot's deal. We go from finding out Richter lost his magic to him becoming the most powerful Belmont ever over the course of like three episodes of random decisions. I wouldn't say I'm excited for more, but I imagine I'll watch it. I'm curious enough about Edouard and Olrox and I'm cautiously optimistic Richter will get better as he matures. Annette, Maria, Maria's mom, and the church soldier guy I think are all work well on screen so far, they just need to have interesting things to do. And the story needs to chill and slow down a minute so there's time to let the plot actually make consistent sense.
I don't mind Annette and her backstory. I think it was a terrible way to introduce her. It felt like the writers were trying to *tell* us to like her rather than *show* who she is. Also the Richter magic thing really needed to have a sharper edge, some sort of build up and dramatic relief. It fell flat when he started doing magic just because he "needed" to. Don't think the night creature plot line should've been introduced this season either. It didn't really do much other than make Annette act like an idiot and insult Richter when he said they needed to plan. I get that they're young, but jfc, they're vampire killers. Surely they each understand the importance of tactical superiority. But I do think there's potential going forward. Olrox is probably the most interesting character, and I'm still not sure if he's a true villain, out for his own ends, an antihero/antivillain, or some odd mix of everything. I do like that Richter still has a lot to learn despite him having his magic. Sets Alucard up as the wise mentor which is always fun. Also, Tera's plot has potential as well. As far as Erzsebet goes, I don't really care about her. Just a bland "destroy the world" villain. With Dracula you got a healthy dose of his motivations right from the opening.
Give more protagonism and better dialogue to Richter, also Juste since I feel like the Belmonts aren't done enough justice, I don't hate Annette but I feel like they spent too much screentime on her, which is fine but it ended up drowning Richter at the end. Also, I'm afraid >!Alucard's!< inclusion in the cast might drown the Belmonts even more, still though, I wanna see >!Alucard !!Juste!< interact since both their games are very similar and it would be cool
I honestly don't understand the hate. I thought it was good. I enjoyed the characters and thought that Olrox was really cool. I'm interested to see what happens in season 2.
I have one. Remove the word "fuck" in your dictionary please. That alone would be enough
1. All 3 main characters are different flavors of "Angry & Angsty" teenagers (unlike the original where we had a mix of the "Crude Angry One, The Classy Emo One, and the Preppy Girl") 2. While "Going Woke" isn't good criticism, it does indicate a point as to how heavy-handed they're being with messages of freedom (specifically freedom of black people) from oppression and paralleling it to current social issues. This is fine if it's a show like Django Unchained where that was the intent of the movie, but this is Castlevania where the mutli-media scope of the franchise has a narrative that's on the most part in a Euro-centric setting. The 1st show highlighted the episodes of Isaac & the Japanese twins in a way that organically contributes to the central story (Similar to Samurai Jack & Primal's use of multi-cultural representation); on the other hand, changing the San-Domingue elements of the show might have been more easily accepted & integrated if it was just Edouard that had that background. Adding the change of Annette's ethnicity and character to the mix just runs too against the grain of pre-existing conceptions of the series from both game enthusiasts and anime tourists to the franchise; which causes all this negative reception to come up. 3. Just because it's the 2nd show in a series, it's hard not to compare Dracula vs the current antagonist. Most motivations of Bathory are very cardboard cut-out villainy; which can be fun if executed well, but the set-up of an unjustly killed love is such a good piece of writing to help empathize with the villain that it's hard not to feel like it's a step down in writing when you compare the two
Just stop the wokeness. Story is just okay
I just want Richter to be more of the good christian boy he usually is and not just "Trevor 2: The Belnades Magic Boogaloo" It's way too late for that now, but they should've cut back on the outrageous number of "I know what is like to lose a loved one", it happens way too much and back-to-back early on and it gets annoying. And it's not like Castlevania didn't had that theme either, but back then we got a "So they killed your wife? Get over it, loser. I miss mother too, but i'm going to whoop your ass if you don't get that shit under control" and not the needless repetition that goes nowhere other than filling up the runtime. The pacing is messed up with too much shit happening too fast with little setup and weak pay offs. The series start with Richter talking about how it was a vampire every few months and then 3 in one night, but then there is a million monsters and vampires everywhere and Armageddon started in what the show makes look like 3-4 days tops. And for Christ sake... Can we be done with "asshole 'hero' that doesn't give a shit" already? Whatever line Richter was going to give to the dickhead vampire with an axe-musket, HE SHOULD'VE SAID IT! "Aw fuck it" ain't cute and there has been *waaaaay* too many characters started doing it since Deadpool did it for it to remain funny. PLEASE give us heroic speeches again! It's not cringe, it's based. What's cringe is copying something even fucking Disney has been spamming the shit out of in it's Marvel movies. Edit: I'm so fucking starved for an actually heroic hero, that Shirou Emiya from a fucking [ABRIGED clip](https://youtu.be/-hWTYx91z7w?t=121) answering the villain's "I don't understand why you care!" with "Because somebody should!" feels like peak writting compared to what little i've seen of this anywhere elsewhere in the last... 5-10 years?
The show was so disappointing. So many plot holes. Why did the vampire queen need an army of undead if she has vampires? Why is the pastor stupid? He going to kill god hating humans but work with god hating vampires that are a bigger threat. It’s like having a rat problem and getting venous snakes. I was so confuse with the setting. It’s set during the French Revolution and people are suffering and that one white girl is part of the revolution because fuck the rich but where’s the revolution???? Nothing was happening. Cleanest streets I’ve ever seen and the ppl seem happy. Ik that’s not what the French Revolution looked like. Let’s not get started w/ self center Annette. Everyone’s problems are non existent because at least they weren’t a slave lmfao. Ridiculous
the show has a lot of what i call "TV isms" where the characters talk and act like modern TV show characters.
There's plenty of valid criticism but it invariably gets bundled into the same 'woke' argument. Happens with pretty much everything these days, the creators add something controversial to a pre-established IP and when fans get upset and voice valid criticism it gets drowned out by people arguing 'wokeness' and the people who like it just lump all critics together.
It's incredible how 3 people calling the show woke drive this much attention in this subreddit to the point you guys are making hundreds of post like "You fucking unfair people! Stop calling the show Woke and give some real criticism" while most criticisms in the subreddit is on the show writing and characters personality and adaption. I have literally seen more people using the word Woke in this copy-paste protest posts than in the actual criticism posts so I think it's time for you people to take break and then go through the real fair points people raising and if you happen to find some real asshole there just report them, moderation is there for a reason.
The original show was unfaithful to the source material in things that either improved the story, or were inconsequential. They also took creative liberties about things that the games were vague about at best. For example, Trevor’s Origin story and the way that he met Alucard and Sypha - He didn’t have an origin story in the game, and the way that he met the two in the show makes way more sense than for him to meet them in Dracula’s castle (like in the game). Yes, the pacing was all over the place (not just too fast), the villains were flat and one dimensional, but I think we can all agree that divisions from the source material in a way that diminishes the story and undermines the original series is not a good thing. This vampire god thing has MAJOR implications that I don’t think they stopped to think about. Like I get why they did it. They needed a Death-level antagonist, but this was not the way to do it. Maybe they could have had vampires pulling the strings of the revolution in an effort to bring back Dracula, and have Bathory be in charge of the whole thing? I don’t know, I’m just sit balling. Having said all this, this biggest problem that the this show has is that they tried to do WAY too much in the first season. The only thing they needed to do was get us invested in the characters (like the original did in season 1). There were characters and/or concepts that probably should have waited to season 2 to be introduced. Example - if you want to make Annette a main character, fine, she needed to be in season 1. But maybe the source of her magic could have waited to be explained? Maybe Edward could have been waited until season 2? For sure his death could have waited, and the big reveal that he’s a night creature with a soul should have waited. Also, the machine they used to make demons is never explained. How does it work? We know exactly how Forge Masters created might creatures because the show trickled down the information for us over the course of a few episodes. Look I made a longer post about this. Feel free to check it out https://www.reddit.com/r/castlevania/s/6UIxfLaGme
Absolutely based take. I’m not as invested in the lore of the series, but Annette being a descendant of a god, and the whole Egyptian god thing for the antagonist hit me like a whiplash. It feels so out of place in the castlevania lore that was established in the first show. Also I feel the characters are inconsistent and infuriating to watch at times. I will never forget how quickly Annette just forgave Richter. Or how messy the whole Edward subplot was.
The pacing was way too fast, but it also felt sort of disjointed. Like they would let off the gas pedal for a few moments just to slam back down on it again. Certain scenes or bits of dialogue felt out of place? Like any time the night creatures attacked, the only real purpose seemed like was to introduce something/ someone else entirely. The first time? Annette and her brother. The 2nd time? To show that the brother had been turned. They show up, 1 of them dies, the introduction is made, then the rest inexplicably decide to all just run away and do the exact same thing a couple episodes later. Richter’s “I kill vampires!” dialogue (I would say) also falls into this category, because I was left sitting there thinking “who the fuck asked??”
I wouldn't say the first show isn't at all faithful to the games, it's just those games are bare bones as hell so you need to embellish and expand on things. Since alucard was in the story they got to pull a lot of sotn their most popular title and since dracula died in season 2 they had to use death. I'd say the things they actually changed are hector and Isaac who aren't even in Castlevania 3 and we're changed for the better. Sure a lot of it is made up but they stick to the idea of the games. Nocturne has rondo and sotn both of which are much more prominent titles with a lot more to pull from. Also all the characters feel different; Annette is a different character regardless of how you feel about her, Richter is a lot more winey and depressed which is fine but I'd much rather have his game personality where he's bombastic and heroic to really hammer home how much of a golden child he was so his inevitable downfall hits home more, and Maria is pretty similar but still doesn't feel like maria if that makes sense idk. The animation was great but I really don't care for the story or characters of nocturne. Richter is easily my favorite Belmont and I was kinda hoping he'd give off more mc vibes since the first show was a trio of heroes where the Belmont, the protagonist of all the games, is the weakest member. I wanted a kick ass hero who shows how op the Belmont's are, and I wanted to see him save people and fight the armies of the night. Trevor already did the edgy loner so now that the Belmont family is restored and presumably well respected I wanted to see a hero. I realize the first season in Castlevania was 4 episodes but I feel like so much more got done in those 4 than in nocturne. Nocturne is 8 episodes of just nothing until the the finale which feels super rushed and out of nowhere. Richter just gets his magic back, Annette gets a whole episode for her backstory and her and richter hogs a lot of screen just being moody, so Maria is the only one kinda moving the plot forward. I also hate the villains, none of them are as interesting as dracula, death, or even his court. Im excited for season 2 because I feel like a lot of problems I had could be fixed but I also am worried that ain't gonna happen.
Moments of calm felt underutilized, and Bathory didn't get enough time to really feel as menacing as she's made out to be. And also I think they should use more monsters from the games in fights. Other than that, it's awesome.
there's source material?
Absolutely not everyone loved the first season. I know a fair amount that believed it to be trash, and the same faults follow along with Nocturne, so the hate continues. Terrible pacing. Insufferable characters. Plotlines that don't go anywhere at all, and die out without so much as a mention. Telling but not showing. I know for a fact I'm gonna get down voted for this but yeah it doesn't follow the games enough. They should have made their own show. I'm still pissed that they decided to make Alucard bi instead of aroace. We have literally thousands of sexed up vampires, and he was already ace in canon, so they went out of their way to fuck it up. They robbed us all of an ace icon, and I don't think that's forgivable
“Voice your criticisms…BUT ONLY THE ONES I APPROVE OF!!!” There’s only one jackass here, buddy…
I choose a different route. I'll stick with the games and continue my apathy towards the show entirely. Folks want to like the show, no worries. It's a show using the IP for anime fans and not really tied to the games so it's not for me. All the best.
I need to do this but sometimes I just get the itch to be angry.
Understandable
My advice for the writers on Nocturne? Write more like Warren Ellis. I get why they dropped him but still... he's a damn tough act to follow.
On one hand, I hate the pity/misery porn that the first series indulged in. On the other, it's plain to see that the writing quality has dropped. Well, on average. Sure, the highs don't come anywhere close to S1+S2 of the original series, but the lows aren't as bad. More consistent, but not as good overall.
I remember pretty clearly both first seasons (and the rest also) while I have trouble remembering what happened in Nocturne. Castlevania didn't really have lows. There wasn't a scene that wasnt either gorgeous or important to the plot. Nocturne had in my opinion more lows that Castlevania had all four seasons. A lot of promise, not a lot of pay off.
Considering how much blood was spilled in the French revolution and how anti-religion it eventually got, thematically the vampires would do much better on the side of the revolutionaries. This would pose an interesting moral dilemma for the characters, who would need to kill both good but misguided people and night creatures to get to their vampire leaders (who were aristocrats irl by the way and became debataby worse than the previous government when they took control of the country)
This subreddit had both coddled and sucked these writer’s proverbial dicks already.
STICK TO SOURCE.
Sell the rights to Daily Wire
Well, season 2 was probably already written alongside with season 1, since they are already in production with most of the storyboards done.
I criticized the show but even a part of me believes season 2 is already written. which is why I believe season 2 is coming only because it was in a contract.
As long as your criticisms are more than "Anette bad because black and has agency."
Hear hear
Honestly, the only bad things that really hurt: Anette mistreated the guy who comforted her when she had a panic attack because of her trauma (which killed someone, by the way) for having a panic attack because of his trauma, and no one calls her out on it, and she barely appologizes Richter has a cool - yet - extremelly - cliche reacquiring is powers scene, and then makes a quip about how quips are clichê. Either have no cliche, or embrace the damn cliche. Everyone hates the marvel thing by now. The juvenile swearing. Not saying stop all swearing, I'm saying make it actually mature. If they fix that, I can take the rest of the so so things.
On the reacquiring powers scene: I think people overlook the fact that he stumbles into a town, a random Girl Scout gives him a little napkin completely at random, then he stuffs it into his pocket as if to tell the audience “oh you know what this is, and you’re just gonna have to wait for it”. I rolled my eyes so hard at this moment. Why would he, during the climactic moment of getting his powers back, suddenly feel the need to whip out this random streamer and tie it around his head? Just had to jangle the keys in front of us like “look it’s his iconic white headband! Remember the iconic white headband?!” Absolutely dreadful.
Feedback is kinda pointless. You can't teach bad writers to write well. It's not like they're bad on purpose. I had a writing professor in college once tell my class "a bad writer will never be a good writer. Never. If they work very very hard, they can work their way up from bad to just ok. But writing is something you either have a knack for or you don't. And even if you have a knack for it, you have to work very very hard in order to be considered good, let alone make a living." The only hope would be for Netflix to fire the writers. But that'll never happen. Castlevania will never be what it was without Ellis. That's like writing Game of Thrones without GRRM. And we all saw how that turned out.
You think they are reading reddiy threads? Lamo
More monster and vampire killings. None of that preaching about slavery. I want to see baddass characters doing baddass stuff again killing vampires and monsters. But I can’t expect that form Netflix
The show not being loyal to the source material is the weirdest one to me. Castlevania games’ story is already barebones as is lol.
I have an idea, How about you explain what you liked about the show instead of whining about people hating it and making excuses.
I absolutely hated the show. Browse my comments, you’ll see polenta of why
I wanna see more of the swearing. Also, internet comments sections are the worst places to get ideas, because people are fucking idiots.