Netflix’s Castlevania trailer hits all the right notes

Dramatic lighting! People floating out of coffins! A Nintendo Entertainment System aesthetic to kick things off! Netflix’s Castlevania looks great.

Not for nothing did Nintendo include not just the first, but also the second Castlevania game on its NES Classic Edition. Back in the ’80s, Castlevania had a dark, wonderful aesthetic (even in 8-bit graphical form) and a pretty simple premise: you play as Simon Belmont, and you are a vampire hunter.

Since then, the franchise has expanded to include more hunters, Belmont and non-Belmont alike. However, if the trailer for the Netflix series is any indication, they’re going back to the series’ original main character, which we didn’t know about when the original announcement came down.

Check it out below:

He might not say his name, but we can’t help but suspect that it really is Simon Belmont. Netflix’s choice to appeal to the nostalgia factor by booting up an 8-bit version of the service on an NES (almost certainly also an allusion to how Netflix has been on recent Nintendo systems like the Wii and Wii U, although it is not yet on the Switch) really seems to confirm that.

Here’s Netflix’s official synopsis:

"“Inspired by the classic video game series, Castlevania is a dark medieval fantasy following the last surviving member of the disgraced Belmont clan, trying to save Eastern Europe from extinction at the hand of Vlad Dracula Tepe himself.”"

Again, it doesn’t confirm which Belmont we’ll be seeing, but as you can see in the YouTube still for the trailer, it does rather look like Simon Belmont’s sprite from Castlevania. Using “last surviving member” also implies that more of the family won’t show up, but hidden Belmonts have popped up in the franchise before. Additionally, the series might use flashbacks to tell the family’s story further. (Or, perhaps, additional seasons could look to different games for inspiration. There are certainly plenty of choices here. As I suggested way back when, I wouldn’t mind something based on the adventures of Alucard, like Symphony of the Night.)

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With episodes arriving on July 7, there won’t be much time before we can see how this adaptation will go ourselves.