It’s no coincidence that today was the day Konami decided to officially announce that Castlevania: Requiem is coming to PS4. Today marks the Japanese release date of the first game in the series on Nintendo’s Famicom Disk System.
Yes, it’s been 32 years since the first great horror video game series began and Simon Belmont first crashed Count Dracula’s party. Armed with a whip and some impressive muscles.
While the game was released on the Famicom first, it would be best remembered in the West for its Nintendo Entertainment System release a year later (this was originally due to be its lead platform). It originally went by the name Akumajō Dracula (roughly translated as Devil’s Castle Dracula) and got the Castlevania name due to fears of the original name’s Satanic connotations upsetting Christians. The game’s North American release fittingly coincided with the 90th anniversary of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Most of the things synonymous with Castlevania today are right there in that first game, The Whip, the castle, the platforming, and of course, the climactic battle with the big bad which is usually Count Dracula himself.
The series’ legacy still resonates to this day and there’s plenty of quality to pick from. In fact, Castlevania looks to be having a small resurgence with the aforementioned Requiem (a spruced up collection of Symphony of the Night and Rondo of Blood) and the second season of the critically-acclaimed animated series starting on Netflix next month.
Given recent history, Konami is unlikely to do much more with the franchise. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, a spiritual successor, has been in the works for several years but has repeatedly run into trouble. It did see a very NES-style spinoff get released earlier this year, however, with the rather good Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon.
That’s not to say the franchise doesn’t pop up here and there still beyond retro collections. Simon Belmont will appear in Super Smash Bros Ultimate later this year and Konami’s own Super Bomberman R has Castlevania-themed maps and characters.
That doesn’t really stop the thirst for something fresh in the Castlevania universe. Hopefully, the attention the series gets next month will be the seed for a brighter future in the fight against the Prince of Darkness.
Until then, let us remember why the Netflix series is good…Trevor Belmont.
It can’t be October soon enough.