For the longest time there’s been an incredible stigma towards adaptations of video games. Feature films have been greatly missing the mark for decades and the efforts on television have been few and far between. In recent years, no doubt largely helped by the boom of comic book adaptations, video game adaptations have become less disastrous of projects. Netflix’s The Witcher has been a major success (with an animated spin-off film, The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf also just getting announced) and feature films based on Sonic the Hedgehog, Monster Hunter, and Mortal Kombat are all currently underway and in various stages of production. One of the greatest success stories has been Netflix’s more recent animated take on Castlevania. Castlevania has not just become one of the best video game adaptations on television, but it’s one of the stronger animated series to come along period. It’s a show that proves not only what is possible with a video game adaptation being in the right hands, but also that a more mature approach for these series can be very successful. With Castlevania’s long awaited third season set to hit this year, it’s possible that even more animated adaptations could come under consideration. To help that wait feel a little less painful, here are a number of video games that we think would greatly benefit from getting similar treatments to the Castlevania animated series, as well as who might be the best names in animation to help properly execute them.
Super Metroid
The popularity of Nintendo’s Metroid series seems to be much more cyclical than the company’s other major first-party series. Gamers are always hungry for more Metroid antics, but Nintendo is much more restrictive over when they let Samus Aran out to play. Currently, a Metroid Prime 4 languishes in development, but a great way to make that wait less unbearable would be to put out a mature Metroid animated series in the meantime. Right from the first game in its series, Metroid has always been darker than Nintendo’s other major properties. Samus’ isolated, nihilistic trek to wipe out the remaining Metroids and Mother Brain arguably makes a better case for a serialized animated show than Castlevania. Pulling from Super Metroid would make for a great jumping off point, but all of Metroid’s lore is entertaining. Dave Filioni has impressively shifted his directorial efforts to live-action fare, but his work on Clone Wars and other Star Wars action fare would make him an easy pick to bring Super Metroid to life. Filioni could really explore the psychological damage of Samus Aran’s story and orchestrate some stunning space-set action sequences, to boot.
