Sadly that's exactly how i feel about this show. The original Castlevania show was one of the most pleasant surprises because it was the first successful video game adaptation. It had great writing, art direction, animation, action scenes, pacing, music and character development and chemistry. While this show has amazing production values too it falls flat to the most important things.

First is the writing which took a big hit. Every dialogue seems forced, not fitting at all, no chemistry between the main protagonists, no interest villains that have no clear motives. The show also doesn't expand on why the revolution started, how it expanded, how it operates. Also the reason why the aristocrats are bad are because of the slaves? That's only one of the reasons not all. In that time period the problems that pushed the common people to their limit were way more than slavery and religion as this show portrays. Also it's borderline criminal that the show's main protagonist (Richter) gets so little screen time and instead focuses so much on Annette. Her character was the most boring thing out of the entire season. All of her scenes dragged down the pacing of the show. Why there are no flashbacks on the backstory of Maria, her mother and Ritchter when they were young, how they grew up together and their training in magic, combat and lore from Belmont family and history ? Annette of course has almost half of the season dedicated to her and her flashbacks. Not building a backstory or explaining who and what here motives of the Devourer of Light are was big mistake making her one dimensional villain.

Overall i have to say i am very disappointed after how good the original Casltevania was. I really hope they fix some of these many glaring problems next season.