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While the Castlevania series hasn’t been completely absent from gaming since 2014’s Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, it certainly felt as though it was. Some excellent collections, collaborations, a now-defunct mobile gacha game, and a remake of the much-maligned 1980s arcade game helped keep the fires burning, but we’ve been waiting a very long time for a new adventure with Drac and the Belmonts. Coinciding with the 40th anniversary of Castlevania, Konami tapped developer Evil Empire to deliver Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse.
Set 20 years after the events of Castlevania: Curse of Darkness, Belmont’s Curse sees the titular Castlevania make a reappearance right smack dab in the middle of Paris. When something this specific type of strange shows up in your neighborhood, all you can do is call a Belmont. It’s a two-for-one special, as both Trevor Belmont and his daughter Rose arrive to deal with the situation. The story is designed to fit within the original series canon and the tale from the Netflix series, going so far as to tap some of the voice actors from the show to reprise their roles. It’s decent enough fodder for the adventure, even if it can be a little too wordy at times.
Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse is a Metroidvania-style 2D action-adventure, but it’s one that goes to some lengths to separate itself from prior games in the series that took a similar approach. The broad strokes are familiar. You’ve got a large interconnected map with sections blocked off until you find the particular item or ability that allows you to reach them, save rooms, and boss battles. You can find collectibles that upgrade your stats and some hidden wall meat here and there. Like many other Castlevania protagonists before her, Rose ends up wielding a variety of weapons by the end of the game. She also has access to magic spells thanks to the Tarot cards she inherited from her mother Sypha.
Despite similarities to past Castlevania games, Belmont’s Curse feels very different. It draws on several popular elements seen in modern entries in the genre such as healing flasks that regenerate at save points and mapping features like custom waypoints. Some of these come off as superficial concessions. The aforementioned flasks are less meaningful when enemies and candles have a chance of dropping flask refills or meat. It’s clearly stated that using a save point will restore any killed monsters, and that’s just what happened when you left the screen and came back in the older games. It’s like it wants to have its cake and eat it too, which can make some aspects of the game feel at odds with each other.
Still, it functions well enough. It takes a while to get going, but once it does there is some fun to be had. It’s fairly challenging by default, but you’re given granular options to tweak the difficulty as you see fit. Swinging around with the whip is a great way to get around and keep on top of your foes, and each of the weapons is distinctive and useful in different situations. Hitting enemies without getting hit takes some getting used to, since they seem to move faster than you at times. The map is interesting to explore, and the little platforming challenges sprinkled around are appreciated. I wish the fast travel system unlocked earlier, though. It can be a real hassle getting around until it does. There are also performance issues at times on Switch 2, and they can be severe on some platforms.
Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse has some reasonably high highs, but most of the game feels like it’s blandly trying to check off boxes rather than be its own thing. It’s playable enough and I think series fans will find it worth sticking with, but I can’t shake the sense there’s a better game in here if only it were more confident about its own identity. Depending on the platform you’re playing on, you might also have to deal with varying degrees of performance issues and poor visual quality. Those playing on the Switch or Switch 2 in particular will probably want to wait and see if some fixes arrive before taking the plunge. Hopefully now that Evil Empire has cut its fangs on the franchise, we can look forward to a better follow-up.
Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse will be available October 15th on Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows PC via Steam.
