A beloved franchise returning after nearly two decades is a big deal, sure, but it’s always healthy to be somewhat skeptical when a new developer tries its hand at such a thing. This time, though, any skepticism can be left at the door, as Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse is not only a truly wonderful Castlevania game, but easily one of my favorite games in the series.
I don’t say that lightly either, as I’ve been a huge fan for most of my life. The game yet again has you control a Belmont that aims to stop Dracula after he’s resurrected, but the story is legitimately the best the series has ever seen. Not only that, but there’s a lot of love for the lore, too, with familiar characters and references peppered throughout the game. It’s a veritable love letter.
To be clear, though, Belmont’s Curse very much tries to do its own thing. It eschews the loot-heavy RPG-esque gear system that the Igarashi-led series entries focused on, although there are seven types of weapons with four tiers each. You can choose from a whole host of magic subweapons, as well as find a ton of equipable relics, three of which can be equipped at once.
Due to all of this, exploration feels legitimately rewarding without the things you find ever feeling irrelevant or requiring any grinding for drops. I prefer this, but I know many series fans will want things to be just like they were in past classics. Evil Empire absolutely puts its stamp on the series, so don’t expect a huge amount of familiarity.
Fans who’ve played the demo have had much to say regarding the game “not feeling like Castlevania”, and perhaps that’s somewhat true for the first third of the game or so. But, once you actually make it to the castle, I think most of those folks are going to completely change their tunes. Belmont’s Curse absolutely screams Castlevania to me, all while feeling very unique and original. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the classic series tropes here.
You’ll dodge Medusa Heads as they fly at you, duck under an Ax Armor’s spinning blades, and strike at Mermen who jump at you from the water. There’s so much Castlevania here, so there’s no need to worry about the game feeling like anything else. It certainly helps that the level design here is immaculate, as areas are incredibly memorable and are put together spectacularly.
There’s a big emphasis on platforming your way through the levels, with a lot of tough challenge areas. The game can seriously get quite demanding in this regard, which was awesome to see considering how difficult the platforming in these games used to be. The spirit of the original games is very much alive here as you wall jump and whip your way through gauntlets.
The combat is similarly impressive. The different weapons all have their own strengths and weaknesses in addition to being highly varied and fun to use. My favorites are the whips and spears, but everything here is enjoyable (even if I didn’t use the sword and shield much). A fan favorite weapon even has a surprise showing, which delighted me. Weapons use multi-hit combos and most have a special extra ability to boot.
Enemies are honestly quite challenging at default settings, and I found they kept me on my toes throughout my entire playthrough. Many classic enemies have some seriously threatening moves that take some observation to deal with; it’s fantastic seeing them pose a threat despite me supposedly knowing them so well.
Bosses are a bit of a different story, though. A good number of them are simply pushovers for players who know their way around action games, but there were a few that required me to put in some practice. I will say that they’re very uneven in this regard, as I found some to do far too much damage despite other bosses barely posing any threat.
This is a decently long game with three different endings. I got the normal ending after about 14 hours and the true one in about 17, but I only got 94.5% completion, as the other 5% has some things that are honestly pretty tricky to find. Two of the four whips were considerably harder to find than most anything else as well, as I couldn’t locate them to save my life.
Getting that true ending also takes a pretty solid amount of extra legwork mixed in with some engaging riddles. You really do need to pay attention and the game will often give you easily revisited clues to find the way forward, which I really liked. This truly does feel like a more cerebral game in a lot of ways, which I very much appreciated.
Verdict
In the end, Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse is not only one of my favorite games of the year, but it has easily entered into my top three favorite games in the series. It’s got a lot to see, excellent combat, wonderful exploration, and terrific controls, making for an absolute must-play for anyone who enjoys Metroidvanias, old or new. It’s just a shame that there aren’t any additional characters or modes once you beat the game. Here’s to hoping for those to be added later.
