Nearly two decades after the last mainline 2D Castlevania game,the team behind 2023’s Dead Cell’s Return to Castlevania DLC has been given the keys to Dracula’s Castle for real. Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse aims to breathe fresh life into this 40-year-old series with a creative blend of old and new ideas. With a brand new Belmont wielding the family whip, familiar foes in your way, and modern conveniences that have become expected in the genre, developer Evil Empire has largely hit their mark – but if you are a longtime fan expecting Belmont’s Curse to be a completely faithful revival of the series we played back in the early 2000s, then you will want to think again. This is a different breed of monster you're hunting, both for good and for ill.
Belmont’s Curse picks up in Paris about 23 years after the events of the NES/Famicom classic Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse (the game Netflix’s original Castlevania series was based on). This time, the Belmont in charge of dishing out pain to the various creatures of the night – including big, bad Dracula himself – is Rose Belmont, the daughter of Trevor Belmont and Sypha Belnades. Trevor leaves Rose on her own to get to the bottom of what is going on in Paris, and the story that follows over the next 10-15 hours is one that boils down to what fans of Konami’s 40-year-old series would expect: Dracula comes back, and you need to kill him.
Belmont’s Curse does sprinkle some nifty twists into the cauldron here and there, many of which revolve around that titular “curse” and the mysterious set of Tarot cards Sypha left to her daughter before her off-screen death in childbirth. It’s a fun story overall, and I loved the nods and winks for dedicated fans like me to catch, but I’d be lying if I said plot was ever the reason I fell in love with these games.
In the line of Belmont heroes, I would rank Rose fairly high. While certainly strong-willed and focused as she sets out to prove herself worthy of her family’s legacy, you can also see she is still a bit rough around the edges. She can be impulsive at times, but learns from her mistakes – and while her tough facade occasionally cracks to reveal a more vulnerable side, Rose never comes off as a damsel in need of saving. She’d be the one busting down doors to save you. She carries the spirit of Sonia Belmont on her shoulders well.
Much like the other heroes of these games, a small cast of helpers joins her in the quest to put “Him” back in his pine box (seriously, this game really likes to lean into characters just referring to Dracula as “Him”, capital H and all). However, unlike in previous games, most of these interactions happen entirely inside of Rose’s head with the souls of bosses she has vanquished, who now find themselves sealed away in her Tarot cards. There are some fun moments of bickering between the main three – The Fallen, Joan of Arc, and Medusa – but I wish that the other bosses would more regularly chime in.
I also found myself missing actual people to run into. Scenes like Alucard first encountering Maria in Symphony of the Night gave a feeling of life to the castle and its surrounding lands full of death. By comparison, the mental arguments with Medusa are amusing, but just don’t land in the same way. Considering you start out in Paris (admittedly, a violently burning one), it feels a bit odd that there isn’t a single shop open or person left to talk to. It would have been great to randomly stumble on Grant from Trevor and Sypha’s crew from Castlevania III somewhere.
The map itself is divided into large, self-contained zones, more akin to Super Metroid than Symphony of the Night, with a boss typically overseeing each area. These larger zones are then connected to one another through the odd bridge or pathway, with special ferryman doors that you will eventually uncover to allow for quick hopping between regions, including the various parts of Dracula’s castle (and other even stranger places). As someone who tends to get lost or forget things in these sorts of games, Belmont’s Curse adopts some modern conveniences that are very welcome, including percentage trackers for each area and various markers that can be placed on the map. I used these tools liberally and frequently to help keep track of blocked paths I still needed a movement upgrade to get through or collectibles I could see but not reach.
Another especially handy feature (one you are never clearly told about, for some reason) is that you are also able to fast travel between the save rooms inside a given region, done so by holding down and crouching Rose just in front of the mirror for a few seconds. This will take you to a small hub of sorts where you can choose another mirror to pop out of. For a game that has just as much backtracking and exploration as this genre is known for, it’s a great help. Too bad it takes about 15 seconds from when you first crouch until you regain control of Rose in the Hub (at least on PS5). Handy as it was, that load time got old real quick.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.ign.com/articles/castlevania-belmonts-curse-review
