Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse is a successful resurrection, but not without faults

This year has been quite the story for dormant platformer franchises, especially Castlevania.

It’s been nearly 20 years since we’ve had a single-player Metroidvania-style Castlevania game. My introduction to the franchise was with Symphony of the Night over a decade ago, and since then, I was hooked. It’s a prime example of a sublime platformer game, with perfect controls, interesting world-building and a rich atmosphere.

Since then, I’ve played through the various Castlevania games led by Koji Igarashi, who spearheaded the Metroidvania titles, including his spiritual successor, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Despite the lack of Castlevania video game releases, though, the franchise itself was still active through various other media, including the fantastic Netflix TV series and video game collaborations.

The most famous of these collaborations was with Dead Cells, a roguelite (where players get randomized gear during each run) game inspired by the Metroidvania genre. After rave reviews (though I personally haven’t played it), it felt fitting for Konami to give Castlevania the “Sonic Mania” treatment with the creators of Dead Cells taking the helm for the newest iteration, Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse.

How does it compare to its previous iterations or even the endless Metroidvania games out there now? Well, it has its highs and lows that will ultimately determine whether you really jive with it.

A rose has its thorns

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse stars Rose Belmont, daughter of Trevor Belmont from Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse. This game is a continuation of that story, taking place in 1499 after the events that transpired in Curse of Darkness. While Belmont’s Curse is a Metroidvania, it is structured differently compared to the previous Igarashi-led titles.

Rose Belmont is more than a capable fighter. Outside of the usual moveset, she can also wall climb and perform a double dodge. Rose can later unlock more movement capabilities, including the featured grapple hook (or rather, grapple whip).

Adding to her arsenal are three healing potions that can be used with a simple button press. These refill after using a save point, and you can collect three additional potions as an item drop. Gone is the traditional inventory system where you can keep various items to use throughout your journey. Instead, drops are immediate recovery items for health and mana.

This also applies to collecting weapons and accessories, which is a positive. One of the more frustrating design choices with the older games was that there were various items or abilities that you could only get through a specific enemy with a one per cent drop rate.

Belmont’s Curse takes a different approach by having seven unique weapon types that you can find throughout the game. Each weapon also has its own abilities that can be combined with your grapple whip. On top of this, Rose also has access to magic through her tarot cards. These are acquired by defeating bosses and can be further improved by completing various challenges throughout the game.

However, if you thought Rose’s enhanced loadout would lead to an easy experience, you would be wrong. Belmont’s Curse is tough.

For starters, bosses and common enemies hit a lot harder, echoing classic Castlevania titles where you have to be more methodical with your actions. If you try to furiously attack like a blithering idiot, your chances of surviving are slim to none unless you level grind. This added difficulty is also incorporated in the level design with various platforming challenges and puzzles that are genuinely testing.

This is where Belmont’s Curse could be divisive since platforming challenges are forced onto the player, especially after receiving movement upgrades. I liked that it tested your platforming skills, and the game does provide shortcuts once you complete the platforming challenges at hand. However, if these are too difficult, you can solve some of these issues with accessibility features that can scale your journey to be easier or harder if you’re a masochist.

Despite this, fans of the series will adore the world-building as told through the level design and tarot card system. Besides the main story and references in Dracula’s Castle, Belmont’s Curse incorporates lots of dialogue through Rose’s interaction with these tarot cards, not only adding to her own development but also contextualizing certain characters in the Castlevania lore.

While the story itself isn’t particularly complex, Rose’s interactions with characters in this game were outstanding and always left a smile on my face.

Both a blessing and a curse

One of my issues with Belmont’s Curse isn’t with the platforming, but rather the lack of movement upgrades in its first half. This leads to my overall problem with this game: the map is simply too big.

Paris (which includes the streets, catacombs and cemetery) is a slog on your first playthrough, taking around three hours because of the platforming challenges, boss fights and no movement upgrade besides the whip. Blind exploration is also encouraged, especially since the tarot card hint system doesn’t entirely point you in the right direction.

I appreciate Belmont’s Curse being more open-ended. However, without more movement upgrades, traversing around the map ends up being tiresome. Belmont’s Curse’s pacing would’ve drastically improved if the catacombs and cemetery were cut, with the streets of Paris serving as the intro stage. Since the game truly hits its stride after entering Dracula’s Castle (where you start getting more movement upgrades), it wouldn’t have been a big loss.

Belmont’s Curse is a good game that I really wish I loved more.

On one hand, I really enjoy the challenging platforming and combat because it’s a fresh yet familiar experience that combines both the Metroidvania genre and the original classic Castlevania gameplay. But on the other hand, Belmont’s Curse is bloated, with puzzles that can feel grating or downright unsolvable because of its open-ended design.

Before you cue the obvious “bad gaming journalist” joke, let me explain two puzzles that soured my experience towards the end.

The first puzzle is about a hidden mystery in an area after completing the main objective. My entire map is nearly 100 per cent complete except for that one segment. I’ve spent literally hours combing through the map again for any missing hints and overanalyzing past tarot card hints just to trigger something. This remains unsolved. The other puzzle involves a tarot card where you seemingly need to interact with specific safe rooms. Except, there’s no indication on what to do, despite me trying literally everything.

This is increasingly frustrating when this tarot card is linked to the third ending, leading to an overall half-baked finale. This is one that I’m convinced is bugged because there is no way the developers would make it this convoluted for a tarot card. However, there’s no way to tell since the tarot card hints and a less-than-useful ring accessory are the only tip systems the game offers.

Overall, Belmont’s Curse is best described as a game that delivers incredibly high moments but underlying issues can sour your experience depending on what you get out of a Metroidvania. Still, I’m incredibly happy that this game exists and hopefully, we continue to get more Castlevania games in the future.

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse launches on Oct. 15 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC through Steam.

Image credit: Konami