“What a wonderful night to have a curse” Written by: Hunter (@ReaperHunter23)
The road to a new installment of the Castlevania series has been a long and bizarre one. The last entry in the series was released twelve years ago. In that gap of over a decade we would see everything from the Netflix series, to collections, and even crossovers with other games. For a while it seemed as if everything besides a new game was on the table. That all changed in February when Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse was revealed. It was shown that the team responsible was going to be Evil Empire, who had made the Castlevania DLC for Dead Cells a few years back. This reveal quickly made Belmont’s Curse one of my most anticipated games of the year. So now let's crack the whip and see if Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse is the revival fans have been hoping for.
Image Credit: Evil Empire, Konami
Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse takes place twenty three years after the events of Castlevania 3. Trevor Belmont receives a letter from a Bishop in Paris requesting his assistance with a catastrophe that has befallen the city. The player is put in the shoes of Rose Belmont, Trevor’s daughter who accompanies him to assist with the hunt. The two split up shortly after arriving and the events unfold from there.
The story of Belmont’s Curse feels best described as a coming of age tale. Rose wrestles with both the pressure of living up to the Belmont legacy as well as the grief and guilt she feels from her mother’s death when she was born. It is a well executed arc that provides more of a personal hook to go with the broader motivation of “Stop Dracula”.
Belmont’s Curse has a rather enjoyable cast. Rose herself is already pretty likeable due to the personal arc she undergoes. And the game does a great job at giving the rest of the characters big personalities for her to bounce off of. The three most recurring are Leon Belmont; an ancestor whose spirit was being used to terrorize Paris, Joan Of Arc; who found herself in the same predicament, and Medusa; the first willing servant of Dracula that Rose defeats. I was quite amused by the interplay between these three and their interjections during Rose’s quest.
The rest of the characters you encounter are equally as bombastic and bizarre. Carmilla and Brauner seem to have some sort of feud despite both serving Dracula. Talos pledged himself to Dracula so that he could build without the trivialities that plagued him in his human life, but is still left finding the rest of Dracula’s henchmen to be a thorn in his side. Both Death and Isaac do a great job at raising the actual threat level of the army of the night as well. All of the characters being so entertaining made me look forward to the boss encounters that much more, and I was especially excited to find that the optional bosses were just as boisterous.
Image Credit: Evil Empire, Konami
Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse is an exploratory action platformer. It excels in just about every aspect of its gameplay. Rose is a satisfying character to control. Her tool kit consists of her weapon, her tarot cards, relics, and traversal techniques.
The weapons come in seven different classes and are all a lot of fun to use. Each weapon type has a perk attached to it. The sword and shield have this cool rush attack,the gauntlets do more damage with each enemy you kill in an encounter, the double swords can do a crazy combo string if you time your attacks right, all of them have use cases that make them a joy to play around with. The end game tier of each weapon type throws on an additional perk to each one that really sells the late game power fantasy.
The tarot cards are like this game’s way of bringing forward the sub weapons from prior entries. This is pretty well illustrated by the cross being one of the first cards you unlock. Other abilities include a fire wall, blood spikes, reflection armor, and so much more. The tarot abilities are already pretty great as is, but upgrading them is where they really start to sing. Each ability gives you three Works Of Mercy; different goals or challenges to achieve. Most involve some level of finesse with the ability in question. One of the works of mercy for the Infernal Pyre ability is to set five enemies on fire at once. A couple of cards have some that are more passive and tied to the lore of the ability. Such as the cross being upgraded by finding three different whip class weapons.
I think this upgrade system is a great way to nudge the player into thinking about the different ways to effectively use each ability. And the upgrades you get for each ability all feed into each other in a manner that skyrockets the effectiveness of each ability. Using the cross for example, the upgrades consist of: Throw a second cross, regain mana when the cross returns, and do more damage the further the cross is from Rose. All of that compounds to take it from being a handy thing to throw out in the right situation to an outright conflict ender if you use it correctly.
The relics round out the rest of Rose’s equipment. They are trinkets that can give Rose a variety of buffs. The effects range from health regen when opening treasure chests to a 30% damage buff if your life is below a certain threshold. You can equip up to three at a time so it is pretty easy to find something that is complimentary to your playstyle or what you are doing at the given moment. I had a set up focused on healing for when I was exploring and a more damage oriented set up when I was doing boss fights or came across an enemy gauntlet.
The exploration and level design in this game is excellent. In as early as the second area I found myself poking around off the beaten path. The game has a lot of subtle tells for secrets, such as the general shape of the room or how a grapple point is positioned that makes it pretty easy to guess where plenty of secrets are based on intuition alone. I would always feel adequately rewarded for my exploration as well. The effort-to-reward ratio was pretty well tuned. If you happened to find an alcove through an invisible wall, it was usually an experience statue. If you had to maneuver through a traversal gauntlet, the reward would likely be a relic or an attack or defense book. Weapons were more often than not found as the rewards for a more involved puzzle.
Each area did a good job at putting a spin on what you were doing and how you would get around. The main hall of the castle had the portraits you would whip into, the library had the bouncing globes, and the clock tower had its myriad of traps. Each zone felt like they had a wide breadth of ways their mechanics interacted with you while still staying true to the core of Rose’s abilities. All of the systems in the game really fed into themselves and complimented each other. The moment to moment combat and traversal were both fun so exploring came naturally. Exploration resulted in me finding a number of different encounters that led to me being more experimental with both my magic usage and my relics, which in turn fed back into enhancing the combat.
Image Credit: Evil Empire, Konami
I love the way that Belmont’s Curse looks. It has a painterly visual style that allows for a lot of versatility in the game’s look. I find it pretty impressive that the game manages to have a rather broad color palette while still not straying too far from the gothic stylings that I would hope to see in a Castlevania game. The deep red sky present in the Paris streets zone is contrasted pretty quickly with the more earthy tone of the cemetery of the next area. The variation in architecture and decor did wonders to maintain a visual variety once you enter the castle as well. The sense of scale they give the castle is really impressive. Being made to explore the surrounding area for the first third of the game and then making the run to the castle a several screen affair made it feel like the most massive structure ever created.
I thoroughly enjoy the character designs in this game. Rose has a really striking design. The long braid, the sleeveless coat, and the cursed arm all gel really well together visually. Grizzled veteran Trevor is a pleasing design. A lot of the standard enemies were really good modern takes on series classics. Boss wise, I really liked Arthur being a stained glass relief come to life, Isaac is a pretty good modernization of his Curse of Darkness design, and I rather liked this game’s take on Carmilla as well, she looked like she’d be at home with the cast of Hades with this design.
The music of Belmont’s Curse fascinates me. It has most of the elements you’d expect to hear in a Castlevania OST; cool organ, ominous choir, neat guitars, but it's all arranged in a way that makes it feel so unique from the rest of the series. There’s also an electronic synth element in the music that provides a nice bit of color to it. I think the Catacombs track is one of the best examples of how the music in this game comes together. It conjures a sense of foreboding that is also extremely compelling. Danger at every step but you have to know what lies ahead. The music in this game isn’t often as bombastic as it is in other entries of the series, but when it goes for it, it does not hold back. This might be my new favorite arrangement of Bloody Tears in the series. The rest of the sound is also fantastic. A large part of what makes it so satisfying to hit things in this game is the particular audio feedback that comes with each weapon attack.
Image Credit: Evil Empire, Konami
Summary
Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse is a must play if you are a fan of Castlevania or the genre in general. Rose’s arc is a very well executed coming of age story. The combat and traversal are a delight to partake in and the world is compelling to explore. Every aspect of the gameplay does something to enhance the other. And the whole experience is wrapped up in the rich gothic atmosphere that drew me to the series in the first place. There’s really not much more I could ask for from a Castlevania revival.