Castlevania: Belmont's Curse
Review
A Whip-Roaring Good Time
by Camrin Santchi
reviewed on PC
Darkness Returns
In gaming, there's a famous subgenre that revolves around a simple but intuitive loop - exploring new areas to find new powers, and using those new powers to explore new areas. This is known colloquially as the Metroidvania, named after Nintendo's Metroid and Konami's Castlevania, games which helped define this subgenre through having one massive, sprawling map and learning new ways to explore, traverse, and beat powerful enemies and bosses. The focus for today is Castlevania: Belmont's Curse, a return to form for a series that hasn't had a console/PC release in over a decade.
Belmont's Curse follows newcomer Rose Belmont and her father, franchise legend Trevor Belmont, travelling to Paris, France to investigate a darkness seeping through the city. Both Belmonts agree quite quickly that this is most likely a trap of some kind, but both also agree that it's not a trap if it's expected, but rather a mystery to be solved. They split up, with players taking control of Rose as she investigates the streets and sewers of Paris, while Trevor goes to meet with the one who called them to Paris to begin with. Before separating, Trevor hands over a deck of mostly blank tarot cards to Rose, a gift from her late mother, which proves to be a boon in her trek through the burning streets.
Traversing Paris
Belmont's Curse opens with Rose exploring the streets of Paris, including a horrifyingly gorgeous set piece of Notre Dame burning in the distance. This brief opening culminates in a boss fight where gamers will learn the main mechanic of Belmont's Curse - Rose can utilize her tarot cards to claim the essences of bosses, giving herself a new spell as well as sometimes additional abilities to aid in traversal.
The first boss of Belmont's Curse, The Fallen, immediately provides iconic series staples, the cross-shaped Boomerang as a new spell, and a spectral whip that Rose can utilize in both traversal and combat, pulling her towards enemies to deal powerful follow-up attacks with her equipped weapon, or to traverse distances her jumps could not reach. Although the spectral whip does not damage enemies directly, its ability to close distances and set up impressive follow-up attacks adds a whole new layer to combat, making encounters feel much more fast-paced and aggressive.
The unlockable spells in Belmont's Curse can also be upgraded by completing certain tasks, like a petrifying stare requiring you to target an enemy wielding a shield in reference to Perseus and Medusa, defeating a certain number of enemies with the spell, or even exploring the world to find specific, appropriate locations like a sanctuary for a pious spirit to pray.
Belmont's Curse is a beautiful looking game, and the character portraits and styling draw to mind Supergiant's Hades, making for a very distinct art style that brings to life the streets of Paris as well as the monsters that walk them. Colours are vibrant, and character designs are very well detailed, which players will have time to notice thanks to the portraits that pop up as characters are speaking.
Your Experience, Catered
Belmont's Curse has parts that feel legitimately challenging, from strict platforming sections where timing and inputs need to be quite precise, to boss fights where learning their mechanics and patterns is the difference between running back from a nearby save point or achieving a satisfying victory. The standard difficulty is incredibly satisfying, but the game does offer a wide variety of customizable options to make the game easier or harder to suit the player's needs. This 'fine-tuning' approach is one of the better ways to balance a game's intended experience with the needs of individual players. Rather than simply offering easier or harder presets, these customizations let players increase the challenge in areas they find too easy and reduce it in areas they find too difficult.
The Long Walk
One drawback of Belmont's Curse is that fast travel isn't unlocked until fairly late in the game. Until then, players must repeatedly traverse familiar stretches of Paris to reach their destinations. The map does help alleviate this frustration through unlockable shortcuts, new traversal abilities, and markers that let players flag locations they can't yet reach. As players become more familiar with the layout and discover alternative routes, navigation becomes less cumbersome, but the lack of early fast travel can still make backtracking feel tedious.
Hunt the Night
Overall, Belmont's Curse is a stunning revival for Castlevania, with gorgeous art direction, satisfying movement, and challenging combat. Its customizable difficulty makes that challenge approachable, and while traversal can become tedious before fast travel is unlocked, the new abilities gained through exploration make the journey worthwhile.
For longtime fans, it's lovely to see Castlevania return in such a vibrant way. For newcomers, Belmont's Curse is a fantastic introduction to a long and storied franchise filled with secrets, challenging boss fights and platforming, and compelling stories of love, loss, life, and death. Whether facing darkness within themselves or threats from beyond, whether confronting dangers long thought dead or new evils on the rise, the Belmonts have always been beacons against the night. With Belmont's Curse, newcomer Rose proves that legacy is in good hands.
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9.3
fun score
Pros
Beautiful Art Direction, Satisfying Movement, and Challenging Combat
Cons
Traversal Can be Long and Tedious until Fast Travel is Unlocked
