Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse review – the origin of Metroidvania

One of the founding fathers of the Metroidvania genre gets its first major new entry in over a decade, as Konami tries to revitalise one of its most storied franchises.

Much has been said about Nintendo’s strange priorities over the last two years but while they have fast-tracked some unusually low profile series, while ignoring more famous names, their decisions have nothing on Konami’s peculiar resistance to making a new Castlevania game. With no easy way to develop a new Metal Gear title without Hideo Kojima, Castlevania is arguably their biggest franchise, especially given the success of the Netflix animated series, and yet there hasn’t been a new entry since 2014.

Even without the mainstream appeal provided by Netflix, the Metroidvania genre, which the series helped popularise along with Nintendo’s Metroid, is more popular than ever, with seemingly every second indie game riffing on the concept.

Perhaps that has been the problem though, as it makes it difficult to create anything that will rise above the sea of other similar titles without devoting a lot of time and money to the project. We’re not sure they shouldn’t have anyway, given they’re apparently planning to make a new Silent Hill every year, but for whatever reason the first new Castlevania in over a decade is a low budget, mid-priced 2D game that could easily be mistaken for one of its own homages. But it’s still pretty good anyway.

The obvious point of comparison here is Metroid Dread, which was also the first new 2D entry in a long time, for one of the genre’s two founders. We’ll say straight off that Belmont’s Curse is nowhere near as good as Metroid Dread. Its budget is clearly much smaller – it can’t even afford a proper animated intro – and while both games emphasise a lack of handholding, Belmont’s Curse gets the balance wrong and there’s an awful lot of aimless wandering around, where you’re not sure what you’re meant to be doing.

Storytelling is not a Castlevania forte but all you need to know here is that someone is trying to resurrect Dracula (again) and you play as a member of the Belmont family who, for reasons that have never been adequately explored, are convinced that a magic whip is the best way to deal with vampires. This time you play as Rose, a new character, who has the game’s titular curse, that risks her succumbing to the Dark Side if she gives in to hate and revenge.

Paris is the setting for the game but, inevitably, the biggest influence here is PS1 classic Symphony Of The Night. The nods and references aren’t too obnoxious, although when a certain castle enters the story, developer Evil Empire, who made The Rogue Prince Of Persia and later helped with Dead Cells, can’t stop themselves from re-running all the most famous areas and remixes of familiar tunes.

What is different, though, is that Symphony Of The Night was always surprisingly easy for such an old game, in terms of both the action and the exploration. Belmont’s Curse isn’t excessively difficult, but there is a clear Soulslike influence, in terms of respawning enemies and potions when you visit a save point, an often long walk to a boss battle (which are always very unforgiving), and an emphasis on parrying in battle.

The best part of the game is definitely the combat and traversal, with the latter in particular resulting in some very enjoyable 2D platforming that plays out like a less extreme version of Super Meat Boy or Celeste. Just getting around the large, open world map is fairly easy, since you can wall jump and use your whip to swing around on hooks, but the game often stops for what are essentially platform puzzles that require careful planning and clever use of all your abilities. These are often optional, to retrieve one of many hidden weapons or buffs, but always very rewarding.

Combat is good too, with the parry move being very satisfying, although despite multiple different weapon types, including various swords and a lance, they never seem to make as much difference as it first seems. The game is an action role-player, but all you do is automatically level up and there are no skill trees and only two stats. However, there are a lot of buffs, called talismans, to collect, which allow you to customise your abilities to some degree by giving attack or defence bonuses or doing things like increasing the efficiency of health potions.

Although Evil Empire’s last couple of games have both featured procedurally generated levels, you’d never know playing Belmont’s Curse, whose maps are well designed and make good use of the Metroidvania staple of having inaccessible areas that you only realise later you can use a new item or ability to access.

Where to go is a big question though, as simply aiming for a blank spot on the map is rarely enough. Instead, Rose comes equipped with a set of tarot cards, each of which represents a boss in the game and, once you defeat them, grants a special move, like turning enemies to stone or throwing a traditional Castlevania sub-weapon, like a giant spinning cross.

Before you get to that point, though, you have to collect clues associated with each card, which give hints as to where the boss is or how to reach them, such as interacting with an otherwise innocuous part of the scenery. It’s a neat idea, but the game doesn’t make it clear that this is the only way to proceed, and you can easily spend hours exploring previously unvisited areas of the maps without making any actual progress.

You do eventually begin to learn the game’s logic, but considering backtracking is the one aspect of Metroidvanias that many non-fans balk at, Belmont’s Curse seems to go out of its way to encourage it even more. So much so that it point blank refuses to tell you there’s a fast travel system using the game’s save points. We got through almost the whole game without knowing that all you have to do is press down when standing next to a mirror – so you’re welcome on that tip.

No doubt Konami is trying to reestablish the game’s hardcore credentials, but while there are small innovations here, if it wasn’t for the name this wouldn’t particularly stand out above the morass of other similar indie games. But it’s sensibly priced, and the quality is above average for the genre, so given the limitations of the budget, this is still a fairly encouraging return.

We wish the art style was more distinctive, with both it and the soundtrack lacking the overblown gothic charm of the older games. Nevertheless, it’s a fine restatement of the series’ qualities, even if there are few people nowadays who don’t know what a Metroidvania is. Castlevania helped to establish the formula, but if it’s going to have a future as a major franchise, it needs to help evolve and move that formula forward. A bigger budget 3D game seems the obvious way, but for now the more modest ambitions of this revival will have to do.

Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, and PC
Price: £24.99
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Evil Empire
Release Date: 15th October 2026
Age Rating: 16

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