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.
For the most part, each Castlevania game has some sort of unique system or mechanic that helps differentiate it. The Aria games, for instance had monster soul collection, while Circle of the Moon had its mix-and-match cards. For Belmont’s Curse, it’s largely built around a magical whip ability and a protective shield of light – and to a lesser extent, the previously mentioned Tarot cards, which grant Rose other magic spells that can be improved (she is Sypha’s daughter after all).
The whip lets Rose swing from various objects or pull herself towards them. It can also be used on enemies, allowing her to not only quickly close the distance, but, when timed with her attack, deliver stronger hits. Zipping from enemy to enemy or nimbly swinging out of the way of a charging minotaur felt (and looked) so badass, regardless of how many times I did it. There are also some pretty challenging rooms that require precision to avoid spikes and other hazards in order to reach a reward at the end, so platforming fans have something to look forward to as well.
The light shield, on the other hand, is a far more defensive tool. When perfectly timed, it allows Rose to parry and reflect some damage back at the enemy hitting her, and also grants her the ability to pass through certain walls and floors. It’s a cool effect, but given how fast combat usually goes and how many enemies are around, Belmont’s Curse feels more tailored to keeping you on the offensive. A point further incentivized by the fact that the main way you restore your magic pool, letting you cast more spells, is by hitting enemies.
That said, Evil Empire has included several adjustable settings, such as the damage you dish out, how much experience you earn, or even the option to avoid dying altogether if you'd rather just enjoy the story. I opted to keep things mostly as they are by default with only a single exception, and it’s one I would recommend everyone make: you are able to check a box that lets you respawn just outside a boss room door if you die instead of back at a save point. To be fair, there did seem to always be a save room relatively close to the boss doors, so it doesn’t take too long to get back to the fight either way. But I much preferred being able to beat my head against a wall a lot really quickly until it breaks, as opposed to thinking of better ways to take it down between concussions. And hey, whether you love or hate boss runbacks, giving you the choice to remove them or not is a great bit of flexibility to have.
Regardless of your settings, you will find many classic Castlevania enemies along the way, all sporting a rather stunning and imposing refresh in their designs. Axe Knights tower over the comparatively minute Rose while flying possessed swords spin and shoot out smaller blades to skewer you. The bosses also look great – Dracula’s right-hand man, Death, sports perhaps my favorite of his designs in the entire series and what might be the coolest scythe I’ve ever seen. But despite their sick new looks, there is a surprisingly low variety of enemies overall, with some unfortunate notable omissions. Fan favorites like Legion, the massive ball of corpses, and even iconic monsters like the wall-mounted skeleton dragon head are MIA, with Belmont’s Curse relying more on palette swaps of creatures for the stronger foes you face in later areas. There are still a solid number of different monsters, but compared to the bestiaries in other Castlevanias (even the GBA games), this one is a little disappointing.
Thankfully, what I didn’t find quite as disappointing was actually killing those monsters. Nearly all of Rose’s fighting options feel good to use, with seven unique weapon types to choose from: sword, sword and shield, spear, fists, great sword, dual swords, and, of course, the family’s signature whips. Each type comes in four tiers of strength, which are found in hidden chests or as rewards for beating the occasional boss. Up until I earned the magical Vampire Killer whip, which blew the other options I had out of the water at the time, I found myself especially drawn to the fist weapons. It was a lot of fun to pull myself to an enemy and then uppercut that foe into the air, pummeling them with fast and fierce punches that each do slightly more damage than the last.
However, while all of the combat options were cool, the more I played of Belmont’s Curse, the less it felt like what I associate with the Castlevania series specifically. The big pillars are here: you have the castle, you have Dracula and his iconic minions, you will be backtracking with new abilities to access new areas. But so much else of what usually sets this series apart within this genre has been smoothed over with Belmont’s Curse, which leaves the whole package feeling a bit like a really solid metroidvania wearing a superficial Castlevania skin. Take Rose, for example: chaining punches into air combos is a lot of fun, but it doesn’t really feel like I am playing as a Belmont. Gone entirely are subweapons like the spinning bibles, hurled bottles of holy water, or arcing axes. There isn’t even a dagger to throw, which just feels kind of wrong. She doesn’t even start the game with a whip.
In a similar vein, Belmont’s Curse pulls from the soulslike playbook and gives you healing vials that recharge when you visit save points (which also respawn enemies nearby), removing potions to spam. Hearts from lanterns have been replaced by sterile blue globs of mana, and now there are heart piece-like collectibles that expand your health and magic bars when you collect four. A majority of the RPG systems have been pulled out, removing most of the stats, and equipment is now relegated to just three slots for you to put relics into – those have useful but not necessarily exciting special effects, like reducing Rose’s maximum health in exchange for dealing increased damage. Heck, with all the load times I ran into, it would be nice if they at least had Rose walking through a hallway or something as a throwback to Symphony of the Night instead of a static mural. (To its credit, that mural does look awesome, but you can only stare at the same picture so many times.)
Revisiting the lands of Castlevania in Belmont’s Curse opened my eyes to how much this genre has evolved in the 18 years since Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia on the Nintendo DS – highlighted even more thanks to the wonderful collections that have been released in the past few years. We haven’t been lacking in choice when it comes to awesome action platformers like this while the series slept, either, and I would put Rose’s debut as another great option in that surprisingly long list. But while I have had a fun time with Belmont’s Curse, it also hasn’t quite scratched that Castlevania itch in the way I hoped it would.