Castlevania: Belmont's Curse - Switch 2 Review

Well, this is all tremendously exciting, isn’t it? The Castlevania series is back mixing with the metroidvania crowd after some time away. Not only is Castlevania: Belmont's Curse the first game back in the genre since 2008’s Order of Ecclesia, but the developers of the roguelike-metroidvania smash hit Dead Cells – Motion Twin – are involved in the development! The Castlevania series has meandered from genre to genre in its time, beginning life as a standard platformer and then tearing up the whole damn metroidvania landscape with 1997’s Symphony of the Night while trying out hack and slash and a few others along the way. But imagine you make a game so good that the gaming community decides to rename the entire genre after you, but that’s basically what happened with Symphony of the Night. I think that’s what makes it so exciting: that the series is back where many think it belongs.

That being said, the Bloodstained games have recently filled the vacuum left by Castlevania on its metroidvania hiatus; are we about to see the big guns waltz back in and take all the glory?

The Good

If you thought The Legend of Zelda timeline was confusing, you should check out the Castlevania one, but effectively Castlevania: Belmont's Curse takes place in 1499, which I’m reliably informed is c20 years after 2005’s Castlevania: Curse of Darkness (which itself is NOT one of the metroidvania titles). Are you following this? Maybe don’t answer that. Castlevania: Belmont's Curse certainly plays like a more traditional metroidvania; these days we expect souls-like mechanics (where you lose your currency when dying and have to retrieve it) and uber RPG-ification of player development. I would say Belmont's Curse is actually fairly light on the RPG stats-based player development approach, but you can expect to find spells, level-ups and health metre/magic metre upgrades amongst the plethora of collectibles. Also just to stress that, despite the Dead Cells connection, Castlevania: Belmont's Curse is NOT a roguelike, which personally I was happy about.

In Castlevania: Belmont's Curse, you play as Rose Belmont, a newly introduced character who is a bad-ass whip-flaying vampire hunter (aren’t we all?). Rose is really fun to play as; she’s agile but strong, likeable but not annoying and doesn’t look out of place as a character in mediaeval Paris, where Rose and her supporting cast are trying to fight off that pesky old bat Dracula. Rose begins the adventure with nothing but a simple sword, but pretty much straight away you get access to the whip, and oh man, things start to get really fun. The whip acts as your main traversal item and can also be used in combat. The whip traversal is absolutely sublime and it feels like a lot of care and attention has gone into making it feel responsive and fun but also balancing it well with certain challenging platform areas. 

The gothic city-setting of Paris is also beautiful, with many varied outer areas and landscapes contributing as well. Castlevania: Belmont's Curse does a fantastic job of keeping the gothic adventure themes front and centre but – with gothic adventure games being fairly ten a penny at the moment – it also makes the experience feel like something original as well with biomes which you wouldn’t necessarily expect to see in a game like this. The soundtrack as well is sumptuous; the driving harpsichord pieces coupled with electric guitar riffs will have you doing the Monster Mash.

TL;DR

• A bombastic return to the metroidvania genre for Castlevania
• Superb whip-swinging traversal
• Beautiful environment art coupled with a rousing soundtrack

The Bad

I certainly wouldn’t profess to be a Castlevania fanboy, but I have dabbled with the series fairly frequently. I had the Gameboy titles as a kid (Castlevania: The Adventure and Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge) and then played the six 2D metroidvania titles that were released on the Gameboy Advance and DS in the noughties, but that was only because I like metroidvanias, not necessarily because I like Castlevania. Anyway, enough of my life story; the reason I bring this up is because Belmont’s Curse didn’t really feel like a Castlevania game to me. Sure, there’s Dracula, and there’s someone called Belmont, and there’s a whip, but if I’m honest, it felt more like a normal metroidvania (and a very good one at that) with the Castlevania logo slapped on it. Perhaps that sounds harsh, and I can’t really put my finger on why, but the genre has become crowded while these guys have been away, and it takes something truly exceptional to stand out from the crowd these days.

This last point might sound quite nitpicky, but there are loading times as you move between each section of the map in Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse. They weren’t particularly onerous, but with many other games these days boasting a seamless world (or at least very close to seamless), the loading times between each section felt a bit dreary, as well as perhaps representing a cop-out from a world design point of view. A loading time and a zip across the map were clearly added in when the map just didn’t join up as intended. Ho hum.

TL;DR

• Doesn’t truly feel like a Castlevania game
• Areas of the map feel a bit broken up and too independent of each other

Final Score: 9/10

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse is an excellent metroidvania, but is it an excellent Castlevania game? I’ll let the true fans decide that one. With an expansive game world, tonnes of exploration and joyous whippin’ action, this is a truly indulgent experience. Hopefully we don’t have to wait another 18 years for another one of these!

Thank you for checking out our Castlevania: Belmont's Curse Switch review, thank you to Konami (via Five Star Games) for providing the review code and thank you to our Patreon Backers for their ongoing support:

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