CastlevaniaBelmont's Curse

Hi there, dear friends! October was a pretty busy month for the games market. But the real news this month was KONAMI finally taking the whip down off the shelf where it had been sitting for years. The series turned forty this September, and as a birthday present CASTLEVANIA: BELMONT'S CURSE landed on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC on 15 October. (The Steam page says 14 October, most likely a time zone thing.) KONAMI developed the game together with EVIL EMPIRE. If that name rings a bell, here's why: they're the team that kept DEAD CELLS alive for years with its patches and expansions. MOTION TWIN, the original DEAD CELLS studio, also came on board as a consultant. The whip belongs to the Belmonts, but the hands belong to the roguelite masters. I can practically see the question marks popping up over your heads: is this a Castlevania, or is it DEAD CELLS wearing a Castlevania costume? Without further ado, let's get to our game.

Let me say up front what this piece is based on. Nobody played the game for this magazine. The verdict here comes from the game's own systems, the store information and what players have been saying. I looked at the Steam user reviews first, then at the other reviews.

Our story takes place in Paris in 1499. That puts it 23 years after CASTLEVANIA III: DRACULA'S CURSE. The lead is Rose Belmont, daughter of Trevor Belmont. In her hand is the family's famous whip, the Vampire Killer, plus other weapons and abilities. You go down from the streets of Paris into the catacombs, and from there, as you'll have guessed, into Dracula's castle. The genre is metroidvania: a big map full of locked doors, paths that open up as you earn new abilities, backtracking and exploring. The game is single player, no two-player mode. If you were hoping to swing whips shoulder to shoulder with your brother, not this time.

Now let's get to the good part. The thing players and reviewers praise almost in one voice is the combat. Movement, getting around the map and the puzzles get the same praise. That's exactly what you'd expect from EVIL EMPIRE anyway. That fluid DEAD CELLS control feel, where the game answers the instant you hit the button, seems to have made the trip over. For those who love the heavy, calculated jumping of the classic Castlevanias, this is a change. But most players aren't complaining about it.

Ehh, every good thing has its "but". This game's first "but" is the difficulty curve. Players and reviewers say the same thing: the opening is pretty punishing, and towards the end things get too easy. So you'll be sweating in the first hours and coasting in the last ones. Shouldn't it be the other way round? The second "but" is the Paris map. The map is big but fast travel points are few, so quite a lot of people say they walked the same streets over and over. In a metroidvania, backtracking is the genre itself, but the longer the walk gets, the more the joy of exploring turns into monotony. The third "but" is the music. For a Castlevania that's a heavy charge, because this series made its name on its music. According to plenty of reviews, the tunes just don't stick. The story is found thin too: the drama built around Rose's family apparently can't keep up with the size of the map.

Here, what holds the game up is what your hands feel. The soul got left a little behind.

Some reviewers also say this: the game works better as a metroidvania than it does as a Castlevania. That's a fine distinction but an important one. When you booted up SYMPHONY OF THE NIGHT, the gothic atmosphere, the music and the castle itself would pull you right in. Here, what holds the game up is what your hands feel. The soul got left a little behind.

Let's look at the numbers. On Steam, user reviews written in English are 85% positive out of 4,368 reviews, so "Very Positive". A third-party site that counts reviews in every language gives a 73% positive rate (5,683 reviews). I couldn't verify that figure, but the gap is worth noticing: players outside English may be looking at the game more coldly. On the critics' side, the OpenCritic average is 84 from 114 reviews, and 95% of critics recommend the game. The Metacritic average is reported at around 86. Famitsu gave it 32 out of 40. Scores spread over a pretty wide range, from 3 out of 5 to 10 out of 10. The fans and the critics both underline the same things. The fans look at the combat, the critics look at the map and the pacing.

On to the technical details. On PC it wants at least Windows 11, a Core i5-8400, 16 GB RAM and a GTX 1650. The recommended system is a Core i5-10400 and an RTX 3060. It takes up 10 GB on disk. A 16 GB RAM requirement felt a bit much to me for a 2D game like this, but what can you do, that's the times we live in. Steam achievements, Cloud saves and Family Sharing are in. Careful now: there's support for 11 languages but no Turkish. If your English is good enough for the menus and short dialogue, no problem, the story isn't the game's strongest side anyway.

The price question is a bit messy. KONAMI doesn't give a price on its own page. On Steam Japan the Standard edition is 3,850 yen and the Midnight edition is 4,950 yen. According to SteamDB the US price is $29.99. I couldn't confirm that on the store page myself, and nobody checked the Turkish price. Take a look at the store page before you buy. The Midnight edition adds a 71-piece sound and art gallery, Trevor and Sypha style costumes and a relic (an in-game item) called Family's Grace. Pre-order and early buyers got an Alucard style costume for Rose. Some European stores also have a SteelBook case and a tarot card illustrated by Katsuya Terada. In a game whose music is already found weak, paying extra for a 71-piece gallery doesn't make sense to me. If you ask me, the Standard edition will do. Friends with a Switch will have to wait a bit longer: KONAMI says it will announce the Switch version's date later. There are news stories saying it came out on Switch, but KONAMI's own page doesn't confirm that.

Now let's get to the score. The score I'm giving is 80. Why not higher? This series' gold standard was always atmosphere and music coming together, and the game is found weak on exactly those two points. Add to that an uneven difficulty curve and a tiring map that's stingy with fast travel. These aren't small flaws, they're flaws that hit the main artery of a metroidvania. Why not lower? Because in this genre what really keeps players hooked is combat and movement, and the game gets almost undisputed praise there. An 85% positive rate in the English reviews and an average of 84 from over a hundred critics also show that praise is no accident. For players who've been waiting years for a new 2D Castlevania, this is a solid and pretty good comeback.

Who do I recommend it to? Those who love the combat feel of DEAD CELLS and want a bigger, exploration-heavy map should grab it without a second thought. Old Castlevania fans hunting for the gothic magic of SYMPHONY OF THE NIGHT, on the other hand, should lower their expectations a bit or wait for a sale. How are you getting along with Rose Belmont? Friends who've played it, write to me with your thoughts, the secret rooms you found and what you make of that difficulty curve. I'm waiting for your letters. Wishing you whip-cracking good days.