Castlevania: Belmont's Curse (NS) - Review
by Nicholas Taylor , posted 16 hours ago / 925 Views
Castlevania: Belmont's Curse is a grand return to Konami's classic vampire hunting series, which has largely laid dormant for the better part of two decades, with the most recent release for the mainline continuity being 2008's Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, and the most recent release with the Castlevania title attached to it was the alternate continuity Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 in 2014. After all this time, does Castlevania: Belmont's Curse, which is largely developed by third party Evil Empire (most famous for Dead Cells), deliver on its legacy?
The game tugs at the nostalgia strings right away by incorporating Trevor Belmont, main protagonist of Castlevania III, in its opening act. This serves to introduce this title's main character, Rose Belmont, the daughter of previous protagonists (the aforementioned Trevor and fellow Castlevania III alumni Sypha Belnades). Given that both of them were central in the Netflix animated series based on Castlevania from a few years ago, it was a smart move to try and reach the expanded audience from that era. 
Although Castlevania: Belmont's Curse doesn't falter in developing Rose as her own character, there's also a heavy focus on past titles (and even, chronologically, future titles), with many references strewn about for all eras of Castlevania, so there's ample content for long-time fans to engage with. Obvious ones like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night abound, but I was very pleased to see some love being shown to less recognized titles that I personally adore like Castlevania: Lament of Innocence and Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin as well.
One of the most famous aspects of Castlevania is the music. While it would've been easy to simply do nothing but remix classic Castlevania themes after such a long absence, Castlevania: Belmont's Curse does not play it safe, opting to incorporate mostly new tracks. Of course, they're not dumb enough to look past the obvious appeal of Castlevania tunes people already know either, so there are some instances of returning melodies, the most notable one being in the main castle area, which fans will undoubtedly be very happy to hear. 
The new tracks are solid and fit the mood well enough, and while I originally found myself thinking that they're "good, not great" and didn't quite live up to what I'd typically expected from a Castlevania game, after a few play sessions I found myself humming along in my spare time to the new music tracks even while not playing. I'm still not sure I'd rank them quite up there with the greats of the Castlevania series, but they definitely make for worthy additions to Dracula's jukebox.
As for the visual aesthetics, Castlevania is a franchise with its roots in gothic fantasy, incorporating various historical and horror elements into its mythos. Throughout its history, it has experimented with a variety of art styles from the highly gothic and haunting art pieces of Ayami Kojima - during what most consider the franchise's prime - to a much more standard anime-inspired art style from time to time.
Castlevania: Belmont's Curse kind of hits a sweet spot right in-between - it does feel fairly anime-inspired, but it doesn't look particularly generic, and the gothic elements very much come through in the art pieces. The graphics succeed in bringing this feeling to life and, unlike older Castlevania titles, which frequently reused older sprites to pad the enemy roster, Castlevania: Belmont's Curse uses entirely new assets while offering a stellar roster of enemies to fight.
There's also a good variety of bosses, both between returning favorites (personally, I think recurring antagonist Carmilla looks better than she ever has) and brand new foes, all of them with distinct and interesting designs. Because of how the Arcana system develops throughout the game, you also get much more interaction and insight into them, which further enhances your perspective on their personalities. 
With all of these parts delivering on the long-awaited Castlevania formula, what remains is the most important aspect: the gameplay. This is where Castlevania: Belmont's Curse truly shines. Although it's quite a different experience from other entries in the series, one of my greatest joys while playing through it was simply how much fun the movement was. While the classic whip itself also appears as a weapon to equip, it's also a gameplay function in which you can tether yourself to enemies and pull yourself in their direction. This leads to some absolutely exhilarating movement options and truly makes fights against many enemies at once feel both dynamic and exciting.
Couple this with the Arcana card system, where Rose gradually gains more spells to use, and can even enhance these spells in interesting ways by completing mini quests throughout your path towards the next main objective, and you quickly find yourself with an arsenal of different abilities to weave through while trying to take down Dracula's hordes. Combine this with a clean variety of interesting boss fights (though I will say some of them felt a tad on the easy side for me) and you've got yourself a very solid gameplay system which kept me engaged and satisfied throughout the around 20 hours I spent uncovering my 100% completion file.
There are also a wide variety of puzzles to figure out. Although I had some moments where I felt like the solution was obtuse, it actually turned out that I had missed out on hints that would've pointed me in the right direction. This is due to how so-called "Metroidvania" subgenre games often function, where you can very much do certain things out of order without needing to do any unintended maneuvers, so at times I found myself trying to solve puzzles before getting the clues to actually point me in the right direction for them. In general, Castlevania: Belmont's Curse makes sure not to hold your hand, but it's also not unfair in pushing you into its strange puzzles with even stranger solutions, and tends to provide proper hints to give you a fighting chance.
Before wrapping this up, I want to make it clear that I played the Nintendo Switch version of Castlevania: Belmont's Curse on a Nintendo Switch 2. There is no Nintendo Switch 2 version (at least not yet), but due to the more powerful specs of the machine, I've been told that some of the potential drawbacks of the Nintendo Switch version don't occur, or at least not as frequently, when you play it on the Nintendo Switch 2. For my own part, I experienced very few issues, with stutters or similar problems only happening twice throughout my playthrough during specific sequences, while for the most part even areas with many enemies and effects on the screen at once kept performing seamlessly. One issue I did encounter, which seems to be recurring in multiple versions, is that sometimes going to the map screen will cause the game to crash. While frustrating, the frequent autosaving in Castlevania: Belmont's Curse meant that even when this did occur, I didn't lose any progress, so I was willing to mostly overlook it (though I do hope it gets a patch to fix it in the near future).
All in all, Castlevania: Belmont's Curse is a game that both honors its legacy & brings new innovations to the table and, honestly, it excels at both. If this is the level of game we can expect from Konami and Evil Empire's collaboration, I'm waiting with bated breath to see them team up for even more Castlevania goodness in the future. Let's just hope we don't have to wait almost 20 years this time.
VGChartz Verdict
9
Outstanding
This review is based on a retail copy of Castlevania: Belmont's Curse for the NS
