《恶魔城：贝尔蒙特之咒》评测——王者归来

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse Review - Back From The Dead

It seems that in the case of publishers, a lot of companies seem to wish to return to their core franchises and give them some fresh ideas. In an industry rife with remakes and remasters, regaining a foothold with beloved series is key to surviving a very tumultuous industry. If you’d told me that it’d been 12 years since the last Castlevania game, I’d have refuted you. It feels like it’s still around because there’ve been so many Metroidvania games, and we’ve had spiritual successors in games like Bloodstained. Still, much like Dracula, Castlevania’s back, and it’s got the heavy-hitting team behind Dead Cells in the driver’s seat.

Taking place a bit more than 2 decades after the events of Castlevania 3 (or the Netflix show if you’re so inclined), you play as Rose Belmont with a burning Paris as the backdrop. Equipped with the tarot deck your mother gave you, you’re out to stop Dracula before he gets resurrected. Rose is an interesting character. She’s headstrong and can act foolishly, but she’s not an idiot. Whilst impulsive, she’s a go-getter and will do almost anything to live up to her bloodline’s legacy.

The tarot card system is a fun twist. As you slay bosses and earn their tarot card, so too will you add new spells and various abilities to help you manoeuvre the map. Weapons, however, will have to be found in the world, and you’ll be switching them up frequently as you find stronger versions. Personally, I was fond of the fist-style weapons. Whilst their range was short, they packed a meaty wallop that felt good to pull off.

Combat itself feels a lot more fluid than other games in the series too. Combos play a big part of your strategy, and tools like the whip ability mean you can zip over to an enemy to lay into them. There’s also a holy shield ability, which not only makes some blocks incorporeal, but if you block at the moment of impact, it will stop all damage. This means you’re flicking between raw weapon damage, movement and defence. Playing offensively is still the proper method forward, but you’ve got to be smart.

Each of the boss fights are full of spectacle too. Plenty going on onscreen means you’ll be busy finding openings to attack, but after trying most of the bosses a few times, the pieces clicked into place, and I was able to take them down after reading their patterns. Once you get into that flow state and you’re dodging attacks and punishing the bosses’ misses, fights feel really good. The enjoyable fighting isn’t just limited to bosses either, as beating the snot out of normal enemies is a good time. You’ll get to use a bit more of your movement/defence abilities with normal enemies too, and there are plenty of times you’ll use them as a stepping stone to get somewhere you need to go.

Traversal throughout the Paris streets and surrounding areas is good too. A little while into the game, you’ll earn access to a fast travel system, which will make doubling back to older areas easier. This is something you’ll need to do too, as whilst you get the whip and the aforementioned shield early, things like double-jump and ground pound come much later into the game, which unlocks access to quite a few tidbits to collect from around the map. Things like relics will give you three slots for random buffs, like better healing or solo-hit protection on a timer. Alternatively, health and mana upgrades, as well as new weapons, will encourage you to sift through every map corner to ensure you’re well upgraded.

For me, the systems felt more soulslike than metroidvania. As loath as I am to label something completely, limited health potions for healing, hefty dodging, and safe rooms that both restore your potions as well as reset enemy spawns. This isn’t a bad thing, but I couldn’t help the niggling doubt of things that didn’t exactly feel like Castlevania. It didn’t put me off at all, I still think that this is one of the better games in the series, but absolute purists might be miffed at the lack of throwing daggers, axes, or the much-loved circling bibles.

Enemy variety feels a bit lacking, though. Historically, there have been a lot of varied enemies to slaughter your way through, but here you’ll only see a small handful before it starts giving you palette-swapped versions. It’s not a huge deal breaker, but you will likely become tired from killing your seven thousandth skeleton and instead be wanting for some insects or some dogs or something. Hell, I’d even take some carnivorous plants.

I will applaud the various options given for difficulty. I played on the default, and it felt good. Bosses hit decently hard, and enemies would take me down quickly if I wasn’t playing well. Still, for people who want to push up or down the difficulty, there are myriad sliders to alter your play experience. It took me around sixteen hours for my first run through, with lots of messing around and not finding some of the more critical bosses, like the one that gives the ground pound. Difficulty options like the ones given here mean that there’s some replayability here, which is always nice to see.

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse is a return to form for the series. Flashy combat, fun exploration, a decent story, and character design all mean that there’s plenty to do and a lot of fun to be whilst doing it. If this is the new direction for the series, then I’m locked in for the show.

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse was reviewed on PS5 with code kindly supplied by the publisher. 

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