Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse review – the origin of Metroidvania

One of the founding fathers of the Metroidvania genre is getting its first major new entry in over a decade, as Konami attempts to revitalize one of its most storied franchises.

Much has been said about Nintendo’s strange priorities over the past two years, but while they’ve fast-tracked some unusually low-profile series while ignoring more famous names, their decisions have nothing to do with Konami’s strange resistance to making a new Castlevania game. Without an easy way to develop a new Metal Gear title without Hideo Kojima, Castlevania is probably their biggest franchise, especially due to the success of the Netflix animated series, and yet there is no new entry since 2014.

Even without the mainstream appeal provided by Netflix, the Metroidvania genre, which the series helped popularize along with Nintendo’s Metroid, is more popular than ever, with seemingly every second indie game calling on the concept.

Perhaps that was the problem though, as it makes it difficult to create something that rises above the sea of ​​other similar titles without devoting a lot of time and money to the project. We’re not sure they shouldn’t have anyway, since they apparently plan to make a new Silent Hill every year, but for whatever reason, the first new Castlevania in over a decade is a low-budget, mid-priced 2D game that could easily be mistaken for one of their own homages. But it’s still pretty good anyway.

The obvious point of comparison here is Metroid Dread, which was also the first new 2D entry in a long time, for one of the two founders of the genre. We’ll say right away that Belmont’s Curse is nowhere near as good as Metroid Dread. Its budget is clearly much smaller – it can’t even afford a proper animated intro – and while both games emphasize a lack of hand-holding, Belmont’s Curse gets the balance wrong and there’s an awful lot of aimless wandering around where you’re not sure what you’re meant to do.

Storytelling isn’t Castlevania’s forte, but all you need to know here is that someone is trying to resurrect Dracula and you play as a member of the Belmont family who, for reasons never adequately explored, are convinced that a magic whip is the best way to deal with vampires. This time you play as Rose, a new character who has the titular curse of the game, who risks her succumbing to the Dark Side if she gives in to hatred and revenge.

Paris is the setting for the game but, inevitably, the biggest influence here is PS1 classic Symphony Of The Night. The nods and references are not too terrible, although when a certain castle enters the story, the developer Evil Empire, who made The Rogue Prince Of Persia and later helped with Dead Cells, cannot stop himself from re-running all the most famous areas and remixes of well-known tunes.

What’s different, though, is that Symphony Of The Night has always been surprisingly simple for such an old game, both in terms of action and exploration. Belmont’s flight isn’t overly difficult, but there’s a clear Soulslike influence in terms of respawning enemies and potions when you visit a save point, an often long walk to a boss battle (which are always very memorable), and an emphasis on parries in battle.

The best part of the game is definitely the combat and traversal, with the latter in particular resulting in some very enjoyable 2D platforming that plays out like a less extreme version of Super Meat Boy or Celeste. Just getting around the large, open world map is pretty easy, as you can wall jump and use your whip to swing on hooks, but the game often stops for what are essentially platform puzzles that require careful planning and clever use of all your skills. These are often optional, to recover one of the many hidden weapons or buffs, but always very rewarding.

The combat is also good, with the parry move very satisfying, although despite having many different weapon types, including several swords and a lance, they never seem to make as much of a difference as it first seems. The game is an action RPG, but all you do is level up automatically and there are no skill trees and only two stats. However, there are many buffs, called talismans, to collect that allow you to customize your abilities to some degree by giving attack or defense bonuses or doing things like increasing the effectiveness of health potions.

Even though the last couple of Evil Empire games have both featured procedurally generated levels, you’d never know it playing Belmont’s Curse, whose maps are well-designed and make good use of Metroidvania’s help of inaccessible areas that you only later realize you’re using a new item or ability to access.

Where to go is a big question though, as simply aiming for an empty spot on the map is rarely enough. Instead, Rose comes equipped with a set of tarot cards, each of which represents a boss in the game and, when defeated, grants a special move, like turning enemies to stone or throwing a traditional Castlevania sub-weapon, like a giant spinning cross.

Before you get to that point, however, you’ll need to collect clues associated with each map that give clues as to where the boss is or how to reach it, such as interacting with an otherwise innocuous part of the scenery. It’s a neat idea, but the game doesn’t make it clear that this is the only way to progress, and you can easily spend hours exploring previously unvisited areas of the maps without actually making any progress.

You eventually start to learn the logic of the game, but considering backtracking is the one aspect of Metroidvanias that many non-fans balk at, Belmont’s Curse seems to go out of its way to encourage it even more. So much so that it point blank refuses to tell you that there is a fast travel system with the save points of the game. We got through almost the entire game without knowing that you can only press while standing next to a mirror – so welcome to that tip.

No doubt Konami is trying to re-establish the game’s hardcore credentials, but if there are minor innovations here, if it weren’t for the name, this wouldn’t particularly stand out from the morass of other similar indie games. But it’s sensibly priced, and the quality is above average for the genre, so given the limited budget, this is still a pretty encouraging return.

We wish the art style was more distinctive, with both it and the soundtrack lacking the overblown gothic charm of the older games. Still, it’s a nice reaffirmation of the series’ qualities, even if there are few people today who don’t know what a Metroidvania is. Castlevania helped establish the formula, but if it’s going to have a future as a major franchise, it needs to help evolve and move that formula forward. A bigger budget 3D game seems the obvious way to go, but for now the more modest ambitions of this revival will do.

Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, and PC
Price: £24.99
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Evil Empire
Release date: October 15, 2026
Age rating: 16

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