By: Noah Nunez
General Reporter
“Castlevania,” as a series, has been deader than Dracula after the morning sun vanquished the horrible night, with the last game coming out 15+ years ago.
And in that time, the genre it shares half of the name with, “Metroidvania,” has been in a renaissance, with hundreds of incredible games using the framework “Castlevania” established all the way back in the ‘90s.
For “Castlevania” to come back now, in the current climate of “Metroidvania,” it had not only a lot to prove but a legacy of some of the genre’s best to live up to.
So, was newcomer to the franchise, “Evil Empire,” able to deliver on that legacy and cement “Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse” as one of the franchise’s best? Eh, kinda.
Belmont’s Curse is not a bad game, far from it, but the thing that rings true throughout the entire experience is that this is a good proof of concept, a good basis to take the “Castlevania” series forward.
The progression is simple, with sub weapons and movement upgrades being tied to bosses, and the weapons used split into seven unique types.
However, this is basically the only form of progression you have, making it so each discovery feels less like stumbling onto an old relic inside Dracula’s castle and more like finding the story time room to get the item needed to progress.
It is neat to contextualize all of the movement upgrades under the context of them being given by Dracula’s rogues’ gallery, but because they are difficult to find, the exploration feels almost nonexistent.
And this design is only made worse by the god-awful map design.
My main fear going in was that “Evil Empire,” who developed the roguelike “Metroidvania Dead Cells,” would not be able to make a good map following their procedurally generated origins. And yeah, I was right.
The map is simply too big, with too few warp points, leading to the initial exploration of an area being 20+ minutes of exploration with no save points, leading to you dying and having to do it all over again.
This problem is only exacerbated by the simple progression; retreading through these areas never yields anything new. The best you’ll get is a cool sword that gets outclassed in a couple of minutes.
The only thing complimenting these backtracks is the visuals.
The color scheme of the game is beautiful, using an incredible CMYK color palette to give everything from the streets of Paris to the heights of Dracula’s clock tower a haunting yet beautiful look.
The biggest standout for me was the story, which, similar to other games in the series, can feel rather sudden as the game arbitrarily decides its cutscene time after an hour of uninterrupted exploration.
But the story of Rose Belmont attempting to live up not only to her father Trevor Belmont’s history, but the Belmont clan as a whole is wonderful to watch play out.
Rose perfectly balances being a hothead and being a dedicated warrior sworn to crush the darkness and save humanity; let’s just hope it is not another 15-year wait to see the next Belmont do the same thing.
