Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse: The First Preview

Being a teenager with a Game Boy Advance and a Nintendo DS in the early 2000s was a wonderful time, because almost every year, there was a new Castlevania game to sink my fangs into. But after Order of Ecclesia in 2008, that never-ending stream of some of the best 2D platforming and exploration in gaming history dried up, and we’ve now somehow gone 18 years without a proper 2D Castlevania. Yes, 2D Castlevania’s Absence is old enough to vote now. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from the many Castlevanias I’ve played, it’s that Dracula’s resurrection is inevitable, eventually. Enter Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, a much-welcome brand-new entry in the storied series. And in even better news, it’s developed by the team behind Dead Cells. I got to play through the first three-ish hours at a recent preview event, and based on my early impressions, it’s shaping up to be a return worth waiting for.

To set the stage, Belmont’s Curse takes place 23 years after the events of Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse, and serves as a direct follow-up to that story – which is also what the fantastic Netflix Castlevania anime is largely based on. The game begins with a summons for Trevor Belmont to head to Paris, which has been ravaged by an unknown force that has flooded the streets with monsters, turned the moon blood red, and left the city in utter chaos. Despite sensing the likely trap, Trevor makes his way to the City of Light, but not alone. He’s joined by his daughter, Rose, who is eager to continue the family legacy of hunting monsters and vampires.

My first thought as soon as I picked up the controller was, “Yep, this definitely feels like Castlevania by way of Dead Cells.” That’s not a bad thing. In fact, it’s quite good. There’s a certain fluidity to Rose’s movement and animation that immediately felt reminiscent of controlling The Beheaded from Dead Cells, minus the ability to quickly shoot to the ground by holding down and pressing jump while in the air. Rose can swing her weapon in front, above, and below her, much like in Dead Cells, while also having access to a quick forward dash to dodge under projectiles or reposition herself behind an enemy, along with a backdash to quickly move out of the way of incoming attacks.

Cool Whip

Of course, the whip has always been the defining weapon of the Belmont clan, and it is a core element of Rose’s kit as well, though surprisingly, not as a direct combat tool. Instead, the whip can be used to swing from grapple points to reach new heights, and to pull yourself towards enemies and quickly close the distance. My favorite aspect of the whip, though, is that if you press the attack button while you’re pulling yourself towards an enemy, you’ll execute a grapple attack, which varies greatly depending on which of the seven types of weapons you’re wielding.

The starting longsword’s grapple attack allows you to slash through enemies, dealing good damage and keeping your forward momentum, allowing you to chain multiple grapples and cross lengthy gaps. Doing a grapple attack with the Cestus equipped, meanwhile, will execute a shoryuken-like uppercut that will launch enemies up into the air for air combos. Then you have the greatsword, which performs a hugely damaging AOE-focused spinning attack. I love the fact that every single weapon has a unique charged attack, grapple attack, and basic moveset, giving you plenty of incentive to experiment with your arsenal and find the right tool for the job.

Tools of the Trade

Weapons aren’t the only thing you’ll be able to experiment with, either. Like in Hollow Knight, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, and other modern Metroidvanias, you can also find and equip up to three relics, which provide powerful passive bonuses. These are usually reserved as rewards for completing difficult optional challenges, like a tricky platforming section or a lengthy combat encounter, and even in my brief hands-on time so far, they have proven to be well worth the trouble of seeking them out.

Finally, since Rose is the daughter of both Trevor Belmont and Sypha Belnades, she’s equally skilled in both weaponry and magic (that is how genetics works, right?). As such, she can also find and equip a variety of spells, known as Arcana. In my demo, these spells were always rewards for defeating a major boss, with me gaining one of the boss’s core abilities. Defeating The Fallen rewarded me with the Holy Cross boomerang, besting Joan of Arc gave me her ground explosion attack, and taking down Medusa granted me her petrification beam. Each of these Arcana could be improved by completing various Achievement-like challenges called “Works of Mercy.” For the Holy Cross, for example, I had to find three different whip-type weapons, kill five enemies with one Holy Cross throw, or kill 10 enemies with a whip attack.

Completing a Work of Mercy rewards you with a point that you can spend on a variety of upgrades for that specific Arcana. Again using the Holy Cross as an example, I could upgrade it so that I could throw two crosses out a time, make the cross deal more damage the farther away from me it got, or refund 10% of the mana cost for every enemy it hit, up to 60%, if I caught the cross on the way back. What’s great is that these upgrades were actually interesting and affected the way I used the Arcana, rather than just being simply higher damage numbers, a straight up lower mana cost, or quicker rate of use.

Skeleton Crew

The rogue’s gallery of enemies will no doubt be familiar to any long time Castlevania fan. I went up against zombies that rose up from the ground, the classic medusa heads that like to fly in from the side of the screen and move in a predictable wavy pattern, red skeletons that would eventually revive after being killed, and plenty of gargoyles.

Castlevania games have typically varied substantially in terms of their difficulty, and thus far, Belmont’s curse has fallen somewhere in the middle of the pack. These first few hours certainly were no cakewalk, and I definitely had my fair share of deaths against some of the tankier and harder hitting enemies, but checkpoints are generously spaced, you now have three health-restoring flasks that get refilled when you pass said generously spaced checkpoints, and unlike most modern Metroidvanias/soulslikes, there’s no real penalty upon death outside of enemies respawning and you getting placed back at the nearest checkpoint.

The bosses were no pushovers either. My favorite of the bunch was Medusa, which had me swinging between two sides of the boss arena to avoid her flailing tail and arms, and then quickly ducking down behind a rock when she used her screen-covering petrifying gaze. Opportunities to deal damage were brief and I had to make sure I made the most of every chance I got. It was a fun fight that made good use of Rose’s mobility options, rewarded pattern recognition, and required quick reflexes without being too demanding, especially for an early boss.

Overall, I had an absolute blast with Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse. The art and animation are absolutely gorgeous; combat is fun and dynamic with plenty of room to carve out your own personal playstyle thanks to the variety of weapons, Arcana, and relics; exploration was appropriately rewarding and there were plenty of secrets hidden within the cracked walls of the Parisian streets; and the bosses provided a nice challenge without ever feeling too overwhelming for how early I was in the game. The real star of the show though, is the whip, which enabled a very unique style of acrobatic combat that gives Belmont’s Curse its own unique feel and identity in the increasingly crowded Metroidvania genre. If the Dead Cells veterans at Evil Empire can build upon what’s already here and keep up this same quality of level, enemy, and boss design throughout the entire campaign, we could have a return to Castlevania that’s more than worthy of standing next to the all-time greats of the series.

Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer at IGN. You can find him on twitter @JurassicRabbit