As someone who’s been covering Nintendo Switch games for the console’s entire life, being a Castlevania fan has been… complicated. Konami saw fit to effectively ignore the system outside of compilations, and even then we never got the likes of Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night. Love for the series has been maintained thanks to collaborations with the likes of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Vampire Survivors, both of which went with a “best of” treatment for the franchise.
All of that is well and good, but I’ve been eager for some kind of step forward in the Belmont’s legacy for some time now. That’s partly why the announcement of Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse is so welcome — this is the first all-new Castlevania in over a decade, and it’s going back to the Metroid-adjacent genre of 2D action and exploration.
I recently had the opportunity to demo Belmont’s Curse at PAX West, and it ended up one of my favorite games of the show. Much of this is courtesy of exceptional art direction and fluid gameplay, but now I’m just as intrigued by its story and connective threads to the broader series timeline.
Main character Rose Belmont is the daughter of Trevor Belmont and Sypha Belnades, and she brings the best of both her parents’ skillsets. She controls just as you’d expect a Belmont to, but she also has a deck of Tarot cards that empowers her. Early on I faced off with a hulking beast known as The Fallen, and upon his defeat I gained his previously seen ability to whip-swing around stages. Taking a look at pause menus showed opportunities to gain plenty more, similar traversal abilities.
I felt right at home already, but it also became clear that this had improved my combat capabilities as well. Now I could latch onto enemies and dive kick them, adding a different kind of approach to my offense and mobility around the castle.
Speaking of, Dracula’s castle looks absolutely stunning. In Belmont’s Curse it’s manifested in Paris in the late 1400s, taking inspiration from the likes of Notre Dame and the city’s famous catacombs. Plenty of skeletal ghouls were felled as I took in the sights, including a tease of an encounter with a certain historical female French figure.
Most exciting was that I snagged a new weapon at the tail end of my timed demo. Now Rose could take up a pair of gauntlets and lay into enemies with her fists, offering a different flavor of combat and a host of new animations to take in. It’s hard to put into words just how gorgeous and fluid this game looks in motion, which makes this next point sting particularly bad.
The version I played was not on Nintendo Switch, and Konami has confirmed that the Switch version will be 30 fps vs other platforms’ 60 fps. There’s currently no native Switch 2 version announced or any indication of a performance boost. How that will impact what I experienced remains to be seen, but it can’t take away that the bones of Belmont’s Curse are exceptionally promising.
In its own way it’s also making some “greatest hits” choices via its returning characters and even some returning voice actors from the Netflix animated series, but this is looking to be the step forward fans have been waiting for. My time with the game and the fact Konami would enlist Evil Empire and Motion Twin, who previously worked together on the Return to Castlevania expansion for Dead Cells, for this is as strong an indication that the game’s in good hands that I think we’ll get. After all, Belmont’s Curse is out in just a month’s time on October 15th.
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Written by Ricky Berg
When he isn’t writing for Nintendo Wire, Ricky’s anticipating the next Kirby, Fire Emblem, or if the stars ever align, Mother 3 to be released. Till then he’ll have the warm comfort of Super Smash Bros. to keep him going.
