Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse Has Me Excited, But That Demo Boss...

I wasn’t expecting to write about a demo today, and I don’t expect to write about demos too often, but I couldn’t ignore the return of Castlevania to modern consoles in any shape or form. Seeing as we won’t be getting the full Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse for another 15 days or so, I thought I would play through the demo and share my thoughts on the return of one of my favourite franchises of all time.

Belmont’s Curse takes place in 1499, 23 years after the events of Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse. It also takes place 20 years after Castlevania: Curse of Darkness, making it the latest chapter in this particular era of the Castlevania timeline.

This time around, you play as Rose Belmont, daughter of Trevor and Sypha Belnades. Rose starts off equipped with a longsword and, unfortunately, does not have her father’s Vampire Killer whip, at least not in the demo. She also has magic in the form of the Cursed Flame, which allows her to launch a fireball. On top of that, she is provided with Tarot cards that originated from her mother, Sypha. We don’t learn much about the Tarot cards until later in the demo.

Visually, the game looks pretty good for a 2D platformer. There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking about it, as it looks like your typical modern-day 2D platformer, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I probably would have preferred something closer to Symphony of the Night, but the visual style they went with works.

The game plays well, as expected, and feels like your typical Metroidvania. Again, no complaints there.

Everything is pretty straightforward until you reach your first boss encounter, The Fallen, which happens within the first 15 minutes of the demo. The Fallen is a frustratingly difficult first boss. You’ll die often, and only after learning its attack patterns and figuring out how to effectively use your dodge and slide manoeuvres will defeating it start to feel like a real possibility.

It took me nearly 20 minutes to finally get the upper hand, but the challenge was enough to make me seriously reconsider my pre-order. Even though I felt frustrated by the encounter itself, defeating him was rewarding enough to make me want to continue.

Once defeated, The Fallen becomes part of your Tarot card collection, giving you access to some of its abilities. These abilities are then used to help you progress further into the game.

You continue playing for another 10 to 15 minutes before the demo disappointingly comes to an end. I was expecting much more, especially after the difficult first boss encounter. Depending on how long it takes you to defeat The Fallen, the demo lasts roughly 25 minutes at most. It’s so brief that I would probably discourage people from downloading it and suggest they simply wait for the full game instead.

As for me, the demo was encouraging, but the difficulty caught me off guard, and the short experience did little to prepare me for the challenge. In the end, I decided to keep my pre-order, as I’m still looking forward to the full release.

The demo may have been too short, and the initial boss battle may have been too difficult, but in the end, the nostalgia factor was enough to keep me interested.

Despite the new visual style and Rose's different abilities, there is enough familiar Castlevania DNA here to make the return feel right. I would have liked a little more of the atmosphere that made games like Symphony of the Night so memorable, but I'm interested in seeing how these new mechanics develop in the full game.

With the full game just around the corner, I'm looking forward to seeing whether the difficulty settles into a more satisfying rhythm, and how much exploration the adventure has to offer. For now, the demo has done enough to keep me interested, even if it hasn't completely won me over.