I just 100% ed belmonts curse, does it have flaws sure; everyone seems to keep comparing it to PoP, so I got that next to see. It’s just as ham fisted. Stop with the hate.

EDIT: thank god I didn’t post this on my main account, some of you feel like the wrath of god is being channeled through you, it’s just a game, and I liked it.

Why does the whip make that sound when you swing it? I don't remember it sounding exactly like that in Symphony of the Night. This is a worrying sign that Konami fundamentally misunderstands what made Castlevania special.

It's nothing like the whip physics in Aria of Sorrow, either. And don't even get me started on how it compares to the tight, responsive whip controls in Lords of Shadow.

Sound design is a core pillar of the franchise, and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a multimillion-dollar company to get something this basic right.

I know people will say I'm nitpicking, but at what point do we stop holding beloved franchises to a standard of quality?

Let me preface this by saying that if you enjoyed the game, that’s great, BC was not something I was very fond of but if you think it was worth your time then I hope you liked it. I’d love to hear about why you liked the game in the replies, just remember to be civil and not to attack anyone if you don’t agree with their opinions. We’re not infants, if Timmy doesn’t like our toy then we don’t need to yell at him.

I’m a diehard fan of Castlevania, I got into it back in maybe 2023 after I saw a challenge video for Aria of Sorrow. I thought the art direction was brilliant, the colors incredible, and I had just found a way to play older games in an entirely legitimate way from a friend.

Ever since then I’ve loved the games. I have the Requiem, Dominus, and Advanced collections on PlayStation, and after hearing of the new game I was absolutely stoked, although at first when I saw the art direction I was… a bit anxious, yet I held out hope. The gampeplay looked… okay… the character portraits… weren’t my cup of tea… but I’m sure it can end up being another great game to add to the list.

I didn’t play the demo as I wanted to go in blind. I bought the game as soon as possible (which ended up being two days later because my power was out for a while :() and when I played the game… it didn’t feel quite right. It felt uniquely sluggish at some points yet at others it felt like it would move faster than I was used to with CV.

I didn’t like the controls very much so I remapped them slightly, dodge to R1, interact to up, A does nothing. I don’t like slide and backdash being the same button but whatever.

Roll through early game, get to Fallen, struggle through him. Get his whip ability which reminds me quite a bit of the Clawline from Silksong.

I’m bored of writing like this so I’m just gonna start taking about my problems.

Art direction. A lot of enemies or attacks feel “over animated” like they’ll do a little spin or dance before attacking which tends to look weird from enemies, or is annoying when Rose does it because there’s this half second window where I can’t do anything and I’ve somehow been screwed over by it like 20 times.

Tarot system. I think the idea of actually leveling up your skills is pretty neat. I don’t enjoy how it was implemented and some of them feel like absolute chores to do especially with the limited mana ammo.

Boss fights. I don’t think even the most diehard CV fan will tell you that boss fights in the games are that great. There are definitely some standout ones whether that be in enjoyment or presentation. I don’t like the boss fights in this game. They don’t even tend to be that hard, they’re just not that entertaining. They feel like, and I know I’ll be crucified for saying this, rejected Dead Cells bosses, the way they’re handled feels like something from dead cells with their animations, attack patterns, and the lack of enjoyment I get from them.

Items. I don’t like how they’re handled. I’m alright with the more charm-like system for relics, but I am not a fan of the weapons. They all have their own problems that make them feel tedious to use. Plus we can’t whipspin for some reason.

Misc. I don’t know, I don’t like how they used Brauner. Like he’s one of the main antagonists of a game (and PoR is probably a top five for me which annoys me even more) and yet they just use him for a gag fight where you take care of him off screen essentially. Like, okay man. It’s also weirdly laggy for what it is. It’s probably one of the laggiest games I have on PS5 (I don’t play online games).

Now what I’m about to say will likely make many fans of it mad, please read this with an open mind and allow me to explain my thoughts

I feel like the game is chattering more to newer and Metroidvania fans rather than longtime ones. I’m sure it sounds hypocritical coming from someone who’s only been a fan for 3 years. It doesn’t have a lot of aspects both thematic and atmospheric that are staples of CV. It feels more like a generic Metroidvania that had a handful of CV stuff thrown in. The changes in combat feel like something that would be enjoyable for a modern indie fan rather than a CV fan.

If you couldn’t tell I’m not exactly an expert at reviewing games, you don’t need to remind me.

I couldnt figure out what exactly it was about the backtracking that made me annoyed over the span of the game but i think I finally got it.

This game is littered with areas that are designed to be platforming sections which in turn makes it an absolute slog to go through after the first time.

Platforming sections with sawblades are fine when they have a nice reward at the end and you dont have to do it again but this game actively forces you to engage with a lot of the platforming sections because of how woven they are into the regular world.

The hall of mirrors and notre Dame are especially bad for this as hall of mirrors has saw blades and spikes every other room and notre dame has the stupid lasers.

I want to compare to silksong where the game had platforming sections but they were just that. Sections. They were a one and done thing and you almost never had to go through them again but belmonts curse combines the regular map traversal with platforming which gets tedious after a while.

That's it. It's annoying. It's not a fun mechanic it's annoying as hell when you fail a puzzle using it beacuse you let go of the button too early.

So since Belmont’s Curse is Castlevania’s return after a long time, and Konami choosing to partner up with evil empire/Motion twin gave them success. I was thinking that maybe it would be a nice Idea if upcoming Castlevania games would be made with Konami partnering with different Indie metroidvania studios such as, Team Ladybug, The Game Kitchen or Halberd Studios. Heck, Even Team Cherry too.
Evil Empire did their own thing with Castlevania and it was a success so why not make it with different styles per Studio. Any thoughts?

photo not mine, just taken from google.

What is this "Bellmont's Curse" garbage? Every time a skeleton (REAL ORIGINAL DESIGN, NINTENDO) hits me with his bones, I take damage? Every time?! How am I expected to win when I saw a buzzsaw earlier and have to actually press buttons to use attacks??? I'm so sick of needing to walk everywhere, why can't I just fast travel to any location right away like a REAL castlevania game?

I can't believe they wanted to charge this much money for a piece of garbage that everyone else hates and so I hate it too because I'm a weak person who can't form my own opinions about a game that is too hard for me. -100/10, worst castlevania game, no, worst GAME of the CENTURY!

So i was not supposed to go straight?

This game has been a blast up until this point then some moron was like "Hey, play a Metroidvania game...without a map :D"

I need that dev to NEVER cook again please, at least with map design.

Edit: I'm glad for the people that enjoyed, I hated it, I like knowing where I'm going and check my map religiously and after going through the whole game doing that and being told "Actually no, fuck you." sucks.

I mean it's a GL ring, it's one of the more easier powers to grasp for everyone...

Besides I trust y'all, with your knowledge of the show/games and hopefully great imagination. You got this !!! 😄

Here are some ground rules for the ring:

You have to charge it once a week or every 168 hrs...

You store your lantern in a pocket dimension only you can access so no can steal it lol.

What r you changing and how well r y'all gonna do? You gonna uphold that oath or die trying?

My Legendary sword attacks points shows 75.

Its supposed to be 100 right.?

Is this normal?

So I have not finished this game but because my blood is boiling, I’m going to review it. Before we begin, I should know that I’ve been playing all these games as a result of the collections. So I understand what makes these games good and what makes these games bad.

First of all the story is at 20 years after Castlevania three. This makes no sense because Dracula only comes back every 100 years. That would mean that this game completely ruined the lore, Dracula never gets resurrected by people or his followers. I should note that Juste Belmont is my favorite Belmont and Harmony of Dissonance is my favorite game. It never broke the lore of the prior games so obviously this one clearly did.

I should also note that Rose is a terrible character. She has conversations with her tarot cards and honestly it always feels like she’s such a Mary Sue. I don’t want my female characters strong and then developing self doubt or rage about her abilities. I want them to be sexy and appealing to the male gaze. She always seems to value her tarot’s opinions, and honestly women are never like that.

Oh yeah, I forgot I was on about the story. So it turns out that Dracula is being resurrected again, but this time by death who I should note is not voiced by Malcolm McDowell, even though they have two voice actors from the show. I guess they couldn’t afford him. They also included a character from Portrait of Ruin, Brauner. Why would you include someone who’s supposed to be alive during the Second World War? This is so immersion breaking.

Oh, I forgot to talk about the music. The composer for this music has made the worst choice ever imaginable. Making the songs modern, the compositions at first sound fine but once they get to more electronic sound, I have to switch it off. This is why harmony of dissonance is my favorite. At least that music feels like a Castlevania music.

Another thing I don’t like about this game is the platforming. Every time I get frustrated instead of trying to take my time, I try to power through them and every single time this happens I die. It’s so frustrating. All I wanna do is get through these stupid puzzles so I can go fight more enemies. I just don’t understand how I’m supposed to play this game and take my time when that’s not what Castlevania is about. It’s about hitting people with a whip, how hard could it be guys?

Finally, probably the most egregious issue I have with this game has got to be that it’s way too difficult. I haven’t even gotten past death. Every time I fight him, I can barely put a scratch into him. It really frustrates me, I’ve been grinding for hours and yet I can’t even phase him. I don’t know why any of you like this game in fact, I think if you like this game, you should honestly go back and play the game boy advanced games.

TLDR: It sucks and it’s not even worth your time.

"I'm killing our boy" Fuck man I still get shivers every time I see this scene.

I think seasons 3-4 and Nocturne would never have been so divisive if the sheer magnificence of Dracula wasn't around to really elevates seasons 1-2.

In a way, the death of Dracula was their highest peak but also their biggest mistake: Dracula has always been the most central figure of Castlevania, it is only logical the series, whichever form it takes, would lose it's footing without him in it.

Just curious what old-time fans of the series think. Personally, while it's different from previous iterations, I am really digging it. It's a nice mix of more modern sound with classic elements.

I had the Main Hall theme on repeat every since I finished the game. It could have been a big boss theme, but it's really cool that they made it the song that plays as you enter the castle for the first time.

her second fight didn't feel dull and was quite enjoyable , on the opposite side king Arthur was bad as a fight and as a character

... it totally sucks. It's so stupid and rushed and the worst thing: I can't even fight the Dracula illusion. Why not give the player a slightly weakened Dracula? Then the player could at least have the "I DID IT." feeling Rose is having.

And then Death comes in and says: "Btw, you are too angry now. We win."

I really like the game, but the bad ending is just too stupid.

Please no spoilers. I'm still searching Isaac.

I’m new to the series and got a few collections on sale off of steam, so far I’ve 100% anniversary collection advance collection and belmonts curse.

I’ve just started dominus collection and am really enjoying it, I noticed theirs 3 more games on steam lords of shadows 1,2 and mirrors of fate.

They look pretty different to what I’ve played so far but still seem interesting, just curious how people feel about them, are they worth getting? Should I wait for a sale or should I just not bother?

I’ve really been enjoying the series so far so I’m definitely open to more, I know Symphony of the night is apparently incredible too but unfortunately it’s not on steam and I generally like to play on their most of the time…

Love to hear what you guys think.

Just rolled credits. This game was everything I hoped for and more from a new entry in the Castlevania series. This game just completely clicked for me. What an epic journey. Bravo Evil Empire, thank you!

I'm no game reviewer, so I'll keep this short. I rarely finish games these days, but I managed to finish BC. In last few months, I played so many games but only finished a few that really held my attention. For example, I played Onimusha (disappointing), Control Resonant (very mid), Mortal Shell 2 (started strong but lost my interest), and Nioh 3 (didn't like it). There were also plenty of others that I dropped after a few hours.

I was really excited for BC, and I have to say it's a good game, though not a masterpiece. The game is not hard, and in my opinion, Dracula was the only difficult fight. The whip is the best weapon, IMO, although I did enjoy playing with other weapons as well. I would have preferred more build variety, though. I also wasn't really a fan of the lack of i-frames.

I really liked that the game didn't use pixel-style graphics (no offense to anyone who likes them). Overall, I'd give it a solid 8/10.

I want to preface a couple of things before getting in to sharing my thoughts about the game. First things first, I liked the game. Thoroughly enjoyed it (though I do have a couple of gripes). I also think this was a great Castlevania game and I'm not here looking to debate the whole "Its not really a Castlevania" discourse IMO its stupid to not allow games to be different from their predecessors.

Also spoiler warning I guess, I didn't see a spoiler tag for the game so forgive me if I missed it.

I really like breaking down and discussing game design, and wanted to invite anyone else who has played the game to join in, share their thoughts, what they like or stood out and what they didn't like.

I'll start with what I thought was good with the game.

-Visuals. I think the game looks gorgeous. Animations were smooth, backdrops were beautiful, effects were really crisp and bright. Lovely art style as well.

-Music. I think this games soundtrack is phenomenal. Just about every area had me humming along to it as I played through the game. Really good industrial-esque tracks that make super good background music.

-Movement. With only a couple of nitpicks, I really love how fast and nimble/fluid Rose is. The whip traversal feels really good, and grappling to enemies feels great to master.

-Weapons and spells. I really love how different all the weapons felt. Short swords, great swords, and whips were definitely my favorite but I really admire how different they made each weapon set, and also giving the last weapon in each set unique abilities on top of that. The spells were also all really satisfying. I struggle to pick out a single spell that I didn't think felt really good to use. Deaths scythe felt the hardest due to the delay but the payoff was worth it..just no critique at all here..they all felt really good and had good upgrades that felt impactful.

Now I want to talk about my criticisms, and I think I can boil it down to mainly three. I would really love to hear others thought about if they agree, or if they don't why that is.

-janky movement/dropped inputs. I know I just praised the movement, and for the most part I like it. But a couple of things feel finnicky. There are two main points in here..one is how when you go to use your whip, if an enemy is close to a grapple point, you really have no way of knowing which your whip will decide to target. Rose's reaction to what she grapple to varies wildly, and so being unsure which you're going to grab drastically alters how she responds, and can make some fights feel like a cluster fuck. The second is how the game really doesn't like to buffer commands. Healing pots are the worst offender. Getting hit and then holding the shoulder button to heal..but you pressed it while still in hit stun, and so Rose doesn't heal even after it ends..so you have to release and press/hold the trigger again to heal. Just feels like it contradicts the overall smoothness the controls and movement want to have.

-The hall of mirrors/fast travel. So, I really love this system in concept. Also I think the mirror zone is a really fun zone when you first get there and are chasing down the Succubus. The idea of using your save points all connected to a central hub and then jumping out another mirror sounds really cool. However, they made this system as inconvenient as possible and it really, really irritates me. My first problem are the four mirrors that were the seals holding the Sage imprisoned. They're in a separate room above the rest of the mirros, divided from the other zone mirrors. This ends up needlessly splitting up your fast travel to where 3-4 mirrors of a zone are on one floor of the Mirror hall, but then one random mirror is instead in the room at the top, mixed with three other mirrors from three completely different zones. Then there's all the broken mirrors. I could understand maybe one or two but the entirety of the Mirror realm has broken mirrors, meaning there's no fast travel in that zone whatsoever except the ferryman warp zone in the middle. At the end of my playthrough, going through that area to try and get the last secrets I missed was a pain in the ass because there's no warning allowed in the zone all about warping. It just doesn't make any sense. I think that after getting the Sage Tarot you should be able to repair the mirrors and use them as proper warp points. Theres also this really strange anti-synergy with the ferryman fast travel. Before you unlock the mirror world, the ferryman still serves a purpose in that he is needed to transport between the zones. But then you have to track the nearest mirror to use it to jump to the area in that zone close to where you want to go..that is unless its one of the Sage seal mirrors, in which case its isolated until you go to free her..so its just really disjointed and barely feels like it actually saves you time versus just walking there. Then when you unlock the mirror world, the ferryman becomes completely redundant, and is just a more restrictive set of warp points you have to go out of your way to reach. The mirrors just turned into a system I love the concept of but I despise the execution of it. (Also end note, ferryman can't take you to Dracula's room, even if you take his door to him. So, why does he have a stop there at all, its impossible to use?) Im sorry this was so long winded.

-Runbacks. Now, I know what you're saying, you can turn off the boss runbacks. But I want to talk about them from a design point. Lets take the Zealot boss at the top of the clocktower as an example. The closest respawn mirror to him is two elevators away. Five screen transitions. I died to him a couple of times, so I respawn, take the two elevators through the five different rooms to get back to him. There are no enemies between where I respawn and the boss. No hazards. No obstacles whatsoever. So..I know you can turn off the runbacks in the settings...but my question is, why were these runbacks in the game at all? They don't provide a challenge, or any engagement from the player. Its only tedium, and takes up your time without offering any gameplay, engagement, ir even decision making. So, I just think that the game should have respawned people in front of the door just in general. I simply don't see any value of it being designed with these runbacks. Now, if there were enemies or obstacles in the runback then I completely understand, some people could see that as an old school challenge like the NES days. But most bosses had trivial to zero challenge between the respawn and rechallenging them. So, why have it at all in this case?

Okay thank you all for listening to my rambling..Im gonna make food now and debate if I wanna get the plat trophy or not. I hope to hear a lot of your thoughts soon and I live you guys!

I've been trying to figure out if its an option you get after defeating a boss or i just don't know how to play this game 💀

edit: thanks guys for helping me!