Castlevania: Belmont's Curse aims to reclaim side-scroller throne in October

Since the last Castlevania game hit the shelves (2014’s Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2), Konami’s dormant series has unexpectedly spawned a hit genre. With an entire generation raised on “metroidvanias” – a portmanteau of Metroid and Castlevania – millions of players have only ever seen the games inspired by Konami’s seminal games. Now with Belmont’s Curse, launching in October, Castlevania is finally dashing back to console, where Konami hopes to reclaim its side-scroller throne.

Set 23 years after the events of 1989’s Castlevania 3 – the same setting as the hit Netflix show – Belmont’s Curse shakes off the series’ 3D ambitions and takes the Belmonts back to basics. Dispatching players to the demon-infested streets of 1499 Paris, you’re placed in the tattered boots of Trevor Belmont’s daughter, Rose. As a bishop pleads with the Belmonts to rid Paris of the ancient evil besetting the city, Rose heads into the sewers, longsword in hand, and her demon-slaying adventure begins.

Much as with last year’s Silent Hill f, Konami has partnered with an external studio to bring this long sleeping series back to life. “When I started making this game, I felt a lot of pressure, because this is a series that I played a lot when I was a child,” says Tsutomu Taniguchi, the game’s producer at Konami, “there’s a lot of amazing titles within it, so it was an intimidating challenge … but when Evil Empire reached out about doing a Castlevania DLC for Dead Cells I thought this is perfect timing!”

Thus Castlevania’s corpse was reanimated by the archaic art of the cold email. As you’d rightly expect from the team behind Dead Cells, Rose immediately feels satisfying to control. Your newly versatile whip can be used to not only hoist you up to and across the ceiling, but also to propel you towards enemies, ricocheting off their chests with a deadly blow. It’s an immensely satisfying retooling of a classic weapon, lending a pleasing kineticism to Rose as I slide, attack and hurtle my way across Paris’s seedy underbelly.

“It was a long journey to find the right balance between familiarity and innovation,” says Bérenger Dupré, marketing director at Evil Empire, “and perfecting the whip was a key part of this. Since our team was not only Castlevania old farts like me, but also comprised of this new generation who grew up with the titles that [Castlevania] influenced, it created the right balance between adhering to the newest standards of the genre and remaining true to Castlevania.”

As I dispatch bats and skeletons left and right, I’m feeling pretty smug initially – until the first boss I encounter absolutely wipes the floor with me. While this could be a groan-inducing ordeal in other games, Belmont’s Curse ensures that growing stronger is a fairly fun and intuitive process. Here killing regular enemies earns you XP, with each level gained increasing your attack and defence stats. This means that simply killing monsters en route to re-challenge the boss ensures that you are constantly improving, making it a reasonable grind to reach each new boss battle attempt with improved stats.

It’s a choice that ensures Belmont’s Curse feels more forgiving than Soulslikes and other harder metroidvanias. Upon death, then, you lose nothing but time … and a bit of your dignity. Once defeated, bosses are sealed into Rose’s tarot cards, turning them into powerful arcana spells that you can take full advantage of. Each arcana has a challenge to compete, with doing so powering up said spell. After killing 20 enemies with the “cursed flame” arcana, for example, my once measly fireball transforms into a raging inferno that pushes back its target.

After defeating a mythical monstrosity deep within Paris’s catacombs, once I ascend to the cities’ rooftops, much to my surprise, the second boss I face off against is none other than Joan of Arc.

“When we decided to set the game in Paris, it was very important to add something linked with Paris … [so] we made almost a shonen anime version of [Joan of Arc],” says Emmanuel Nouaille, creative director at Evil Empire. “We thought having something linked to history would help immerse players, so just dropped this idea as French people, maybe out of pride, and then Konami took it super seriously … They turned Joan of Arc – a saint in France – into this badass shonen warrior. It’s something we wouldn’t dare try as French people, but in Japan … she’s just a character, so [they] went nuts! I thought it was hilarious to see that.”

With Medusa and Death itself also testing your skills, it’s refreshing to see a real-world historical figure added to the mythical mix. Castlevania has, of course, always been a Japanese love letter to European horror. A fusion of the works of Mary Shelley with a hint of anime melodrama chucked in for good measure. “Working with the French team has been really fun,” says Taniguchi. “It was a challenge to really think about what we need to evolve, with Castlevania being a 40-year-old game, but as Castlevania was created out of our love of European culture it just felt right to work with a French team and push those influences.”

“The French are really Japanese nerds,” adds Dupré, “we grew up with Japanese animation … so despite our differences, the French feel super close to [Japanese] culture.”

In a nice touch, there’s an element of puzzle-solving thrown into the murderous mix. From text-based riddles to drawings on maps to decipher, locating the next boss – or hidden path forward – is a pleasingly cerebral experience. My demo, then, serves as an engrossing introduction to Konami’s latest revival. Yet as remove my headphones and return to a less vampire-filled reality, I’m told that this Paris prologue is just the tip of the demon-infested iceberg.

“After this intro to the game, the scope is wider and more complex,” teases Nouaille, “the enemy, the territory – everything changes. The rules are different, and the danger is more urgent. It’s not Paris and the master of the keys to this place is very dangerous. I can’t say much more, but I’m excited to see how players respond.”

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse releases 15 October.