Castlevania Belmont’s Curse review: frantic combat steals the show

The vampire-hunting saga continues in Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, a new entry that leans into flashier visuals and faster combat. Set largely in a gothic Paris, the game follows Rose Belmont as she battles demons and unravels her family legacy. The developer’s approach is to pair nimble, wall-running combat with action-packed level design, and it mostly delivers on that promise. But while the chases, boss fights, and spectacular creature designs land with impact, the pacing and some map design choices occasionally drag the experience down.

Where Belmont’s Curse shines is the rhythm of its battles. Combat is kinetic and loud, with a palette of magical attacks accessed through a tarot-card system. Enemies punish sloppy moves, and battles demand learning enemy patterns and exploiting openings. Boss fights, in particular, are memorable for their creativity and demands on the player’s reflexes and timing. This is the core strength of the game, giving players a sense of accomplishment after tough encounters.

On the flip side, the game’s exploration and puzzle sequences don’t always sustain that momentum. Early sections emphasize exploration in a way that sometimes feels open-world without the payoff, while later areas in Dracula’s castle offer sharper, more engaging challenges. The game does not shy away from tough platforming sequences that require precise movement and timing, which can be thrilling or frustrating depending on how much you want that precision in every room.

Story-wise, Belmont’s Curse takes a stronger turn after a key twist that reframes Rose’s relationship to her family’s legacy. The emotional weight helps balance the game’s fevered action, especially once you escape the busier streets of Paris and enter the castle itself. In these later chapters, the game’s design starts to sing, offering more creative room layouts, clever setups, and a sense of progression that finally pays off what the action has been building toward.

Compared with some of the latest entries in similar action-adventure chains, Belmont’s Curse is earnest and absorbing, if not perfectly polished. It achieves a difficult balance between spectacle and substance, giving players a whip-smart combat cadence and the gothic mood many fans crave, while still ducking into slower, puzzle-driven passages that may feel like a lull before the next big boss arrives.

Bottom line: if you crave fast, precise combat and striking, demon-filled set pieces, Belmont’s Curse delivers. If you want a consistently tight rhythm across exploration, platforming, and story beats, you may wish for a few more tweaks in pacing and pacing-aware design choices.