Transcript (en)

Castlevania Belmont's Curse was developed by Evil Empire, the team behind the Dead Cells Return to Castlevania DLC. You play as Rose Belmont, daughter of Trevor Belmont and Sypha Belnades, who shows up in a very on-fire 1499 Paris with a deck of tarot cards that doubles as a spellbook. As of writing, Belmont's Curse currently sits at an 85 top critic average on Open Critic, with a 97% recommendation rate, putting it well into the Mighty category. Currently, it ranks in the top 4% of games on the site overall, so I guess the comeback is going well. GameSpot's Steve Watts absolutely loved it, giving the game a perfect 10 and went straight into what 99% of us were probably thinking. Belmont's curse feels destined to be regarded alongside Symphony of the Night as one of the best Castlevania games and one of the best Metroidvania games of all time. IGN's Scott White's review felt fairly similar. He too enjoyed his time with it, but he wanted more of the old stuff. The more I played of Belmont's Curse, the less it felt like what I associate with the Castlevania series specifically. The big pillars are here. You have the castle, you have Dracula and his iconic minions. You will be backtracking with new abilities to access new areas. But so much else of what usually sets the series apart within this genre has been smoothed over with Belmont's Curse. So where does all of this leave Belmont's Curse? For what it's worth, it appears to be a confident, gorgeous, deeply replayable Metroidvania.