If just the word “Castlevania” gets you excited you may want to check it out. For everyone else, it’s just too mindless and repetitive to stand for extended lengths.

Change. Change can be a good thing.  Sometimes though, change isn’t good, or at least it is brought about in the wrong way. Sometimes the implementations of said changes are not beneficial. When such is the case, evolution tends to do away with change, sometimes getting rid of an entire species altogether.



This is how I felt about Castlevania: Curse of Darkness.

You remember all those franchises seemingly born during the NES days. Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Castlevania. Those all had great success during the 8-bit era. Each one had to make a conscience effort to be reborn into the world of 3-D when the technology was ready for them to do so. With the exception of Castlevania, they have taken that leap with grace and innovation. Mario had his triumphant 64. Zelda had its ocarina. Metroid had its Prime. So what exactly is going on with Konami that they can’t quite seem to bring Castlevania, a beloved and timeless franchise, successfully into the current generation of gaming? Now perhaps I am exaggerating a bit. After all, Lament of Innocence wasn’t that bad, but it didn’t quite live up to the hopes of the fans, and actually kind of flew in under the radar.



Here now we have Curse of Darkness. Gone are the Belmonts and the whips. This new title follows the adventures of Hector, a former devil forgemaster, who gave up his powers and betrayed Dracula three years prior, allowing Trevor Belmont to do his thing. After getting his butt whipped, pun intended, Dracula set loose a curse over the land of Valachia, corrupting its people, filling the place with monsters, and covering it in the plague.



Hector, however, doesn’t care about any of this. All he knows is that another devil forgemaster named Isaac had the love of his life falsely accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake. Isaac, an apparent bondage aficionado, is still mad at Hector for betraying Dracula a few years back. Hector is understandably uncomfortable with the idea of his woman being char grilled, so he sets off to find Isaac for a little sweet revenge.



First, the gameplay itself is what really hurts the experience. Mindless button mashing through an endless wave of respawning underlings best describes what exactly takes place here. The levels themselves are drab, repetitive, and just seem to go on forever. Normally, level length isn’t a huge problem for me. When the game is as monotonous as this, however, it just plain becomes boring, and that is something a video game should never be. It felt like work to finish each of these levels. At one point I just stopped caring about any of the fighting that wasn’t absolutely essential to continuing. For the most part you will be tapping the X button over and over with an occasional B. That B is only if you happen to feel like it, as it doesn’t actually contribute that much and only serves to do a slightly fancier slash as opposed to the same combo you’ll be watching time and time again.



There are a few things that this game does do well, though. One feature is the summoning and controlling of the innocent devils. The innocent devils come in various shapes in sizes, from tiny fluttering pixies, to huge hulking golems. They have various skills and abilities to utilize. Some can heal, while others can participate in the melee. They also have secondary skills that pertain to the environment, such as opening treasure chests, or lifting giant metal doors, allowing you to move on. They can also evolve differently by collecting different colored crystals. The type of crystals you get depends on what type of weapon you use to dispatch your enemies.



As you slay the mass of enemies, they will periodically drop materials. These materials can be combined through alchemy to create more powerful weapons and armor. As you move on in the game, new materials are gathered from stronger enemies. Every so often a new option will show up in the menu to make this mystery item for better or worse. You don’t really know what you’re getting other than what type of weapon or armor it will be.



The voice acting in the game is pretty well done. It’s over the top and a bit awkward some of the time, but we’ve come to expect at least a little of that over the years. An interesting, if not odd, cast of characters fills out the story nicely, including an appearance from Trevor Belmont himself. Each characters sounds like you would imagine. Hector sounds angry and manly, even though he might not look it. Isaac sounds villainous and sneering. Some of the others fall into the weirdo category.



I still won’t give up hope on the series. I want it to survive so that it can be done right. Eventually they will take it to where it needs to go, but this still isn’t it. The best recent iterations are still found on the handheld platforms. I would only recommend this to a die-hard fan of the series, or to someone who truly doesn’t mind repetitive hack and slash action. Other than that, everything this game does, you can find better somewhere else.

Review by Evan Phelps.