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The story
Konami Digital Entertainment’s Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, the latest entry in the Akumajou Dracula series, launched on October 15. On 5ch’s Hardware & Industry (‘Geha’) board, users shared impressions from the demo and the game’s first hours — while the action was well received, harsher comments called it out for “not feeling like Dracula at all” and looking like “just another mass-produced indie Metroidvania.” Here’s a rundown of the points that split opinion: how little leveling up seems to matter, a soundtrack many felt lacked punch, comparisons to Metroid, and surprise at a price tag under 5,000 yen.
Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, the latest installment in Konami Digital Entertainment’s Akumajou Dracula series, launches today, October 15.
Source: news.denfaminicogamer.jp / Original article here
What people said
It's fun.
It was cheap too.
Haven't checked that closely, but leveling up should raise your HP.
I'm pretty sure the life you lose from taking damage goes down too.
Castlevania
Which do you like better?
If we're talking which I like more between Metroid and Akumajou Dracula, I'd say Metroid edges it out a bit on innovation.
Turning into a ball and squeezing into crazy tight spaces was genuinely groundbreaking.
Only stuff like attack power increases, and even that barely gives a noticeable effect when you level.
There's basically zero RPG elements.
The early-access reviews complained about this a ton too.
Thin RPG elements are fine by me.
If you want that stuff, go wait for the next old-school Bloodstained game.
I definitely felt noticeably stronger after leveling up.
Even the Ender Lilies developer said it — double jump, wall break, grapple hook, nothing ever changes.
Well, the term "Metroidvania" itself comes from Symphony of the Night and the Dracula games that followed it, so this is in a sense the original.
Metroid is Metroid, not a Metroidvania.
Someone give me a strategy.
Go into the custom options and set damage dealt x2, damage taken 0, and EXP x3.
You'll be literally unstoppable.
It's not an axe, it's a cross.
In this game circling behind enemies is incredibly effective, so: knock the cross down with your sword → jump over the enemy when it charges in to get behind it → keep your distance and wait out its big swing → close in and mash attacks → when it backs off and throws the cross, knock it down again.
Repeat.
You're the one who brought up the RPG elements in the first place.
I was just wondering whether leveling up actually does anything.
For Metroid I've only played the Super Famicom one and want to try more, but I don't know what to get.
Just get Metroid Dread.
Or grab the NSO expansion pack and play Fusion and Zero Mission on GBA.
Re: #36
So Dread's really the only one worth buying new, huh.
Guess I'll go with that.
Insanely long load times, choppy framerate.
There's a demo, just download it and find out yourself.
In Silksong the trash mobs chase you forever and boss retries are as tedious as ever, so for me it was a lot of pointless stress — I quit around Carmelita.
I also think that death/soul system just doesn't mesh well with an exploration game.
That said, I do think the map design and action are great.
You're supposed to hook players right away with something like "Beginning" or "Vampire Killer."
Please don't tell me the only arrangement in the entire game is "Bloody Tears."
What do you mean "the whole evaluation"? (The original phrasing "100割" is oddly redundant — 割 already means 10%, so it reads like saying "1000%.")
Yeah, the music is underwhelming.
They should've brought Yamane-san back. (Michiru Yamane, the series' longtime composer.)
It's already in development, isn't it?
In a bad way, it just feels like one more mass-produced indie Metroidvania.
Totally agree.
It leaned so hard into generic Castlevania tropes that it ended up feeling flavorless and boring.
Maybe it'll feel more satisfying once the full release unlocks more abilities?
At that price I might actually buy it.
Konami games are all nicely affordable, that's a plus.
Easy to pick up.
If you like those cookie-cutter indie Castlevania-likes, you'd just play one of those to begin with.
For a game released under the Dracula name, this is kind of a letdown.
I bet this one lands better with Western audiences.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
The term “Metroidvania” itself traces back to the exploration-action lineage opened up by 1997’s Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and took hold as a portmanteau of Metroid and Castlevania. Despite this new entry carrying the Akumajou Dracula name — the very series that gave the genre its roots — threads repeatedly describe it instead as “just another mass-produced indie Metroidvania.” The core of the debate is that the genre’s originator seems to have ended up on the generic, personality-less side of the genre it created. The complaint about leveling up having little effect lines up with what demo reviews already noted, so players expecting RPG-style growth are likely to come away disappointed. On price, the game was set cheaper than most current packaged releases, and that gap from market expectations fed into the favorable “what a deal” reactions — worth noting that’s a separate axis of response from the evaluation of the game itself.
*This article excerpts and summarizes the 5ch (Hardware & Industry / “Geha”) thread “Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse Launches Today!.”
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