Castlevania seems to be cursed to not live up to its own name in its translation to 3D.
Counting Legacy of Darkness, Castlevania: Curse of Darkness is the fourth 3D effort in the series. It, like its 3D predecessors, provides a basic look at what makes Castlevania, Castlevania, and builds on them in a few interesting ways. The problem is, those ways don’t make much of a difference in elevating the series' 3D to the level of its 2D.
The story takes place soon after the NES classic, Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse, taking place two years later, but instead of Trevor Belmont, who still plays a role in the story, it puts players in the shoes of Hector, a devil forgemaster who is on a quest to avenge his beloved Rosaly. The story is told through some cutscenes true to Castlevania tradition, meaning with bad dialogue and bad voice acting, but they do look nice. The core story has never really been too important in Castlevania, and that doesn’t change here. Evil has awoken in Transylvania and it needs to be put back to rest.
Hector’s main ability as a devil forgemaster means that he can create and control innocent devils, a Pokémon like creature that assists Hector in battle. These devils level up, evolve, and learn special moves the way a Pokémon would. These devils are one of the more interesting quirks of the game, and while they replace a series staple sub-weapon magic system, they distinguish Curse of Darkness from the rest of the series.
The other interesting thing Curse of Darkness has going for it is its large arsenal of (mostly) medieval weaponry. Broken up into, swords, blunt/axes, spears, fist and special weapons, the weapons of each type have differing movesets. Even weapons within the same tier sometimes have a completely different feel to another. A simple example is that big swords swing slow and hard, while smaller swords swing fast with less power behind them. These weapons are crafted using various metals and materials dropped by various enemies. Interesting as it may be, there are problems with this system. The player won’t know what they’re crafting until they’ve crafted at least one of those items, and obtaining materials can become a bit of a tedious grind.
That’s what most of Castlevania: Curse of Darkness is, a grind. It’s not completely necessary to farm metals and grind out levels to experience the main story, but to make full use of the more interesting mechanics the game has to offer, it is. You have to grind to level up, to get your innocent devils to level up and acquire their moves, and if you want them to evolve a certain way you have to use certain weapons, and to get those certain weapons or better weapons you need to collect certain metals which only drop from certain enemies some of the time.
Making matters worse is the same insipid level design as Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, a lack of meaningful challenge until boss fights, and tiresome enemies that are hardly more than reskinned versions of one another. The combat is a bit more intuitive than Lament of Innocence, and it might even feel better, but it feels like it has a barebones combat system for the kind of game Curse of Darkness is, especially when games like Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry and God of War have already come out and done it all so much better. Maybe it was another solid Michiru Yamane soundtrack, but as bad as all of this sounds, as I spent time with Curse of Darkness, I developed a sort of video game Stockholm syndrome with it. I spent the first half of the game scoffing at the boring levels, repetitive combat and the game’s grindy nature, but towards the end, I wanted to grind out a few more levels. I wanted to craft a few more weapons. I wanted to level up my innocent devils, and make new ones to evolve down different paths.
It’s not a bad game. It’s just not a terribly exciting one to play. It’s got a good soundtrack. There are some neat boss fights and cool mechanisms to play around with, but they are made harder to appreciate by bland repetitive corridors and a seemingly endless grind that you just might end up wanting to put up with.
