| Game | CastleVania: Curse of Darkness |
| Release | November 1st, 2005 |
| Genre | Action Adventure |
| Publisher | Konami |
| Devloper | Konami |
| Time Played | 27:57:35 |
| Buy It On | Ebay |Amazon |
Welcome to the PS2POCALYPSE! With this game, we have started something that was planned to start after the PSXSLAYER challenge was complete. This game marks the beginning of Re_LodeR’s PS2 Challenge. As of writing this, about a month after beating this game, we are still waiting on a modded PS1 to be able to play all the PS1 games required for the PSXSlayer challenge. So we are mainly putting the focus on the PS2 at this time. Once the PS1 is back in our possession and modded and able to run all the games we need, both challenges will be active at the same time. Castlevania: Curse of Darkness is game number 1 on the PS2POCALYPSE and game number 2 overall.
Unraveling the Shadows: Castlevania: Curse of Darkness Review – The Negative Press -This is the link to what the AI thinks about this game, now we can jump into what I think about this game.
I kind of fucked up here. So my plan is to play games in order of release. I ended up playing this and Lament of Innocence in reverse order. Well luckily for us, They are not directly related to each other, stupid huh? Curse of Darkness takes place after Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse and Lament of Innocence is a prequel to the entire story all up until the creation of Lords of Shadow. Curse of Darkness was released in 2005 and Lament of Innocence was released in 2003. It is kind of a good thing that I ended up playing them in this order as I can complain even more about what is wrong about these two. I will apologize in advance because in my Castlevania: Chronicles review, I had failed to mention that each stage is timed. I beat this game about 20 days ago at this point and I definitely have forgotten things about this game.
Lament of Innocence was the better game, the problem is it had a few flaws, Curse of Darkness is the fixed flaws… without the rest of the good of Lament of Innocence. God damn, It’s hard to say one is better than the other, if they were smashed together, they would have been pretty good, that’s kind of what Lords of Shadow was.
Without any further ado, lets do this shit!
So where exactly does Castlevania: Curse of Darkness take place in the story and what is it about?
As I have mentioned in the opening, this game is the sequel to Castlevania III, not the direct sequel to Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, even though that is the game released previously to Curse of Darkness. This game actually takes place prior to Castlevania, so it is a prequel to Castlevania Chronicles.
Curse of Darkness takes place in 1479, 3 years after the events of Castlevania III. Trevor Belmont is the Belmont that shows up in this game and our main character is Hector! Wooooo Hector Belmont!!!! Nope, its not Hector Belmont, its just some random guy that is a Devil Forgemaster! Woo, what the fuck is a Forgemaster? It just means this dude can summon devils, absorb souls, and forge his devil’s signatures! I mean forge his devils to evolve into some cool little monster helpers! I guess Hector was around for the events of Castlevania III and was once cool with Dracula but for the sake of Konami needing a non-Belmont character for this game said, “fuck you pointy fangs” and decided he was going to work against the vampire overlord! I mean honestly, I do not get what the fuck is going on in this game. The story makes no god damn sense, maybe I just really wasn’t paying much attention. I didn’t feel moved by the voice acting, characters or story of this game.
Basically, Hector had a girlfriend who was a witch. She was burned at the stake because of his buddy Issac. Hector isn’t necessarily pissed at Dracula but because Dracula employs Issac as a Devil Forgemaster, he is going to kick Dracula’s ass and Issac’s ass. Thats the story here, that’s what we are working with.
You meet some random new fools along the way and an annoying fucking time warping magician. ugh, the story doesn’t matter.
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness Story 4/10
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness features some boring gameplay that feels more like a Devil May Cry or Dynasty Warriors than a Castlevania, but thankfully there is no Jank 3D Platforming.
So, you are going to read the Lament of Innocence review after this, you will see the contrast of what this game is missing and what it did right. What Lament of Innocence was missing was a level system. Being able to level up your character is where this game shines.
This game is much like every other Castlevania game. You run around Dracula’s castle looking for his bitch-ass but he is nowhere to be seen. Dude is hiding behind his usual cohorts. Skeletons, flea men, blood skeletons, zombies, more skeletons, the typical Castlevania resident evils.
You advance through the game by collecting new devils to forge. Each Devil has an ability that will help you get through a section you weren’t able to get through previously. Whenever you get to the store, you better grab yourself a ticket for registering a save point for teleport and a ticket for returning to the store, you are going to need ’em. So this game, much like Lament of Innocence and nothing like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, there are not teleport stations, you have to register your own teleports by registering save points as your teleports.
Getting back to the devils you have as your summoned familiars; these things evolve based on the type of weapon you kill enemies with. When you collect all the shit that is dropped you can craft new weapons. You craft new weapons and evolve your demons. That mechanic is way more fun that the boring ass story and the bland hacking and slashing you will be doing. It is cool you can put the devils on auto mode. The only problem is this can fuck you. The healing devil will use the wrong heal at the wrong time if you don’t assume control. The tank samurai guy will sometimes use weak attacks instead of heavy attacks. Auto is the way to go 80% of the time, when you feel like you are getting screwed by the AI of the game, you probably are, and you should switch over to taking control of the attacks/heals yourself.
This is one of those games that you got to remember you can block. There are times where you really need to block and if you are like me… suck at blocking or simply refuse to use it… you will get mowed down by some of these bosses.
The game is fairly straight forward for a Castlevania game. Run around level up, its mindless fun. All up until the boss fights. The later boss fights just make the game go from being super fun to ultimately punishing you for no reason, forcing you to go grind and level up to beat them. Dracula is pretty damn easy though in this game, even his super Dracula form is pretty easy.
If you are looking for a mindless, hack and slashing, chill Castlevania experience, play this game. The problem is this game forgot its challenge. The only true challenge lies in about 3 of the boss fights.
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness Gameplay 7/10
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness has some replay-abilty as well
upon completion of the game you unlock a few bonus modes and shit like that here is a link to check out what you unlock – Unlocking Secrets and Embracing Darkness: A Guide to Castlevania: Curse of Darkness Secrets, Codes, and Unlockables – The Negative Press (ai wrote this article, I added the unlock table)
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness Difficulty
I am eventually going to stop explaining how this category is graded but I once again feel like explaining this is not a 1 is easy 10 is hard rating. This is based off of if the difficulty level is balanced and gripes with the difficulty. Overall, this game would get a 10, Problem being, the fucking boss fights. The boss fights take a nice game and make it suck. When you are forced to return to grinding to beat a boss, a lot of fun is lost. There are a few exceptionally difficult boss fights. The time magician guy and the two final bosses before Dracula.
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness Difficulty 7/10
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness Graphics
I gotta say. This game looks super crisp. The characters all look really cool, and each enemy is super defined. The cutscenes are super defined as well. Maybe one day I will be able to go into detail about what I like about graphics. Maybe I should research game engines or something.
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness Graphics 8/10
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness Controls
I can’t complain about the camera or controls in this game. I think that everything works here pretty well. We will complain about camera issues in Lament of Innocence.
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness Controls 8/10
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness Sound
Ok, so, the voice acting, it’s not that great. Its dramatically over the top. “NOW TIME ADVANCE.” It laughably campy… but that fucking OST is banging.
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness Sound 7/10
.The AI gave this game a 67%, I give it
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness Overall Rating
%
Rating
The next PS2POCALYPSE game is #0002 Castlevania:Lament of Innocence, The Next PSXSLAYER game is #0002 Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Curse of Darkness was TV-666EP#PSX-0002-0/2-0001-4/OV2. Castlevania: Chronicles was played before this, Castlevania: Lament of Innocence is to be played after this.
About the Author: Re_LodeR was born in the 90s and lives in Michigan. Hobbies including complaining about video games and life, Listening to a lot of niche music and enjoying classic flims like Die Hard. This guy is a huge Simpsons fan and likes to watch wrestling.
He can be found on Twitch, contacted on Discord, and you can email him at ReLodeR@thenegativepress.com