It takes a lot to shake my love of all things Castlevania, but this came real close. Castlevania: Curse of Darkness is the sequel to 2003’s Lament of Innocence, which tried to transplant Devil May Cry-style combat and exploration into the franchise.
Results were mixed. The combat itself was fine, though levels consisted of unimaginative corridors interspersed with square combat arenas. Even so, Lament had some vague promise and it was easy enough to imagine a sequel that could at least look the series’ 2D adventures in the eye.
So it’s deeply annoying that Curse of Darkness not only fails to improve on Lament of Innocence but is a notable step back.
First up, there’s the fundamental fact that your hero Hector (no surname is provided) runs like his feet are stuck in wet cement. The guy plods around the levels as if he’s in slow motion, a problem that quickly becomes annoying as much of the game is heading down long featureless corridors (and then backtracking down them). Also, the camera controls are inverted on the horizontal axis and there’s no option to reverse them.
But hey, it’s not like I’m playing this on original hardware. I have options! After bumping up the game’s speed by 12.5% and remapping the right analog stick it was at least playable, though what was waiting for me within wasn’t worth the effort.
I don’t want to simply restate my Lament of Innocence criticisms, save to say that this is a deeply repetitive game with clumsy combat and ugly environments. But where Lament interspersed combat with platforming (not great platforming, but still), Curse of Darkness is just flat, boring combat arena after flat, boring combat arena, with you just mindlessly stabbing your way through dumb enemies. Your fearsome opponent a wonky lock-on system that makes it difficult to judge the distance between you and your enemies.
Compounding all that is a dull and nonsensical plot that was almost immediately scrubbed from Castlevania continuity, and a “gay panic” homophobic antagonist in Isaac that really hasn’t aged well.
I’ll give the game a few things, unlike Lament it at least ends with a big fight against Dracula, though his monstrous second form is a huge pain in the arse. Some of the music is also nice, and the bizarre chair-collecting subgame (and chair-based secret zone) is enjoyably weird.
But I’m glad this 3D era of Castlevania is firmly behind me and I can move forward in blessed two dimensions. Picking up that DS for Portrait of Ruin is going to feel real good after this.
Pixel Hunted 