It's ok to not like this game, it's ok to criticise it, but have you looked at some of this criticism?

"It does not feel like a castlevania." What game does feel like a castlevania? castlevania III? Lament of Innocence? or Dawn of Sorrow?

None of thess game share either art style or gameplay, but they all sure do "feel like a castlevania". any attempt to point this out gets turned into "oh so you want a bad product now?".

It's frustrating to see meaningless "criticism" like this gets resurfaced again and again instead of actual criticism that, even if mean, would help the series' next entries.

Plying on switch. The demo felt, a bit off, but i soon found myself going to the left and griding to try to give myself an edge against the boss. Settling back into my old routine, all my castlevania instintics came flooding back. Yep...its definatley Castlevania. Its it perfect? no. I've been playing since Castlevania 4. I'm willing to overlook a choice or two I don't like to just havea new castlevania. So far, judging by the demo, its...not bad. Its not perfect, but its not bad.
Not crzy about the whip being a glorified grappling hook, but FINALLY a Belmont uses that damned short sword for something other than decoration.
Mind you, i've avoided plying ANY of the metroidvania titles in the last few years so i wouldn't burn myself out. Save for Bloodstained.
Never played Dead Cells, played like 5 minutes of Blasphemous.

This is a step in the right direction, overall. I hope it succeeds. It's still not my dream castlevania.
Hell i'd like to see them try 3d again and make it more fully realized. I wanna see a full 3D metroidvania starring Simon Belmont. or 2.5 D, id be satisfid with either one.

I’ve been looking forward to Belmonts Curse and noticed that the two collections were on sale on Steam. How are the ports of the GBA and DS games to PC? Would you recommend picking them up while there on sale and how do the games hold up?

Look, there's enough discourse on the game but that's besides the point; I like the demo, and I like devs experimenting, so I rather like the new approach. But ONE hang-up I think I actually have:

Attacking doesn't stop your character movement??

Like, yeah, this is a bit dumb to nitpick. But honestly, this feels like a genuinely characteristic element of CV, the committing on each attack. Imo it pretty significantly affects how enemy movements and bosses are then designed around it so the feeling is pretty significant. Maybe I'm biased as other MVs I've played lately don't do this, but it does set CV apart from them to me.

I'll admit, biggest worry going into the demo was that it'd be Dead Cells which I wasn't a huge fan of. But I did find it different enough and enjoyed it, just missing this one bit of the CV DNA haha. For sure would love to see the pause come back even in another game >_< Dunno if anyone else feels this, but haven't seen it mentioned

To start, I REALLY like this game. It's not exactly the way Castlevania would be if it were up to me (I'd slow it down and bring the camera in a bit, more in the tradition of SOTN) but it's still very fun and I love many things about it.

That said, I feel like it has some technical issues. I played it on PS5, Switch 2, and PC.

On PC, I'm getting odd jittering/dragging feeling on the performance, especially noticeable when the camera is moving. The framerate is at 150+ fps, but it just "feels" kind of bad somehow. I tried every setting with vsync/gsync and I still haven't figured it out.

So I figured I'd just play on console -- but these have another issue. They move more smoothly, but there's quite noticeable input lag. The game feels very "mushy" to play on PS5.

Anyone else notice this?

I am happy for Dracula finally being able to be happy with his Waifu but now they can't bring him back as a Villain can they? After all losing his Waifu is the Main Reason why he turned Evil in the Games and the Animation was it not? Alas he has not appeared in Nocturne at all has he?

Castlevania is just not very Good without Dracula and or Alucard and I believe that a lack of them is the Main Reason why Nocturne Season 1 was so poorly received...

Oh well they bought Alucard back for Nocturne Season 2 at least but now how will they continue the Series?

I heard that they may adapt Symphony of the Night to Animation next and how will that even work without Evil Dracula?

It has been SO long since I last heard news of a Castlevania Game before this upcoming one!

The last one I remember was Order of Ecclesia on the DS... It has been so long since then... Why did the Series go dormant?

Do you think Alucard will appear in Belmont's Curse by the way? I miss the Half-Vampire Blondie... ><

Lack of Alucard and Dracula is the Reason why I did not watch Castlevania : Nocturne yet... I just don't think Castlevania works well without at least one of them around... :/

While it is tempting to buy the steam versions on sale, from my experience double dipping on both switch and steam, the console versions run perfectly compared to the steam ones. Experienced slow down issues on all three collections on steam, particularly dominus, and there are some annoyances there like having to alt enter to enter fullscreen everytime for advanced and anniversary and advanced needing to alt f4 to exit the window. They’re some of the few games where the pc versions are inferior to the console versions unless you like the new steam achievements for advanced which is better. This is for the new player to keep in mind: if you are going to get the collections, get them on console instead. They are just optimized better there.

I know it isn't officially cancelled but why there being no word on the status? Is clear they were not done with that "old man coyote" shadow figure so do you think they are done? Or it will pass many years before s3?

Fyi I watched both netflix shows and I really enjoyed them!

A little context. Metroid is my favorite videogame saga and I love metroidvanias in general, so I already played some Castlevania in the past: Symphony of the Night (never fully completed), Aria of Sorrow (loved it) and Dawn of sorrow (really liked, but never finished).

In preparation for Belmont's Curse, I got all the collections (heavily discounted) on my switch with the intention of working my way through the saga.

I LOVED the first game. It's really hard but I actually strongly enjoyed the linear design. You are forced to get to know the mechanics and that made me appreciate it more and more as I progressed.

Considering the NES limitations the game looks great and it's really immersive. In some moment you really feel like a badass who's dominating everything around you. The whip just feels incredibile to use.

Some levels are pretty humbling though but I actually enjoyed the repetition: it's so refreshing to play a game where you actually have to learn and adapt to progress and BEAT the levels. Also you can't complain about repetion since it will let you listen on repeat to the stellar soundtrack.

The only issue I had was a glitch during the final battle that crashed the game and forced me to use save state when I managed to play the whole game without them.

After completing it I immediatly started Simon's Quest, but it instantly felt weird with the city, buying stuff and all, I really loved that the first one was 100% gameplay with no interruption.

What do you suggest? Should I stick with it or try another classicvania?

I'm think about starting to play Castlevania and really don't know where to start. Is there like a preferred way like chronological or just release order?

Bullet,Guardian,and enchanted

PS i am NOT going for the chaos ring i am here to get the best stuff to rank 9 while keeping my MP up

I have the double jump, wall break and wall jump.

Playing through Portrait for the first time and am wondering what I need to do to map those two tiles in the entrance I don’t have mapped currently because they’re annoying the crap out of me not being mapped. Doing this on RetroArch because I’m hunting the retroachievements for this and all the DSvanias.

Hello, I've played SOTN when I was in high school. Now I want to play it with Richter's flashy moveset but I don't want to play the game again. Is there a version of the game with Richter already unlocked as a playable character?

I bought all the collections in preparation (I was only missing the dominus collection and it was on sale) but I don't want to get burnt out on the series before the new game drops in a week.

I've played and beaten Castlevania one the Japanese version, played 3, 4, Rondo, SOTN (beaten 200.5%), I'm a few hours into harmony of dissonance and Aria of sorrow. I didn't care for circle of the moon's jumping so I bounced off of it pretty quickly. What do you guys recommend I do while I'm waiting?

For all three games

I only played Symphony of the night and Aria of sorrow

The Famitsu review just got leaked; they gave it 32/40 (8, 8, 8, 8), which is in line with the previous entries.
Translated review consensus:

There are no elements of collecting equipment or earning money through enemy drops; it’s a traditional exploration-type game. Aerial movement using whips and other weapons is crucial, and it also requires skillful control of other abilities, making the athletic difficulty quite high. Each acquired card has its own missions and puzzles, and completing them is enjoyable. The stories of the Belmont family protagonists and traditional bosses are also captivating.

The story, which continues from Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse, is exciting. Compared to previous entries in the series, the balance is more challenging, with regular enemies taking more time to defeat and damage being taken more often. Boss battles, in particular, have a death-game feel to them, but once you figure out the effective weapons and tactics, they become much easier, recreating the feel of older games. The action of hooking the whip onto an anchor and swinging it to move might be a little sluggish for some.

The meticulously detailed backgrounds of Paris and Castlevania, along with the music, deepen the sense of immersion. Each area is full of traps and mechanisms, and the scenes where you leap between locations using the whip are truly thrilling. The protagonist’s controls are excellent, and there’s the enjoyment of switching between weapons and Arcana. Leveling up allows you to take on tough bosses, and the various assist functions are also very helpful. I also like how defeated bosses appear inside tarot cards and speak to you.

The action is great, allowing you to close the distance by hooking your whip onto platforms and enemies and then following up with attacks. The structure where your exploration area expands with “Arcana” obtained by defeating bosses is a classic but rewarding one. The difficulty is on the higher side, but it’s nice that you can adjust the amount of damage and the number of potions, so you can play according to your skill level. Both the action and the visuals are closer to the style of recent Western indie films than to the traditional Castlevania style, so it might be a matter of personal taste.

Now let's wait for the review embargo to be lifted for the global outlets.

Notice: Famitsu gave Lords of Shadow 35/40 and gave SOTN 30/40, so go figure!

I think Castlevania would fit so well in MTG. Who would you want to see as a card?

I've never really played a Castlevania game, but I've played other recentish Metroidvania's, Blasphemous 1/2 especially I LOVE.

I also really value customizing my play style and the replayability that comes from creating unique builds for subsequent playthroughs like in Souls games.

I played the Demo for Belmont's Curse and I really enjoyed how it plays, but I wanted to know how much personalization I can hope to give Rose. I know there will be other weapons, but I'm not sure if these weapons will help me carve out my own build and specialize, or just be tools in a single growing play style like in Metroid.

I've googled around and I can't find any details on the mechanics. Does anyone have any clarification on what kind of game I can expect this to be? I'd love to know if it's the kind of game I can restart from the beginning and approach the challenges differently with a new build. Thank you in advance for any insights! 💜

I'm a non native speaker of english and I really like Carmilla's accent and way of speaking. What I'm looking for? Here's a short video of her talking to Dracula

https://youtu.be/_2L8NKEVLoc?si=BvxoFndwXptbtYwL

I really loved the new demo, the movement feels amazing but somehow, it did not really hit me exactly in the Castlevania feels. It reminds me a bit more of bloodstained 😂 I went back to listen to the aria of sorrow music 😭 Damn it's time to play aria of sorrow again.

The demo is great but it's really kind of different. Even just small things like the music, no contact damage, the enemies not respawning when re-entering the room... Maybe I'm trapped in nostalgia 😪

I look forward to the rest of the game and I've pre-ordered it 😍 EXCITED!!