Holidays are nice because in between all the festivities and families splitting up over politics, it’s usually good weather to stay in and take time to reflect. I think the main purpose to my videos of older games which I’m now calling “from the vault”, is to put that reflection into words and discuss the games that have made some sort of impression on me, whether good or bad.

Because it’s now officially the Christmas season, I’d like to take you away from the businesses who’ve decided to stay open on holidays, and go on a trip to Transylvania, or more specifically, Valachia.  Anyways, we’re talking about Castlevania: Curse of Darkness. A really good game that somehow became the 2nd red-headed stepchild of the Castlevania games. The first is going to be saved for another day.

So back on PS2, Konami released 2 3D Castlevania games. Lament of Innocence, which I’ll talk about another time because I thought it was overrated, and Curse of Darkness. Fans were dying to get their hands on a good 3D Castlevania game as the closest they got was Castlevania 64 on Nintendo 64, and at least in my opinion, it was not great. I blame the hardware more than anything else, because I think that otherwise it had good bones. A Castlevania title was being developed for the Dreamcast but then the game was announced dead on arrival and was forever cast into the void.

Lament of Innocence came out first to great reviews, and then around 2 years after came Curse of Darkness, which was more mixed. Why is beyond me. It has the familiar gameplay and systems fans were familiar with in totally functional 3D, the story wasn’t bad, the characters were familiar, even moreso now in light of the awesome series on Netflix. But for whatever reason, this game appeared to get less respect from fans than Goober & The Ghostchasers if they showed up to a Scooby Doo convention (In my head, it’s called called Scoob-Con). It was one of the first 2 PS2 games I ever got and to this day it stands among my favorites.

You play as Hector, who is what’s called a “Devil Forgemaster”, or at least he was. Devil Forgemasters are basically the ones responsible for making monsters for Dracula. Ever play a Castlevania game? A lot of the enemies you meet are made by these guys. There’s only 2 in existence. Hector, our hero, and Isaac, our villain.

The game starts with Hector running up to the famous castle to chase down and get revenge on Isaac, who’s responsible for the death of Rosalie, his lover or girlfriend or wifey or whatever she was. Isaac, in classic villain fashion, goads Hector into not only entering the castle, but getting him back into…uh… devil forge-mastering to power up and have a showdown with him. A big showdown. Maybe even a Showcase Showdown! Isaac’s acting like a big ol’ jerkface because he blames Hector for Dracula dying – or undying? living? – at the hands of Trevor Belmont, Alucard, and Sypha Belnades in Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse, the NES game whose events took place 3 years earlier. Turns out Hector threw his hands up and said “I’m out,” and left everybody on team-vampire pretty salty about it. It’s assumed he stole a lot of office supplies, emptied the swear jar, and yelled racial slurs at the mermen on his way out the door. Anyway, like most heroes, Hector’s gullible enough to enter Castlevania, and we’re going to help him kill everything in sight.

Once you beat it you can unlock Crazy difficulty, and also play as Trevor. No online DLC garbage back then also meant you got a full game on disc. Fancy that!

So as I said before the gameplay’s good. Lots of action, you can make your gear, and also you can get these little monster buddies called Innocent Devils who fight along side you and evolve from collecting crystals dropped by enemies you kill, that change depending on the weapon you used. They’re kinda like murderous Pokemon. In addition to that the bosses are big, you get to explore the castle, forests, mountains and more, and you meet classic characters like along the way.

In classic Metroid-vania style, you explore and pick up items and abilities along the way to help you progress further through the story. Once you beat it you can unlock Crazy difficulty, and also play as Trevor. No online DLC garbage back then also meant you got a full game on disc. Fancy that!

The only real problems I had with it other than the kinda-hokey story is that the camera’s a little tough to deal with as the controls are reversed, and when compared to Devil May Cry or God of War, Hector’s attacks could use more variety and flash. There’s not really a combo counter so there’s not a huge incentive to continuing to keep smacking baddies and at least in my playthrough, you’re going to fight the camera as often as other baddies. There could’ve been some more enemies on screen as well but back then the hardware likely wasn’t powerful enough to put a ton of stuff on screen. Otherwise it feels like Castlevania through and through, and in my opinion, the reviewers who pooped on it were being pretty unfair. Personally I felt like going from Lament of Innocence to this was a huge step up.

So all that said, if you get the chance to pick this up, it’s totally worth the purchase, or if they end up releasing it on either present or next gen consoles, feel good about buying it. The game takes around 15-20 hours to get through and it’s fun to see a new Castlevania story that features classic characters and pays them justice instead of so many of the woke nightmares we see written by hacks who hate classic franchises and their most devoted fans.