I picked out this game in a random whim and i never imagined i would come out considering it one of my favorite castlevania games, as well as perhaps the best one in the 3D category. Even if that might not be an amazing feat when the N64 games are the series' black sheep, Lament of Innocence people are mixed on, and the Lords of Shadow games have come to be seen as casualised 7th gen slop.
The starting impressions for this game can be pretty weak. A crafting system in a castlevania game? Beasts that help you fight and can evolve? What is this? Digimon? It all sounds like a bunch of bells & whistles, but give the game some time and you'll see how well everything works out.

Innocent Devils were a pretty cool addition. There's six types of IDs which evolve accordingly to which weapon types you use to defeat enemies. Fairies with healing and supportive spells that can come in very handy, Battle-types that can ragdoll enemies around, Mage-types with a great range of powerful offensive spells as well as the ability, Bird IDs with long-range attacks that are also useful for gliding into previously unreachable areas, and Devil-type IDs which are far more limited evolution-wise than the others but are pretty balanced and not bad for combat. Plenty of badass ones like Rasetz and The End, and plenty of adorable ones like the Fairies or Brow. There's like 51 IDs, all of which have their own unique spells which are just fun to use in combat. And you're not even forced to use IDs at all, you can just send them back and take fights into your own hands if they feel too much like cheating.

The combat is simple, with combos definitely on the simplified "Square Square Square, Circle" side mostly as a way to standardize attacks for all the different weapon types. You don't get anywhere as broken as in SOTN and capable of spam-melting away Lv. 100 bosses in 3 seconds, but you are faster than most of the enemies you'll meet movement-wise and have a lot of freedom to maneuver around and dodge enemy attacks, specially when compared to Lament of Innocence. But what really makes the combat in this title shine, in my opinion, is Perfect Guard, basically this game's DMC3 Royalguard. It just fucking rocks. It is almost as mechanically important as Innocent Devils. Nearly every single attack in the game, including beams and energy blasts, can be immaculately parried away from any direction, even while mid-air, and sometimes even during some attack animations. The game will reward you for doing this with an opening for an attack or steal from an enemy, and a small amount of hearts every time you do it. This can be vital for long endurance test fights where you could burn out your hearts for your spells quickly.
It might be no Ninja Gaiden Black combat, but it's just so satisfying to juggle an enemy with aerial sword attacks while split-second parrying oncoming enemy projectiles in the air, all while your ID fights other enemies in the background. And i hold that any game that lets you do a Daigo and parry 99% of the attacks in the game (including lasers and explosions) has the authenticity seal of excellent vidya combat.

The only boss fights i really hated were the Skeleton Diver which loves to waste your time, and the final Dracula one which is basically the world's most intense game of Punch-Out. The rest are excellent. The Isaac ones basically put you on the shoes of the poor enemies you obliterated with your ID spells minutes ago, the Trevor ones force you to adapt and git gud, Saint Germain is a nice change of pace with an interesting time manipulation gimmick (he poisons you and then accelerates time to make it hurt faster, but you can use this at your advantage with Serum + Time Heal) and Nuculais is a certified "oh shit" moment and so nerve wrecking to fight it's no wonder why it's an optional boss. I even found myself keeping around old saves just to replay the Legion/Nuculais and Trevor boss fights until i beat the game and unlocked Boss Rush.

The crafting system is also neat. I admit i hadn't really done much with it until like halfway through the game since i had been fighting without lock-on, but finding out about Stealing from enemies and how it allows you to obtain certain unique materials which i thought you'd only get once made me enjoy the crafting a bit more by turning it into a bit of a treasure hunt, figuring out tactics to squeeze out rare materials from enemies. If you're so lacking in time-draining adult responsibilities that you feel you have the time to craft everything in this game, then i recommend you look through this website which contains a handy stealing guide for getting certain rare materials for crafting, and how to get them, although in most cases i recommend just using lock-on on certain enemies and figuring out yourself to make it more fun and so it doesn't feel too much like a grocery checklist.
This is also the most collectathon Castlevania out there. There's a big treasure trove of stuff to get or craft. Many weapons which while mostly just offering stat upgrades, some have their own special combo finishers, secret ID spells, two enemy endurance test towers which reward you with rare items, and of course, no IGA castlevania game is complete without some wacky anachronistic easter egg stuff, including special weapons like Gatling Guns and Bomberman Bombs, chairs and thrones in levels that get added to a collection, a lot of rare healing food items like burgers and tomato juice stolen from bosses, joke Innocent Devil evolutions that can actually be some of the most useful, like Iytei, a battle-type yeti doll thing, and even a whole secret ID type of cute pumpkin characters, which boost up your Luck stat and help you find rare items easily. Oh, after beating the game you also unlock the aforementioned Boss Rush mode, 'Crazy Mode' which is basically the main game but with enemy XP levels amped up, with a more souls-like weight to combat where you can't afford to get hit too much, and being able to play as Trevor Belmont, who has a different, although much simpler playstyle.

Exploration is definitely the weak point of the game, it's very "you hate it or you tolerate it". They were clearly attempting to get some of that "metroidvania" feel from SOTN with the massive halls, seemingly not understanding that it's important for these types of games to have interesting and fun ways to traverse such giant levels. Pretty much every room in the game is a corridor or a huge box/cylinder and you never get any significant speed boosts or any other sort of other movement upgrade to get through them faster. Just the warp thrones on every area and the Memorial/Magical Tickets, and i guess maybe the Shoulder Ride with the Iytei ID, but only if you can maneuver it right. I haven't played Lament of Innocence long enough to make more comparisons, but people seem to agree that it is the clear winner out of the two games in that department with it's platforming and obstacles that make it feel more faithful as a 3D conversion of a classicvania, whereas here it feels more like some weird flat 3D JRPG level design where you can just ignore and run past enemies. And it can all be pretty cryptic due to the fact that many important tips are only shown in the form of hieroglyphs in walls that can only be read with a Decipher spell learned by like, one specific Fairy ID branch, so once again, i really recommend just using a guide when playing this game if you're going completionist with the maps.
Though i'll admit none this didn't do much to water down my enjoyment of this game until i sought out 100%ing this game. Any other game with level design this non-existant would take two stars out of my review for me, but i think this game manages to pull that weight really well with it's combat and the encouragement to explore maps completely and find all sorts of secrets.

definitely an PS2 classic but damn is this game tiring, the gameplay is well realized, the combat is really fun with a lot of variety considering the different weapon classes. the "Innocent Devil" system is incredibly cool, it's engaging to try out each helper and see their evolutions and abilities.

the soundtrack slaps as usual for the series, the story is surprisingly good for an Castlevania game, I liked the characters and even the dialogue, PS2 era games have that cheesy and exaggerated acting that I really enjoy and this game does it perfectly, the cutscene direction and mocap are really good too.

unfortunely the rest is marred down by a lot of slogness and repetition, there are some Castlevania games that are known for their piss poor map designs, the GBA titles such as Circle of the Moon or Harmony of Dissonance are the top contenders but Curse of Darkness might be the worst when it comes to this, each area is designed the same way, roads leading to doors with more roads that are filled with the same copy pasted enemies, different pathways that are there just to slow down the player, lots of time there is nothing in the end to properly reward the player for exploring these massive and repetitive areas, the incredibly slow movement speed that Hector has doesn't help either.

play Curse of Darkness in short bursts otherwise most players will probably bounce off on this in an hour or two, Igarashi and his team probably felt that the variety of helpers and weapons would compensate for the overall simplistic and boring exploration elements but this is not how I felt during my nearly 10 hour playtime, going for an more linear approach would have been better choice in terms of structure.