pretty solid little Metroidvania, the gameplay that takes cues from Order of Eclessia works well, gorgeous pixel-art graphics and good enough soundtrack, great exploration that feels rewarding and fun boss encounters, everything that an good Metroidvania needs is right here and fans of the genre will feel right at home.

it's a bit too short though, having played other Metroidvania games I finished this in 4 hours with most of the endings done without breaking much of an sweat, the story was decent enough but a bit difficult to follow, lots of time travelling nothingburgers.

nonetheless an solid game, I am excited for the sequel now, hopefully it comes out this year.

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.

pretty solid action-adventure game considering it's troublesome development cycle, the combat is really fun, great weapons that feel good to shoot, responsive controls too. the upgrade system works really well and there is an substantial variety of enemies present in the whole campaign.

this also goes to the game's levels too especially during Act 4, I know these segments are not the best part of the game but I thought they were pretty enjoyable at least when the 2D segments are concerned.

the presentation is also good, the visuals aged well and I enjoyed the character design and soundtrack, sound design is also top-notch.

the story is fine, I really enjoyed Garcia and Johnson's banters, some jokes aged badly while others were genuinely funny, the storybooks that you can find throughout the game are hilarious.

overall an solid time, you can definitely tell that this game was widely affected by executive meddling and it's previous vision was way more interesting that what we got but I still think this is worth playing, it's consistently fun to play and this is what matters in the end at least for me. I am glad that this game will be no longer stuck on the PS3 and X360 consoles with the Remaster coming in the near future, until then if you don't own either of these consoles playing on an emulator works flawlessly.