Curse of Darkness | Konami's Last 3D Castlevania Game 🗡🧛‍♂️

Castlevania: Curse of Darkness PS2 retrospective review. Konami were growing increasingly risk-averse in the 2000s. Looking at their catalogue from the time, it’s likely they were deciding which franchises to keep on and which to ditch. Curse of Darkness needed to be a huge success if it was going to save the Castlevania franchise from being killed off forever.

If you’ve seen the great Netflix Castlevania animated show, you will probably recognise the names Hector, Isaac and the term Devil Forgemasters. Seasons Two and Three of that show took a lot of inspiration from Curse of Darkness. The show did a good job of taking the characters and setting of this game and adapting it.

I would rate Curse of Darkness in the top half of all Castlevania games. But for the team size which Konami had committed to the production of this game, it sold about the same as one of the GBA or DS games which were made by like a dozen people.
Curse of Darkness wasn’t the final Castlevania game. But there was never another console game in the main Castlevania canon.

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Sources
https://web.archive.org/web/200704291...
https://archive.org/details/GamePro_I...
https://web.archive.org/web/201105221...
https://castlevania.fandom.com/wiki/C...
https://www.vgchartz.com/game/226273/...
http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/Ps1ussa...
https://sites.google.com/site/gamedat...
https://www.thegamer.com/castlevania-...
https://shmuplations.com/kojiigarashi/
   • Gamespot Interview with Koji Igarashi...  
https://www.ign.com/articles/2003/10/...
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.fan.n...
https://www.konami.com/games/castleva...

Credits
The Sonic The Hedgehog 2 level card sequence was made possible by Foone's Death Generator:
https://deathgenerator.com/#sth2

00:00 Intro
01:56 Lament of Innocence
04:48 The opening act
09:39 The Symphony of the Night successor
13:20 Where Curse of Darkness differs
07:17 Hector the devil forge master
21:27 Curse of Darkness is complicated!
24:52 The story finale
29:50 The release
30:52 The death of Castlevania
33:14 Closing

#castlevania #konami #stoked