I want to love the new Castlevania, but it just feels a little off
Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse arrives as a revival of the classic horror-action franchise with promising foundational design, but PC technical execution undermines its potential. The game suffers from multiple launch-day issues that hamper the experience: it fails to boot on monitors with refresh rates exceeding 120 Hz, requiring manual troubleshooting before gameplay is even possible. Additionally, the game exhibits jarring framerate drops during cutscenes despite offering an in-game 120 fps cap option, creating inconsistent performance throughout play. These technical quirks suggest inadequate optimization for PC hardware diversity. Despite these frustrations, early playtime—approximately eight hours—indicates the core gameplay loop is engaging enough to sustain interest. The technical problems may represent issues that post-release patches could address, though their presence at launch is concerning for a major franchise revival. The game appears to have the right design fundamentals in place, but the technical polish needed to match its ambitions remains incomplete.