Belmont’s Curse can turn a single room into an airborne obstacle course. Arrows, lasers, axes, icicles, boulders and birds may all demand attention at once, while Rose Belmont carries a large selection of tools through Casa de Dracula. That variety is useful, but it can also become overwhelming. When too many options compete for attention, it is tempting to rely on the weapons and movement abilities that already feel familiar.
My preferred approach is to keep enemies at range. The spear and whip let Rose deal damage without standing too close, while the air dash, thorn whip and slide provide dependable ways to escape danger. In most encounters, moving away from an attack has felt safer than trying to answer it directly. That strategy worked reasonably well until I reached Mammon.
Mammon is a grotesque, wheel-like creature with a single eye, resembling a biblical angel stripped of anything comforting. The boss moves unpredictably around the arena, sends fire lines across it at different angles, follows Rose’s position and then crashes down. Dodging one attack could place me directly in the path of another, and simply running was not enough to create safe space.
After several unsuccessful attempts, I took a break and watched a speedrun to see how experienced players handled the fight. The answer was clear: they parried constantly.
Parrying has never been my favourite defensive mechanic in games that demand movement and split-second reactions. Unlike the more controlled encounters in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, where the player can wait for an attack while standing still, Belmont’s Curse fills the screen with hazards. It is difficult to identify the correct timing when projectiles are arriving from every direction, particularly when movement has become a matter of muscle memory rather than deliberate timing.
Still, I wanted to make progress, so I changed tactics. The result was irritatingly effective: after returning to the game and adding the parry to my approach, I defeated Mammon within only a handful of attempts.
The encounter reminded me of the way some Zelda dungeons introduce an item before giving the player a boss designed around it. In this case, the parry had been available for roughly four bosses, but Mammon was the first fight that made its value impossible to ignore.
A useful test of the game’s systems
Belmont’s Curse allows players to settle into their own preferred style, whether that means attacking from a distance, prioritising mobility or experimenting with its broader toolset. Every so often, however, the game presents a challenge that exposes the limits of that comfort zone.
I doubt parrying will become a permanent part of my standard strategy. Even so, Mammon taught me to reconsider the tools I tend to overlook. When another encounter stops me, the solution may not be better evasion or more distance. It may be time to try something unfamiliar.
For more arcade and retro-gaming coverage, explore RETROCADE’s editorial archive. Players building a dedicated setup can also browse the arcade machines collection, consider a compact bartop arcade, or compare options in the arcade machine buying guide.
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