Castlevania: Belmont's Curse Catacombs Walkthrough

The Paris catacombs are the first underground biome in the Belmont's Curse walkthrough. Official commentary from Evil Empire's Matt literally sells the pitch: you descend into skull-lined halls after hunting the streets. This is where the game stops being a pretty city tour and becomes a Castlevania map, complete with traps, riddles, and the first named boss, The Fallen.

Reading the underground

Previewers describe text riddles and sketched map clues rather than a giant quest arrow. That is good news if you like Symphony of the Night-style deduction and bad news if you expected a fully voiced tour guide. When a ghost or a carved message mentions a beast at a gate, open the menu. The game stores those hints so you can leave, spend XP, and return. Combine that with the auto-map on the catacombs map page.

Hazards are part of the identity. Official copy promises biomes packed with secrets, traps, and puzzles, not just whip range. Expect bone piles that hide chests, false floors into spike runs, and candlelit save chapels. If you found the Crypt Key on the streets, every chest here is a full heal. If you did not, play tighter and bank potions for The Fallen.

The Fallen as a movement exam

The Fallen is a bulky, Mr. Hyde-like monster voiced by Ray Chase. He throws a holy-cross boomerang, lashes a wide whip, and leaps across the arena. This is the fight the how to beat The Fallen guide is for. The short version: slide under the cross, backstep the whip, and punish the landing. Do not greed a six-hit sword combo on a boss that recovers this fast.

Winning the fight does two things at once. First, The Fallen is sealed into Rose's tarot deck as Arcana. Second, you inherit the Arcana Whip he used — a traversal grapple, not the classic screen-long leather from 1986. That whip is the key to returning through the catacombs on a vertical path. The whip grapple guide covers swing points, enemy yanks, and the attack you can cancel into while flying toward a target.

After the seal: replaying the bone halls

With the whip, previously decorative rings become zip lines. Replay the same corridors looking up. This is also when Works of Mercy on the new Arcana come online. The Holy Cross card in the Gamescom demo asked players to find three whip-like weapons, kill ten enemies with a whip attack, and kill five with the cross itself. Those are not busywork. They are how Evil Empire stops you from parking on one spell. Log them in the Arcana tracker.

The catacombs dump you back toward the city once the vertical path is open. That climb is the start of the Paris rooftops chapter, where Joan of Arc waits on a tower you cannot brute-force from the front door. If you are still dying to trash in the skull halls, farm one more loop. Attack and defense from XP are the cheapest upgrade in this entire section.

• Mark whip rings on your mental map; you will use them twice.
• Do not sell or ignore whip-class weapons — later Works of Mercy ask for them.
• Save before The Fallen even if you feel overleveled. The leap mix-up is real.
• After the fight, immediately test the grapple in the same room so the muscle memory sticks.